Online Public Relations Thoughts

Southwest Airlines has destroyed its reputation as a well run business with cancellation of thousands of flights as a result of a winter storm.  While other airlines are mostly back to normal, Southwest continues to cut back on its schedule because it can't find crews for its planes.  Apparently, its system lost track of them during the monster storm and the airline is still trying to locate them.  The CEO has publicly apologized but it is not enough for weary and irate passengers who are stuck in airports with lost luggage.  It is a business and public relations crisis and the airline is not handling it well.  What the airline needs to do is to build a better crew-tracking system and to stress test it before another storm like the last one happens again.  That's easier said than done but the airline has little choice if it wants to stay in business.