Southwest Airlines must replace its tech leadership and infastructure

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By EVAN LUO ’25 STAFF WRITER

A devastating winter storm that pummeled snow across much of the United States led to widespread flight cancellations over the Christmas holiday. By Christmas day, however, air travel was back to normal — unless you booked your holiday excursion with Southwest Airlines.

According to the flight tracking website FlightAware, Southwest canceled more than 2,600 flights on December 27, single-handedly representing over 90% of US flight cancellations that day. As a result, Southwest needs to terminate Priya Narayan, its Senior Director of Technology, and Robert Quintanilla, its Senior Director Of Technology Services and Operations. Both hold full blame for the fiasco at Southwest Airlines this holiday season.

Both Narayan and Quintanilla held direct management over Southwest’s crew application and caused this disaster by ignoring the recommendations of Southwest’s software engineers, who brought up the need for a major update to

Southwest’s software system. Yet, they refused and even covered up major software problems, bugs, and performance issues that ultimately led to this disaster. They even retaliated against employees who spoke up against the issue.

Their actions directly their bags to their customers. It was only a week later when Southwest resembled a functioning airline.

The consequences of Southwest’s unprecedented collapse will be steep. Southwest says that the cascading logistical failures will cost the airline between $725 million and $825 million in lost revenue, crew costs, and passenger refunds.

ILLUSTRATION BY VICKY XIAO ’24 caused Southwest’s scheduling system to malfunction when the winter storm came. Consequently, this forced Southwest to rely on manual crew assignments. Yet a lack of manpower in their telecommunications system caused the company’s flight operations to build up, creating a cascade effect that caused Southwest to abort nearly all their flights. Southwest’s failure not only canceled over 16,000 flights but left many passengers searching for their luggage, wondering why Southwest wouldn’t return

Additionally, Southwest faces a federal investigation from the US. Department of Transportation into whether it violated its own legally required customer service plan amid the blizzard of flight cancellations that ruined the plans of travelers over the Christmas holiday. In a statement on December 26, the USDOT called Southwest’s service meltdown “disproportionate and unacceptable.”

Overall, Southwest needs to replace its technology management with experienced leaders who will focus on upgrading the airline’s software system, listening to employee concerns, and providing Southwest crew with the operational tools they need.