No reason for Southwest not to be answering phones. Maybe more calls than people to answer.
I just hate the politicians who grandstand without understanding the circumstances.
Southwest Airline Meltdown....personal viewpoint
- Thread starter PSU Soupy
- Start date
I just hate the politicians who grandstand without understanding the circumstances.
Yesterday a union rep showed a screenshot of their employee call center. Said the wait time to talk to a rep was seven hours.
Not good. I don't know how easy it is to bring in more people on short notice.
Every airline has something brutal sometime. I always enjoy the “I’m never flying (insert airline) again. That will narrow options in no time.
Bottom line, after 9/11, planes went from roughly 50-60% occupancy to effing full all the time. I’m a 2Million miler with American, and try this math pretending every plane has 100 seats. Pre 9/11, if a flight cancels, the airline might have to place 50-60 people on planes with 40-50 available seats. Ok…two flights to clear the canceled flight.
Today. Same plane canceled. Airline has to place 90 plus people on planes with less than 10 available seats. Oooooo….now they need more than 10
Flights to clear the cancellation.
Now add the dominos of planes not arriving where they should be, and weather effing things up. And….crews start timing out for length of workday..:::
Yeah…it can get awful in a hurry. Never mind where the backlog of bags are….
It’s bad. But I’ll keep traveling. If it’s bad for me, I don’t give a crap. I let that traveling angst go a looong time ago. Traveling got much more pleasant when I did.
I also quit scoring while playing golf. It got a lot more fun too. Lol.
Or even medium term notice. One of my neighbors is a senior airplane mechanic at United, working out of SFO. He said they are perpetually short on mechanics, and paying overtime to the mechanics they have. They are also currently offering a $25,000 signing bonus to any qualified airplane mechanic who signs on.
I don’t understand how a company in any industry that is so reliant on communications for operational efficiency does not invest in the required software. Relying on interfaces on antiquated legacy systems is a time bomb for disaster. I would bet their financial systems are state of the art.
All good points. And I stand by my earlier position . This massive storm was widely predicted a week in advance. People should have changed their travel plans accordingly. Put themselves and family at serious risk all for a few days vacation when they could have just gone another time.
We see these things every year. Storms screw up air service quite often. If traveling in winter, pay attention and adapt when necessary. If 20% had canceled their trips much of this could have been avoided.
Nope.
1. For many people xmas is important and one of the few times a year work plans free up that’s family can get together.
2. This wasn’t weather. This was Southwests inability to deal with weather when every other airline could. My plan was a 90 min direct flight from one warm weather city to another. Southwest terminal looked like a refugee camp for days. Delta terminal looked like any Tuesday in June.
3. If SW can’t provide their service then they should cancel their flights days in advance. It’s not the customers job to do so.
I agree with you. 80% of the problem is SW. The other airlines handled it well. They were out front telling people to change plans and waiving fees for flight changes.
- The problem at SW is unprecedented.
- And with all of the doom and gloom weather channels do all the time to get clicks, few believe them when there is a weather emergency.
- lastly, consumers can't be expected to know what airline has a good and bad infrastructure (again, when this is unprecedented).
For example, two days ago, Forbes said 85% of flight cancellations were SW. If you flew any other airline, the vast majority of flights were not canceled.
Southwest Airlines will fly one-third of its scheduled flights this week, and customers are furious
Southwest stock has dropped 6% after the airline canceled two-thirds of its flights this week.
But Christmas weekend was bad for all. Entire airports shut down. No one should have gone to an airport that weekend. Including warm weather ports since the planes come in from all cities.I agree with you. 80% of the problem is SW. The other airlines handled it well. They were out front telling people to change plans and waiving fees for flight changes.
- The problem at SW is unprecedented.
- And with all of the doom and gloom weather channels do all the time to get clicks, few believe them when there is a weather emergency.
- lastly, consumers can't be expected to know what airline has a good and bad infrastructure (again, when this is unprecedented).
For example, two days ago, Forbes said 85% of flight cancellations were SW. If you flew any other airline, the vast majority of flights were not canceled.
Southwest Airlines will fly one-third of its scheduled flights this week, and customers are furious
Southwest stock has dropped 6% after the airline canceled two-thirds of its flights this week.fortune.com
The other airlines recovered quicker Christmas weekend was terrible.
I am just looking at the numbers. Other airlines handled this fairly well and didn't cause the horrible disruption we are seeing a week later with SW. it is in line with any major winter storm. I am not hearing anything really bad regarding any other airline. The only thing I am hearing now is that the other airlines are so booked up trying to accommodate SW's former passengers, that flight costs are through the roof if you can get a seat at all.
What we are seeing isn't a storm issue, it is a major failure of SW's technology to handle a storm of this size. They are a victim of their own success in the minimal time their planes spend on the ground. SW often turns around a plan in a half hour from deboarding to on-boarding. So a 737 will often make a half dozen trips a day. If the first flight is delayed, five more are delayed. And of those delayed flights, many carry crews that are deadheading to get them in place for their next flight. Now with all of the problems their tech and phone centers just can't handle the load. And they often send people to another flight that ends up getting canceled too.
I've also read that SW was also just unlucky in that places that weren't affected, major SW bases, also had problems. For example, San Diego shut down due to fog for a large portion of Xmas eve. Lots of people are calling off (holidays, overworked, flu season...etc.)
If it weren't for SW, the travel problems this year would be no different than any other year during the holiday season.
