Southwest Airlines (LUV) was forced to take an $800 million pre-tax hit on earnings due to the computer system glitch which caused the recent holiday travel meltdown, causing the airline to report a loss for the fourth quarter.

In the company’s earnings report, revenue came in at $6.17 billion, which beat the $6.12 billion estimate. Adjusted earnings per share (EPS) came in at a loss of $0.38, compared to an expected loss of $0.07.

In a statement CEO Bob Jordan said, “Due to the operational disruptions in late December, which resulted in more than 16,700 flight cancellations, we incurred a fourth quarter pre-tax negative impact of approximately $800 million (or approximately $620 million on an after-tax basis), which resulted in a fourth quarter 2022 net loss.”

Southwest’s overall quarterly loss was $200 million, which was what was primarily responsible for the EPS loss. Between December 21st and December 31st, Southwest was forced to cancel almost all of the company’s flights for that period, a total of 16,700. On Wednesday the US Transportation Department said it was investigating Southwest, over allegations that it had lied to customers by booking more flights than the airline was capable of running for that period.

The airline offered 25,000 Rapid Reward points to the roughly 2 million customers who had their holiday travel plans disrupted by the cancellations.

On a more positive note, the company’s quarterly revenue was almost 8% higher than the pre-pandemic period in 2019. However those cancellations still delivered a $410 million hit to revenue.

CEO Jordan says that the airline is still expecting Q1 2023 to produce another quarterly loss, however he said the airline is encouraged looking at the early trends in booking for March of 2023.

Jordan said, “We remain intent on achieving the long-term financial goals outlined at our December 2022 Investor Day. We also intend to regain our 51-year reputation for operational excellence.”