The airline industry is based around safety and precision engineering. Unfortunately the operational systems that airlines use for bookings and logistics are not always of a similar quality. In 2016 Southwest Airlines had to cancel over 2,000 flights over 4 days in the busy summer period after a software glitch took 12 hours to fix, leaving planes, pilots and crew out of synch and in the wrong places. This resulted in an operational loss of over $20 million for the period.
After starting out as a small airline offering point-to-point city routes, the company changed the American flight market and the business model was soon replicated in Europe and around the world, with the concept of budget flights proving exceptionally popular and profitable. Despite growing to a 52,000-employee giant, Southwest was still using its original, overstretched software system, which led to the catastrophic glitch.
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