Although other airlines experienced weather-related hiccups over the 2022 holiday season, Southwest Airlines took a massive direct hit. CNN reported on December 30, 2022 that the airline canceled approximately 15,750 flights since winter weather began disrupting air travel on December 22.
According to The New York Times, the airline has experienced its share of service meltdowns in the past, like in June 2021 when almost two days of flights were delayed and subsequently cancelled. And in October of that same year when more than 1,800 flights were cancelled in a single weekend. These escalating disruption events have one thing in common, the company’s antiquated legacy IT systems. The Southwest Airlines Pilots Association, the union representing the airline’s 10,000+ pilots, “had been urging the airline for years to update IT and infrastructure from the 1990s.”
Undoubtedly, Southwest Airlines will embark on an apology campaign this year, relying on flight discounts and other perks to regain customers’ trust, especially the faithful ones who opt for the airline as their first choice for air travel. But a trust campaign isn’t enough.
Southwest Airlines is not only a transportation company, but they are a logistics company, using a “point-to-point” route model that moves individuals from here to there without relying on central hubs. And these individuals expect their travel to be economical and efficient. If Southwest Airlines is committed to ensuring that disruptions of this magnitude don’t happen again, then they need to embark on a major IT modernization effort. There are two words that make this the perfect time for the effort to begin right now: awareness and desire.
The Prosci ADKAR Model (which stands for: awareness, desire, knowledge, ability, reinforcement) is a simple, powerful model for facilitating individual change.
Although individuals within or associated with a company like Southwest Airlines might understand that a change, like an IT modernization, is coming, they might not understand the importance of the change and what it means for them (awareness) or even want the change altogether (desire). As a result, the adoption of a new IT system is piecemeal, ROI is lower than expected, process improvement isn’t achieved, and the implementation of the new IT system is solidified in the minds of users and others as a failed change.
Nationwide news coverage of the recent disruptions might be detrimental to customer faith in the short term. However, it presents the perfect opportunity for Southwest Airlines to capitalize on the awareness of the company’s IT shortcomings and the desire for efficiency to make the case for necessary change and bring all impacted audiences, including customers and shareholders, along with the change.
As Southwest Airlines declares that operations have normalized and they embark on a 2023 trust campaign, it’s in their best interests to include plans for an IT modernization effort, and transparent, continuous communication about that effort, as an integral part of the campaign.
