Southwest Air’s lagging tech investments exposed in wintry chaos

Southwest Airlines passengers wait in line at the baggage services office after US airlines, led by Southwest, cancelled thousands of flights due to a massive winter storm which swept over much of the country before and during the Christmas holiday weekend. — Reuters

The Southwest Airlines Co meltdown that’s stranded thousands of passengers across the US has its root in outdated technology that analysts and its unions have warned about for years.

"People have a right to be really angry and annoyed,” Cowen Inc analyst Helane Becker said Wednesday in a Bloomberg Television interview. "They should have invested years ago in these systems and they just didn’t.”