Southwest Passenger Pays $100 To Skip Long Line

by Gary Leff

Dec 29 2022

There are likely over one million passengers whose flights were cancelled by Southwest Airlines over the holidays. Airline phone systems, and customer service lines at the airport, weren’t made for this.

Lines have been interminable. And that’s true even for passengers whose flights are on time, or at least haven’t been cancelled. Most people are paying for service from their airline with their time. One ingenious mom in Atlanta decided to pay to cut the check-in line with money instead.

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A Top Airline Executive Explains The Southwest Airlines Meltdown

by Gary Leff

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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U.S. Imposing Covid Test Requirements For Travelers Coming From China, Hong Kong

by Gary Leff

Dec 28 2022

Now that China is re-opening to travel starting January 8, the U.S. is is imposing testing requirements on arrivals from China, Hong Kong and Macau – effective January 5.

Note that travel and testing requirements have done nothing to protect the U.S. in the first three years of the pandemic. They were didn’t keep out Covid, its surgest, or its variants.

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Police Threaten To Arrest Stranded Southwest Airlines Passengers Waiting In Long Lines

by Gary Leff

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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New York Passengers Engage In Game Theory, Take Airline For $1100

by Gary Leff

airline ticket
Dec 28 2022

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.

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Why The Southwest Airlines Carnage Happened, And What The Airline Will Pay For

by Gary Leff

southwest plane
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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