Denied boarding compensation is a cooperation game. As long as everyone sticks together, the total compensation amount will be higher. But as the compensation offer goes up the incentive for a given passenger to defect gets greater and greater.
TV writer Mike Drucker observed this in action, and watched passengers in New York stick together, as the airline’s offer went up and up.
But Aeroflot is struggling, perhaps nowhere made more obvious than the airline’s CEO fighting for what few scraps of travel are left – blaming Emirates and Turkish Airlines for its woes, and begging the Russian government to make life harder for those airlines so that passengers have no choice but to fly Aeroflot.
Southwest Airlines has faced an operational disaster of unprecedented proportions, cancelling over 60% of its flights every day and continuing to do so. They are likely displacing a quarter million passengers per day and doing so for about a week.
The Southwest Airlines CEO has broken his silence. There’s now a page on their website committing to reimburse passenger expenses. And there are hints at what really went wrong.
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Southwest Airlines has completely melted down. They didn’t just cancel more flights than anyone else over the Christmas holiday – by a large measure – they’ve failed to recover their operation. They keep cancelling a majority of their flights.
The reasons for this are many. SWAPA, the Southwest Airlines Pilots Association, has something to say.
China opens its borders, and welcomes visitors again, starting January 8. The only remaining Covid-era requirement will be to show a negative PCR test taken within 48 hours. That’s a wrap on Zero Covid, even for foreigners who were often blamed by China even though the virus almost certainly originated in or near Wuhan.
The country no longer pursues zero Covid, they just pursue a policy of no longer reporting most Covid cases.
Southwest has cancelled an unprecedented number of flights over the holidays in a complete operational meltdown. They lacked the staff needed to handle disruptions that may have been triggered, in part, by weather. But mostly they lacked the systems to recover. And they’re cancelling two thirds of their flights. Every. Single. Day.
Things got so bad in Phoenix that the airline made an announcement saying everyone waiting in long lines for help? Yeah, don’t bother. Everyone should just go home.
After a dreadful weekend of cancelled flights and cancelled Christmas plans for passengers, Southwest cancelled 70% of its flights on Monday. They threw in the towel – which would hopefully have given them time to put planes and people back in position and get employees legally required rest. Major disruptions take days to recover from because aircraft and people are left in cities that aren’t where they need to be.
However they have already cancelled 62% of Tuesday’s schedule, and 62% of Wednesday’s schedule. They may not operate more than a third of their flights through end of the year.
Southwest Airlines isn’t a niche carrier, for many years they’ve been the largest carrier of domestic airline passengers in the U.S. They may only be the fourth biggest airline, but that’s because their international route network is so limited.
So when Southwest melts down over Christmas, it’s a big deal. And even with Christmas over, the mess continues. Southwest has already cancelled a third of its flight systemwide again today. On Sunday they were closer to cancelling half. Scenes from their terminals have been brutal.
American Airlines has (4) levels of lounge at New York JFK, and it gets confusing for passengers. Part of it is that the lounge names don’t describe who has access, part of it is that the lounges are brand new, with three of them shared with British Airways now that BA has moved into the terminal.
Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel -- a topic he has covered since 2002.
Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »
