‘Why now, babe?’: Southwest Airlines updates Facebook cover photo in the middle of PR crisis

There’s a time and a place to sort out the more administrative side of social media management, and it certainly isn’t while your airline is facing a PR disaster over the cancellation of more than 15,000 flights since last Thursday.

Nevertheless, on Wednesday evening – the same day Southwest Airlines scrapped around 2,500 flights as it continues to deal with the aftermath of winter storm Elliott – one admin decided it was a good time to update the company’s Facebook cover photo with its striped branding.

Comments have since been limited on the Facebook post announcing the update (which is no longer visible on its main feed), so we can’t see what customers made of the move, but we imagine people weren’t impressed.

After all, it currently has more than 3,000 ‘haha’ reacts and 1,300 ‘angry’ reacts at the time of writing. Oops.

Fortunately, one Twitter user pointed out the bizarre decision on that platform, writing: “I’m obsessed with this. Why now, babe?”

“It’s giving main character energy,” responded one tweeter.

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Another individual shared an image of luggage clogging up a room and added: “Should’ve updated it to this.”

“Girlies changing their cover photo when they’re in crisis lol,” joked a third.

The Facebook update happened not long after a video was released by company CEO Bob Jordan, in which he said he was “truly sorry” for the disruption experienced by customers.

“Here's why this giant puzzle is taking us several days to solve. Southwest is the largest carrier in the country, not only because of our value and our values, but because we build our flight schedule around communities, not hubs.

“So, we're the largest airline in 23 of the top 25 travel markets in the US - cities where large numbers of scheduled flights simultaneously froze as record bitter cold brought challenges for all airlines.”

He concluded by saying the airline was “making headway” on ending the disruption and is “optimistic to be back on track before next week”.

Meanwhile, US transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg has said he vows to hold Southwest Airlines “accountable” for what is an “unacceptable situation”.

“You look at the number of passengers stranded, you look at how hard it is even to get someone on the phone to address it.

“From what I can tell Southwest is unable to locate even where their own crews are, let alone their own passengers, let alone baggage,” he told CNN.

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