Airlines

Dec 28 2022

Southwest’s IT systems lag other airlines. Their phone systems can’t handle the load. And recovery from a situation where crew are out of place, where the airline doesn’t always even know where crew are, and where flight schedules and staffing have to be rebuilt manually is not only nearly impossible – it’s made harder by operational know-how with a hole in it coming out of the pandemic.

Add on that a lot of people were paid to retire early in 2020. Southwest hired about 16,000 people in 2022. Nearly 20% of their workforce is brand new this year. A lot of that is flight attendants, and other front line employees. But it’s ops people too.

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Dec 28 2022

Police threatened to arrest stranded Southwest Airlines passengers if they didn’t leave the gate area. In the video, the officer incorrectly claims that since their flight was cancelled they have no ticket and are therefore “trespassing.” “If your ticket was cancelled, you no longer have a ticket. You understand that, right?”

According to the officer, “Southwest is calling us” so they’re responding to the airline calling the police on their customers. I certainly feel for the overwhelmed employees, but that’s a bad look.

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Dec 28 2022

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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Dec 27 2022

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.

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Dec 27 2022

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.

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Dec 26 2022

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.

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