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Originally posted by jhe888:

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Originally posted by FenderBender:


Their CIO was the major projects director for 17 years prior to being CIO for 5. She's had 20 years to get this fixed.

Do we know whether she proposed fixes?

I'd certainly hope so, that was ultimately her job for nearly 20 years.

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Do we know whether her proposals were shot down by higher ups?

Higher up than C-suite?

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For all we know, she is now sending "I told you so" memos to the boss. Or maybe she fucked it up - do we know?

If she wasn't proposing improvements the shareholders have a serious bone to pick as the waste of man hours on a system as antiquated as what I've been lead to believe they're using, from inside sources would be a massive drain on profits.

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Originally posted by YooperSigs:
Throw in some Flu and weather and chaos reigns.

And throw in the Christmas weekend with probably a goodly percentage of those workers calling off not because they can't work due to illness. Those people should be fired IMO. No work ethic anymore. You ride for the brand. Get your ass to work. It is, after all, what we're paying you for.

Of course, those folks aren't the whole cause of this Mongolian cluster fuck, but they certainly play a part.

Some credit cards have traveler protection. I do believe the computer system was part of the problem. Healthcare and hospitals have had these issues as well.

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Originally posted by SIGnified:

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Originally posted by Balzé Halzé:

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Originally posted by P250UA5:
Just had family go through this, twice, with Southwest at DIA

DIA? Are you referring to Denver? I only know it as DEN.

Ever since they built that $5 billion monstrosity decades ago … It’s been Denver International Airport aka DIA.


That Memo sure makes a case that there is a worker shortage…

It used to be called DIA, when Stapleton was still around, it's code was DEN. There were two Denver airports and that's how they disnguished them. Once Stapleton got torn down, DIA changed to DEN, even though locals call it DIA still.

Meanwhile Mayor Pete flies on a private jet, is concerned about diversity with the airlines and wants pilots to retire at 65. Oh and the NY state mayor blames the storm on climate change.

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Originally posted by joel9507:

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Originally posted by bendable:
So now the airline is allowed to ...

That can't be right.

I'm guessing you don't fly a lot.

Good guessing ,

Just another reason why I avoid any and all national holiday travel. If I’m getting on a plane it’s mid January to mid February, September to early November. The holidays are already completely madness as is. Throw in being stuck somewhere for days, oh my. No thanks.

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Originally posted by Balzé Halzé:
They don't have first class, do they?

Correct, no first class.

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This message has been edited. Last edited by: Tgrshrk99,

They’re buying 100 Boeing 737 Max 7s which have a list price of $99.7 million each. They can afford $100 million to revamp the software to keep the planes flying.

Until the suits on the 43rd floor start agreeing to curtail hauling home the big money ,
few major improvements may be expected.

Follow the money
-Jim Rockford

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This message has been edited. Last edited by: Tgrshrk99,

You have to realize that upper managers of most corporations are accountants or rely on accountants. Everything is either a cost or a revenue source.

A crew scheduler is a cost. A regional coordinator (resolves disruptions by reflowing crews and aircraft to recover schedule) is a cost. A flight dispatcher is a cost.

None of them directly make revenue, at least according to accountants.

Those positions are usually quite understaffed. When things go per plan they are busy as hell, showing high productivity on the managers' metrics. When there's a disruption, there is little excess human or software capacity to deal with it.

Manually processing flights is a crazy slow and complicated process. In large part because it normally depends on software and the internet. A few years ago when a road construction crew dug through the fiber optic trunk line serving our HQ we were down to cell phones and paper dispatch releases. Almost zero flights went out that day.

Last century we ran mostly with humans, paper, and landline phones. The process worked quite well even during irregular ops, but was far less efficient overall. An event like SouthWest this week would not have happened.

Matching a thousand aircraft, several thousand daily flights, and tens of thousands of flight crew is a staggeringly complex puzzle, which has to not only work today but put everything in place to work again tomorrow.

My experience is that 98% of flight crew will bust their butts during these events. There are many who voluntarily worked extra days this week, missing time off with their families. I expect SouthWest's schedulers and dispatchers are working huge overtime too.

Sooo, anyone think this will be resolved in a few days?

We have a SW flight for next Friday, ATL-MIA

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Matching a thousand aircraft, several thousand daily flights, and tens of thousands of flight crew is a staggeringly complex puzzle, which has to not only work today but put everything in place to work again tomorrow.

My experience is that 98% of flight crew will bust their butts during these events. There are many who voluntarily worked extra days this week, missing time off with their families. I expect Southwest's schedulers and dispatchers are working huge overtime too.

That is true. I have no doubt that most of them worked their butts off during this situation.

Still... I wonder how short they are on flight crew after the vax requirements?

Nobody seems to know why Southwest cancelled so many flights compared to all the other airlines. They’re sticking with “bad weather.” But a clue appeared in one statement blaming the chaos was also due to problems with “scheduling software.” Software the airline has been using for decades.

I wonder if the software’s “problems” had something to do with not having enough pilots and crew to schedule. For some reason.

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Originally posted by BigSwede:
Sooo, anyone think this will be resolved in a few days?

We have a SW flight for next Friday, ATL-MIA

Next Friday as in next week? I would wager you should be ok.

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Originally posted by chellim1:

quote:

Matching a thousand aircraft, several thousand daily flights, and tens of thousands of flight crew is a staggeringly complex puzzle, which has to not only work today but put everything in place to work again tomorrow.

My experience is that 98% of flight crew will bust their butts during these events. There are many who voluntarily worked extra days this week, missing time off with their families. I expect Southwest's schedulers and dispatchers are working huge overtime too.

That is true. I have no doubt that most of them worked their butts off during this situation.

Still... I wonder how short they are on flight crew after the vax requirements?

Nobody seems to know why Southwest cancelled so many flights compared to all the other airlines. They’re sticking with “bad weather.” But a clue appeared in one statement blaming the chaos was also due to problems with “scheduling software.” Software the airline has been using for decades.

I wonder if the software’s “problems” had something to do with not having enough pilots and crew to schedule. For some reason.

They have a fundamentally different business model using a lot of regional airport instead of a hub and spoke system. They don’t have the same fail-over capabilities as other airlines.

Yes, 1/6 next week

I would just recommend checking your flight itinerary at least once a day so there are no surprises. Not necessarily because your flight might be canceled, but more so in case there is a schedule change or equipment change which might affect seating assignments. Wait. Check that. Southwest doesn't assign seats, do they? But still, schedule changes, and this is with all airlines even during good times, happen all the time.

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I never understood why people loved Southwest so much.

Agreed. My best friend loves Southwest and I've never understood why. Occasionally our families like to vacation together and he always tries to get me to fly with Southwest. My employer has had so many issues over the past 10 years with Southwest that last year they said no more booking with them. That was good enough for me to say nope, not gonna do it. My company probably books around 500 flights per year so if they ban employees from using an airline, I trust there is good reason.