Southwest Airlines outlines fixes after thousands of canceled flights during holidays

BALTIMORE -- Southwest Airlines is giving an inside look at how they're cleaning up the mess left behind by its meltdown during the holidays. 

In a letter, CEO Bob Jordan outlined short-and-long-term fixes.

The meltdown, which started Dec. 21 and lasted through most of the end-of-year holiday season, canceled thousands of flights around the country. 

It also stranded thousands of people at airports, sometimes without their luggage.

Reg Miller, a loyal Southwest flyer, told WJZ he always flies out of BWI Thurgood Marshall Airport.

"I drive from Virginia to BWI," Miller said. "It's about an hour and 15 minutes to take a nonstop flight, as opposed to going into Reagan [National Airport]."

Miller didn't get caught up in the holiday travel debacle that was initially caused by severe weather. 

It escalated due to the airline's IT and scheduling systems, which is something Jordan and other Southwest leaders have committed to upgrading.

Miller wants transparency on that process.

"We want to know that, in fact, they're going to upgrade their system. When it's going to be upgraded, tell us when it's finished," Miller said. "So we can expect that same smooth service that I've had for a number of years."

In a letter sent out to Rapid Rewards members Monday night, Jordan outlined some more actions, saying in the short-tern they've added extra staff on-hand. 

Also, in the long-term, they've hired global aviation consulting firm Oliver Wyman for a complete assessment. An operations review committee has been created as well to review what happened.

Lynne and John Breil, also loyal Southwest flyers, hope Jordan's letter is not just lip service, but add they see evidence of it at work at BWI.

"Being here and looking at the facilitation of getting your boarding pass, checking your bag, it appears things are moving right along," Lynne said.

Both had a couple ideas on things they'd like to see happen as well. 

John said he'd like to see more notice for when there's a flight cancellation, even a notice of how many flight cancellations the airline had in one day.

"Typically, the number of flight cancellations are an indicator of how their whole network is working or not working," he said.

Jordan also noted in his letter that all bags they had during the meltdown have been returned. 

Also, tens of thousands of reimbursement requests are being processed daily.