Not defending SW at all. Saying no one should have flown Fri-Sun unless a true emergency. Every airline had problems then.
Southwest's woes continue. Almost 60% of today's flights cancelled:
www.zerohedge.com
Southwest Cancels Thousands Of More Flights As Operational 'Meltdown' Continues | ZeroHedge
ZeroHedge - On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero
www.zerohedge.com
People are rather insane. This kind of thing happens quite often... perhaps not to this extent, but the weather was considerably worse than typical for some of Southwest's main airports (Midway, Love Field)
Suddenly everyone is an expert in airline booking systems and claiming that Southwest will be declaring bankruptcy.
It's not going to happen. They will cancel flights and continue to work through the backlog and go about their business in the future.
This is the reason airlines sell insurance with their tickets.
LdN
That’s not accurate. The other airlines were business as usual. Esp outside major storm centers.
They bought / merged with AirTran and decided to be a major airline instead of what they were... a point to point low cost carrier.
That said, they are the largest domestic airline in the US by passengers I believe. So they are doing something right.
It's all about your hubs.
Southwest has Denver, Dallas and Chicago as major hubs. All were hit by the freeze to an unusual extent.
Dang. A dude from Alaska was called by the U of Washington medical center and said they had a heart for the heart transplant candidate on 12/22. Dude books the next flight to Washington on Alaska airlines. Unfortunately, the flight got canceled. They put him on another flight, which got delayed, and he missed the 8-hour window. They put it in the next candidate.
www.tmz.com
Father of 7 Misses Chance at Heart Transplant Due to Canceled Flight Over Weather
A father from Alaska missed a lifesaving opportunity to receive a new heart after his Alaska Airlines flight was canceled due to the historic U.S. winter storm.
www.tmz.com
1. It’s not. There’s a million articles and employee testimonials about Southwests worst-in-class scheduling software, resource allocation software, etc. Among other issues.
2. Even if your theory were true… it’s still Southwests job to understand their operational risks, coming weather and create contingency plans. They did nothing.
pretty good article here as SW recovers.
thriftytraveler.com
there is also a site dedicated to filing for refunds and, perhaps, more to come.
www.southwest.com
Southwest Stabilizes, But Now the Fight for Refunds & Reimbursement Begins
After canceling more than 12,000 flights this week, Southwest seems to be back on track. But that doesn't mean its historic meltdown is over...
thriftytraveler.com
there is also a site dedicated to filing for refunds and, perhaps, more to come.
Travel Disruption | Southwest Airlines
Due to adverse weather events and their resulting effects, we are currently experiencing operational disruptions and are working diligently and safely to restore normal flight schedules as quickly as possible.
So how much would systems upgrades have cost?
SW will 100% have to upgrade the antiquated system they had in place now. So realistically, I doubt the software upgrades to a state of the art program cost a huge amount of money in the SW grand scheme of things. New software cost millions, but to a multi billion dollar company that is not a huge outlay. You wonder now why SW didn't make the switch before this. Sometimes I think the accounts have too much power in that the needs of the business are constantly overlooked for short term profits.
the upgrades were budgeted and underway. The argument is that SW should have prioritized the expense to upgrade earlier rather than save the quarterly money and pay out higher dividends.
Upgrading such a large and complex system has to cost some serious dough. But it would have more cost savings then just avoiding this colossal debacle. Making their system more reliable, more efficient, and safer would pay off every quarter.
Hope to see some major changes in the exec offices and boardroom at SW. That would send a message to all airlines administrators that long term investments are critical, not just quarterly profits and stock options.
it's always a matter of risk. Nobody anticipated this. SW has been outperforming the big three for several decades (AA, Delta, United). The old line is "why fix what ain't broke". It worked fine up until late December. The other adage is that nobody ever puts a stop light at an intersection until there is a car accident.
They knew that they had to upgrade. They funded it and started the project. They didn't do it soon enough and/or prioritize it appropriately. IMHO, it isn't really their fault but the stockholders will want to place blame. The stockholders were certainly enjoying the cap gain and dividends of the stock. They didn't throw any red flags last year either.
Airlines, like a lot of other companies, care only about their shareholders/investors, and don’t give a flying flamingo about their customers. Crappy software and infrastructure? Long term investments in the company’s future? Nah, management only sees as far as the next quarter, or else they will be thrown out on their keisters.
New CEO << Founding CEO.
People need to recognize that the skills to create a company - leadership, brains, talent - are not at all what matters in becoming CEO of an existing company.
The skills required are political negotiation, willingness to say whatever is politically correct, etc.
Founding CEO: the software needs to track employees, planes, schedules and make sure they all linkup. Such software needs to be a premium over accounting software.
New CEO: Wall Street is our biggest customer, and the accounting software needs to be "first in class".
A common outcome. Mr Langone….co-founder of Home Depot…..retired as a multibillionaire. Several years after he retired…..like ten years…..he came back to run the company after it had serious problems. He said it had been taken over by bean counters and accountants aligned with Wall Street. He vowed to return it to its former state of being customer focused. Seems he did a good job….twice.
software sucks.
I traveled from Ohio to PA Monday after Xmas. I stopped at the I80 & Turnpike interchange; getting off the turnpike and getting onto the no-charge I80. The line to pay the toll was about two hours deep. The line was all the way out to the turnpike on the exit. I skipped that mess and went to the next, and smaller, exit. The person their told me, in the turnpike's infinite wisdom decided to upgrade the software on one of the biggest car travel days of the year. WTF does this planning? Its cray cray.
