The president of our pilots union has been out talking to the media confirming all of that so I think people again that, that understand how airlines work, when you get behind, it just takes several days to catch up and the fact that we're basically caught up yesterday and today supports, you know, the, the assertion that we're making here but we were significantly set behind on Friday and it just takes several days to catch up.
Two days, technical issues, flights canceled. I want to step back for a second. You're Southwest Air. You solve these things. You have two outages, again, you had one in June. Maybe Southwest Air has to change its ways that it can't be just shut down because of what Orlando, maybe you shouldn't do that maybe you need to go more hub and spoke.
This is your, your airline and everyone knows, never, never, no cancellations, no problems. The fact that I have to ask about labor, the fact that I have to ask about the outages, something's wrong at Southwest Air. KELLY: Well I think very fair criticism Jim and so I was simply answering the question of what happened here over the weekend, you know, not whether we should have been better prepared or have done something differently.
So, we operate a linear route network, we don't hub and spoke. We're the probably the largest airline in terms of seats offered in the state of Florida. Again, every single airport in the state of Florida was impacted by this.
So, it's, it's very unique. It's very unusual. It wasn't anything that Southwest caused. If you go back to the June outage, that was, that was us. That was a technology outage and those are, those are few and far between.
But it's been a rough summer and I'm not offering any excuses. Our customers didn't get their best from Southwest Airlines is not what we want. We definitely are, we definitely have some staffing challenges as well that we've talked about before so we have moderated our flight schedule and accelerated our hiring plans so there were definitely steps underway to, to mitigate the issue. We were thinly staffed coming into the weekend and that certainly didn't help things as we were trying to recover but point well taken, and, you know, it's, as usual, any company is a work in progress and we've always got opportunities to improve and you get no argument from me that this is not, not the kind of service that we want to offer from Southwest.
I mean when, when it comes then to those opportunities to improve, where is your, and by the way the next CEO, where is the focus going to be on that improvement given what you've seen both this weekend and obviously from June?
I know not necessarily related, separate issues but still. KELLY: Yeah not related at all but I think in the, in this particular case, it would help for us to have better tools to recover. So, there, there aren't perfect optimization tools to re-flow airplanes when we have a setback like we did on Friday.
And then, secondly, there's technology that's required to reschedule our flight crews, so we have flight attendants, we have pilots, we have airplanes and once it gets behind, it's just difficult to get that back together so I think the opportunity is to improve on that process. It's called repair. It's complicated, but we definitely have some good opportunities there, you know, for the future. Gary's biggest source of pride is the fact that Southwest Airlines has never had a single layoff in the airline's year history.
Gary has pioneered the airline's transformation through several major initiatives, including the acquisition of AirTran Airways, the repeal of the Wright Amendment, the launch of international destinations for the first time in Southwest's history, the installment of a new reservation system, and the launch of service to Hawaii in —all while staying true to the Company's core values and People-centric Culture.
Gary is a lifelong Texan and received a B. Gary is a Certified Public Accountant, serves on the Board of Directors of the Lincoln National Corporation, and is the current Chairman of the Board for Airlines for America, the airline industry advocacy group Gary also served as Chairman from - Southwest Communications is sharing news with the world. And on not reducing the workforce so much that we would lose traction when the economy bounces back.
Listening has been a cultural trait at Southwest since the beginning. Interestingly, Kelleher did not believe that "the customer is always right," and when the customer is wrong, Southwest must defend employees and their actions. That taught Kelly that listening is a quality that keeps leaders in touch, grounded in reality and humble. There's an element of strategy in listening to understand.
Kelly says that listening discloses opportunities and potential for innovation. Indeed, many of Southwest Airlines' best strategies come from the front lines, such as the "Bags Fly Free" campaign, a masterstroke in purpose-based brand marketing. Southwest empowers its leaders to try new things, experiment, learn new skills and become experts. Knowing the organization will support them reinforces the belief that leaders can achieve anything and grow in any direction they choose. Kelly is living proof.
He was working in finance until the day Kelleher called him in and made him the CFO. Kelly had no idea how long he had to transition to the role, but Kelleher's and Kelly's peers offered the guidance and support Kelly needed to succeed quickly. The same thing happened when Kelly took the helm as CEO. William Cunningham, and Kelly's family. Though Southwest's leaders are responsible for leadership development and opportunities, the airline doesn't leave them alone in their growth.
Support is part of every leader's empowerment. The rest comes from Southwest's commitment to helping every leader shine in the role. That principle is behind Southwest's partnership with Gallup. Using Gallup's CliftonStrengths approach, Kelly, his senior management committee and many of Southwest's employees have discovered what makes each of them unique and how they can best use their strengths.
The airline is looking at continuing the practice more broadly -- including tying strengths to core values, competencies and key experiences -- to help leaders continue to learn and develop. These cultural values of love have shaped Southwest and Kelly. They were visible to him when he first started. They're part of his leadership now as Southwest's CEO.
They're lessons Kelly will take with him when he leaves his CEO seat and becomes executive chairman in
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