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      A traveler gets help from Southwest Airlines staff

      Southwest Airlines Spent $5.6 Billion on Shareholder Gifts in Years Ahead of Mass Cancellation Crisis

      "Southwest Airlines made a risky gamble that mass layoffs and spending billions of dollars on handouts to investors rather than fixing infrastructure would pay off with record profits," said one watchdog. "The airline lost that bet badly."

      Jake Johnson
      Dec 28, 2022

      As travelers and airline workers reel from mass flight cancellations, a corporate watchdog noted Wednesday that Southwest spent nearly $6 billion on stock buybacks in the years ahead of the coronavirus pandemic instead of devoting those resources to technological improvements that unions have been demanding for years.

      According to Accountable.US, the crisis Southwest has experienced in recent days amid a massive winter storm is "a problem of its own making." The organization pointed out that the airline opted "to spend $5.6 billion on stock buybacks in the three years leading up to the pandemic rather than making investments in infrastructure to be better prepared for extreme weather events like this week."

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