With Southwest Airlines In Disarray, Its Phone Systems Melt Down

Like yesterday, Southwest Airlines again led the world in most flight cancellations. They aren’t just short pilots and ramp agents. With half of the airline’s flights delayed – again – customers all over the country have needed help getting rebooked. And the airline’s phone system chose today to melt down.

Southwest stopped taking phone calls in order to fix the phone system.

The call center agent has something to offer.

In the middle of all the craziness, phone servers are down, I can’t hear my customers and so many agents are no showing today because they don’t want to deal with the abuse from customers who keep calling because we can’t help them. They are offering 3x pay tomorrow and 1.5x for the next few weeks.

Southwest is giving their agents triple pay to dig out of the mess they are in.

The confluence events that led to the holiday debacle are described here. There is no mention of a lack of adequate staffing.