Southwest Airlines Co. LUV on Tuesday unveiled a three-part Tactical Action Plan that aims to booster operational resiliency across the company. The move comes after the regional airline was forced to cancel thousands of flights due to a severe winter storm that other airlines were able to manage. Cascading cancellations left it without staff to man planes, leading to more cancellations and eventually to a far wider-than-expected first-quarter loss. The carrier is now planning to accelerate operations investments of more than $1.3 billion to upgrade crew optimization software and crew scheduling systems; it will purchase additional de-icing trucks and upgrade winter equipment and preparedness; and it will take steps to align various network planning and network operations control teams under one senior leader for better execution of operational plans. The announcement came ahead of a presentation at a JPMorgan conference later Tuesday. The stock rose 1.6% premarket, but has fallen 23% in the last 12 months, while the S&P 500 SPX has fallen 7.6%.
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