If management makes good on promises of operational changes and compensates customers, Southwest Airlines will not suffer long- lasting damage to its reputation.
In recent days, social media has been flooded with angry Southwest customers after storms and shaky computer systems forced the airline to cancel more than 11,000 flights. While employees work overtime to clean up the mess, officials in Washington vow to scrutinize.
Southwest does not pose a long-term threat. The carrier needs to prove that it has fixed the technical problems that caused the crisis. The first test for the airline, which didn't respond to a request for comment, will be on Friday.
The president of IdeaWorksCompany, a consulting firm, said that they have gone into the year with a lot of goodwill. Unless Southwest Airlines botches the recovery, I don't see long-term damage to the airline.
Corporate leaders often promise changes after customer-service gaffes such as Southwest's. They are not always remembered. A 69-year-old passenger was dragged from a plane in a video that went viral. A private settlement was reached with the individual.
Aside from a lengthy run of bad press and public outcry, "none of that really had much of an impact" on United. People look for price and convenience when buying airline tickets. Southwest provides price and convenience and is reliable for most of the time.
The airline will suffer some repercussions. Savanthi Syth, an analyst with Raymond James Financial Inc., said that consumers are likely to book with other carriers into the first quarter of next year.
Andrew Davis is a former transportation analyst with T. Rowe Price Group Inc., which is a long-term airline investor.
The number of people who were going to fly on Southwest will be the same next year.
Southwest's share price rose as much as 4.3% to $33.57 in New York, but was still down more than 7% for the week. The crisis may cut fourth-quarter profit in half.
There are few alternatives to long distance travel in the US. It's hard for customers to shun a carrier over bad service.
The industry has a certain level of confidence that they can get away with more than other industries.
It can be a lot of work for a company to deal with a crisis internally. Southwest's leaders are unlikely to be in jeopardy, but the incident will fuel a lot of scrutiny.
The board will be worried. The board has to be worried, according to the founder of a New York-based crisis consulting company. The board is in charge of making sure that reputation is as good as it can be and that there are crisis management plans in place.
Speculation about a company's possible demise is often caused by corporate meltdowns. It's usually done without wrongdoing by an individual.
He said that people move on once they are made whole. They have some goodies out of it.
Southwest pledges to honor reasonable requests for reimbursement from customers who incurred lodging, meal and alternate transportation costs after their flights were delayed or canceled
A generous travel voucher or discount is likely to be offered by the airline, according to a senior vice president of strategy and investment.
He said it was the biggest you would ever see.
Two Black men were arrested at a Philadelphia Starbucks store after one asked to use the restroom without placing an order while waiting for another person to come.
The video of the incident was widely shared online. The coffee chain closed thousands of stores for anti-bias training after Kevin Johnson apologized. Corporate diversity data has been made public.
The public's trust has been rebuilt by Southwest's CEO. He apologized and promised to upgrade the systems that were overwhelmed.
It isn't enough for a CEO to say "yes" It has to start changing.
Mary Schlangenstein helped with the project.
(Updates shares. The name of the company was corrected in an earlier version of this story.)