Tag Archives for southwest airlines.
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.
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.
Like yesterday, Southwest Airlines again led the world in most flight cancellations. They aren’t just short pilots and ramp agents. With half of the airline’s flights delayed – again – customers all over the country have needed help getting rebooked. And the airline’s phone system chose today to melt down.
There’s no real obligation to cram into the aisles immediately (though try to make room for the passenger in the middle seat to stretch out). But it’s not reasonable to criticize passengers for getting up to stretch, and to get their carry on bags down in order to deplane efficiently.
Two years ago Racist Burger King got banned from Jetblue, so he flew American and got kicked off of them too. Somehow, though, he managed to fly American again after that.
That man didn’t like black people. Another Burger King took to the skies on Southwest, and this one doesn’t like Jews either.
A passenger’s pet is supposed to remain under their control and not come out of the carrier inflight. Some crews enforce that more aggressively than others. And on a recent Southwest flight, one French bulldog came out – and wandered around the aircraft.
This went on long enough, and the bulldog made it far enough around the aircraft, that flight attendants made an announcement asking whose dog it was? And nobody answered. Eventually, it turned out, that the dog wandered away while its owner was asleep inflight.
A mother took to Twitter to call out Southwest Airlines for their treatment of her young teenager traveling solo for the first time. She claims a Southwest gate agent yelled at her 13 year old son because he wasn’t following proper boarding procedure – that he was yelled at for queueing up during ‘family boarding’.
A Southwest Airlines passenger had left their phone behind in the gate area. They’d already boarded their flight, and the plane had pushed back. A gate agent worked to get the phone down to the ramp. A ramp worker brought it out to the aircraft. They weren’t going to open the aircraft door. Instead, the pilot opened the cockpit window and leaned out. Stretched as far as he could out the window, the ramper jumped as high as he could to pass off the phone.
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 »
