Southwest Airlines' Bold Bet: Can They Really Get You Home for the Holidays After Their Infamous Meltdown?

Southwest Airlines' Risky Holiday Promise

As marketing strategies go, you have to wonder what the team at Southwest Airlines was thinking after they've bet big that passengers will trust them to get them home during the busy holiday travel season.

In a new advertising campaign, Southwest Airlines has boldly claimed: "We'll get you home... When it matters most, choose the airline with the lowest cancellation rate in the industry–and count on us to get you home for the holidays."

That's a mighty bold claim, given that it was less than three years ago that the Dallas-based carrier suffered a massive operational meltdown that left tens of thousands of passengers stranded for days on end over Christmas in 2022.

Like other airlines, Southwest's operation had been put under extreme pressure in the run-up to the big Christmas getaway in 2022 by severe winter weather that swept across the United States.

But unlike other airlines, Southwest struggled to get its operation back up and running, with planes, pilots, and flight attendants out of position, the airline losing track of where crew were, and delays and cancellations quickly piling up.

At one point, Southwest effectively stopped counting how many flights it was canceling because, as it described it, the situation had become so 'dynamic' that no one knew whether any given flight was going to take off.

The meltdown was bad enough, but the fallout was even worse. The Department of Transportation (DOT) launched a probe into the carrier for unfair and deceptive practices during the meltdown and ended up taking 'historic' enforcement action against Southwest.

As part of Southwest's punishment for how it treated passengers during the 2022 mess, the airline has been made to pay passengers a $75 voucher for any controllable cancellation or delay that causes passengers to reach their destination three or more hours after their scheduled arrival time.

What's so risky about Southwest's current advertising strategy, perhaps, isn't that passengers might remember how they were so badly let down in 2022, but that it is making a promise that no one knows it can actually keep.

Sure, statistically, Southwest might be outperforming its rivals according to selected DOT reports, but who knows what the weather or other events have in store over the next couple of months?

The apparent amnesia from Southwest's marketing team has not been lost on some passengers.

On Reddit, one person wrote: "As someone who had to drive 15 hours due to the Southwest Christmas meltdown a few years ago, f**k off marketing team."

In response, another person wrote: "This is pretty tone deaf but not unexpected under SW's new regime."

While a third person said they could only laugh when the email from Southwest arrived in their inbox: "Ha! As someone who also got caught up in the fiasco and literally had to jump through the craziest hoops to get home since it wasn't drivable, I had the most sarcastic laugh ever when I saw that."

Southwest is, of course, going through a period of major change. The airline isn't the same carrier that it was just a few years ago, and, with any luck, that means its new and improved IT systems can also deal with any winter storm heading its way.