Southwest Airlines: Most customers have been refunded for Christmas travel meltdown

Southwest Airlines: Most customers refunded for travel meltdown

Southwest Airlines is still dealing with the fallout of its holiday travel fiasco. But the company said most travelers who were affected have gotten their refunds.

DALLAS - Most Southwest Airlines customers have been compensated for last month’s system meltdown. But the carrier still must answer to shareholders about what went wrong.

The CEO of the Dallas-based carrier aid 90% of travelers have gotten their money back and the remaining 10% should get their refund in the next few days.

About 99% of bags have also been returned. The remaining 1% have no tags on them, the company said.

Promotions, not job cuts, follow Southwest Airlines holiday chaos

Last month, a winter storm led to an operational meltdown that caused nearly 17,000 canceled flights over the busy holiday weekend.

Southwest Airlines said it plans to spend more than a billion to upgrade systems that were blamed for making the problems worse.

Southwest gifts 25,000 bonus points in apology for holiday travel disruptions

Shareholders filed a lawsuit against the carrier last week, claiming it downplayed and failed to disclose issues about outdated technology that left it vulnerable during the bad weather.

The complaint called Southwest’s crew scheduling technology ineffective and argued the issues caused the company’s stock to fall by more than 12%.

Southwest’s strong 2022 rebound soured by holiday debacle

While other carriers bounced back from the Christmas winter storm, it took Southwest eight days to recover.