April 27 (UPI) -- Southwest Airlines Thursday reported a first-quarter 2023 net loss of $159 million caused by its December "operational disruption."
The airline canceled more than 16,700 flights at the end of December, which led to a $380 million negative financial impact in the first quarter.
"The majority of this impact was driven by a negative revenue impact of approximately $325 million, as a result of cancellations of holiday return travel and a deceleration in bookings for January and February 2023 travel," Southwest CEO Bob Jordan said in a statement.
This comes after an $800 million financial impact from that travel disruption in the fourth-quarter, bringing the total cost of the disruption to $1.1 billion.
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Southwest said first-quarter operating revenue was a record $5.7 billion.
Jordan said travel demand and revenue trends in March 2023 "were strong and resulted in solid profitability for the month and record first-quarter revenues."
Southwest's holiday meltdown left thousands of passengers stranded as it canceled nearly 70% of its flights for several days.
In its financial results statement Thursday, Southwest said it completed reviews of that 2022 meltdown during the first quarter this year. The report about it and an action plan to prevent it from happening again were posted on Southwest's website.
"We expect to meet our goals to complete the action plan by winter 2023. We continue to make operational investments and remain intensely focused on running a safe, reliable, and efficient operation while delivering our legendary customer service," Jordan said.
Southwest said its goal is to manage inflationary cost increases while maintaining a competitive cost advantage. The company said that based on current revenue trends and their cost outlook, the company expects solid profits in the second quarter of 2023.
"We also continue to expect our network to be roughly restored to pre-pandemic levels by the end of this year. We remain confident in our low-cost, low-fare business model and our long-term strategy, which is supported by a robust set of strategic initiatives designed to drive significant financial value," Jordan said.
