Southwest Air plans to return to normal operations Friday

Southwest Airlines Co. plans to return to a normal schedule Friday after a weeklong meltdown stranded thousands of passengers.

The airline said on its website that it expects “minimal disruptions” on Friday. The carrier has been operating a significantly reduced schedule for several days while it recovered from a rash of cancellations caused by winter storms and overwhelmed scheduling technology.

“With another holiday weekend full of important connections for our valued customers and employees, we are eager to return to a state of normalcy,” the company said.

The shift marks the first clear positive development for the company; it canceled more than 13,000 flights in the last week. 

Speaking to reporters Thursday, Southwest executives said it was too early to estimate the cost of the disruptions but outlined plans to restore service, reimburse customers for their extra expenses and address the internal stumbles that contributed to the cancellations. 

A key source of Southwest’s woes was a breakdown in its tool assigning flight crews and aircraft, which were thrown into disarray by the storm, executives said. “The software was not designed to solve something that large,” Chief Operating Officer Andrew Watterson said.

The company will also review an ongoing multiyear modernization plan for several technical systems, including its crew scheduling tools, and move up the pace of certain improvements, executives said.

The airline has grounded just 39 flights for Friday, according to flight tracker FlightAware.com. The website so far lists no Southwest flights that have been delayed or canceled for Saturday. By contrast, the airline canceled 2,358 flights on Thursday, or about 57% of its total schedule, on top of more than 2,500 flights on Wednesday.