What caused Southwest's holiday meltdown? It wasn't just weather, pilots say

From CBS News by Nicole Brown Chau

The Southwest Airlines meltdown over the holiday week has reignited calls for updated infrastructure to prepare for future disruptions. While a historic nationwide storm was the initial cause of flight delays and cancellations, pilots say the company's scheduling software caused a "snowball effect."

Capt. Michael Santoro, vice president of the Southwest Airlines Pilots Association and a pilot for the carrier for more than 13 years, told CBS News the infrastructure can't process crew reassignments after about 300 changes.

"The storm was the catalyst that started this whole event, but the major problem is that our scheduling IT infrastructure is outdated and can't handle the massive cancellations that had to happen that day when the weather event occurred," he said Wednesday. "You get this snowball effect where it can't keep track of where pilots are, flight attendants are and airplanes are."

Photo by Eugene Garcia / Associated Press

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