Southwest Airlines changes leadership in several divisions

• Southwest Airlines announced that it has changed its leadership.
• Adam Decaire was instantly promoted.
• Southwest predicted a pretax blow to quarterly earnings.

Southwest Airlines Co. (LUV.N) announced on Monday that it has changed the leadership in a number of divisions in an effort to improve operations following a recent technology meltdown that resulted in the cancellation of more than 16,700 flights.

Adam Decaire, a vice president of network planning for the Texas-based carrier, was instantly promoted to senior vice president of network planning and network operations control (NOC).

According to the carrier, “This change creates a tighter feedback loop between schedule design and schedule execution while adding resiliency and reliability to the network.”

The action was taken shortly after Southwest predicted a pretax blow to quarterly earnings of $725 million to $825 million as a result of operational turmoil during the holiday season that led to numerous cancellations and drew the attention of the U.S. government.

Due to staffing adjustments made by the airline during winter storm Elliott, Southwest’s crew scheduling software was unable to keep up, forcing employees to manually match crew and aircraft, resulting in lengthy wait times for pilots and cabin crew.

The carrier made significant leadership changes in a number of divisions on Monday, including sales, legal-corporate & transactions, marketing & customer experience, and communications.

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