Ask HN: What's Happening at Southwest? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: What's Happening at Southwest?

#101

Post by mikewarot » Fri, Dec 30, 2022, 1:34 AM UTC

logosmonkey wrote: post #44

Simon_O_Rourke wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In this age of more or less fully network connected devices, this kind of a setup seems archaic in the extreme, probably likely to be some hangover from the 70s or 80s.

Apparently Southwest is one of the biggest offenders in the airline industry when it comes to not investing in their IT infrastructure. You can only get away with that sort of debt for so long.

>You can only get away with that sort of debt for so long.

Kevlin Henney has recently suggested we should stop calling it technical debt, and start calling it technical neglect instead.

Managed debt is a useful thing, if you ignore debt, you end up out of business.

Re: Ask HN: What's Happening at Southwest?

#102

Post by simne » Fri, Dec 30, 2022, 2:00 AM UTC

Disclaimer: I've read comments before write my own.

It remembers me long history of failures of post-soviet passenger railroad booking system.

They constantly have issues, it is just impossible reliable buy tickets when hot season.

Situation becomes much better latest years (to be honest, we just don't see them), just because free market - railroads give up large share of load to other transport - to air, buses, private autos, and also large part of tourists go abroad.

Re: Ask HN: What's Happening at Southwest?

#103

Post by simne » Fri, Dec 30, 2022, 2:06 AM UTC

simne wrote: post #102

Disclaimer: I've read comments before write my own. It remembers me long history of failures of post-soviet passenger railroad booking system. They constantly have issues, it is just impossible reliable buy tickets when hot season. Situation becomes much better latest years (to be honest, we just don't see them), just because free market - railroads give up large share of load to other transport - to air, buses, priv…

Reasons for so long constant decline are simple.

First, old Soviet style of management, unfortunately saved in govt backed monopoly.

Second, constantly underpaid computers/software depts.

Re: Ask HN: What's Happening at Southwest?

#104

Post by FateOfNations » Sun, Jan 01, 2023, 11:34 AM UTC

Terretta wrote: post #31

mikewarot wrote: post #4

How could a CEO let this persist for more than an hour? Is there nobody with the leaderships skills to just give everyone free flights and promise everything will be sorted while having people record who worked and who flew and what services were used as best they can? The software failed, just Jerry-rig something up to get people where they need to be, let the accountants and programmers clear up the mess after the…

> have someone work out ... by hand How many minutes for that someone to work out where a plane is, how to crew it legally, and where it should go? How many planes crews and flights are backlogged?

> how to crew it legally

the rules for this are insanely complicated and practically require automation to keep track of if you have more than a small handful of crew members.

https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-14/chapter-I/subchapter-G...

Re: Ask HN: What's Happening at Southwest?

#105

Post by bluebird5567 » Mon, Jan 02, 2023, 1:16 AM UTC

kod wrote: post #56

mitchell_h wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. I'm a very frequent flyer, and used to be far more frequent. No one, and I mean no one, flys southwest because it's their choice. "Southwest is the greyhound of the sky" is a well known phrase. You fly southwest because it's slightly better than being cramped on 3 legs of a 50-60 seat commuter jet. Your home airport dictates which airline you take. Unless another airline steps up and takes some of the routes & p…

> No one, and I mean no one, flys southwest because it's their choice. Everyone in my family preferred to fly southwest (at least before this round of incidents). Among other things, this was based on a history of better customer service especially in extenuating circumstances. They've been at the top of e.g. JD power customer satisfaction rankings for years. If you're trying to say no one flies economy because it's…

My boss likes seeing Southwest on my expense report because it means I’m saving money for the company.

I also enjoy the extra legroom on Southwest.

Re: Ask HN: What's Happening at Southwest?

#106

Post by bluebird5567 » Mon, Jan 02, 2023, 1:16 AM UTC

MontyCarloHall wrote: post #33

A related question: can Southwest ever fully recover from this? Their reputation had taken such a hit that many loyal customers will hesitate to fly with them again, and even more fairweather customers will permanently cross Southwest off their list of carriers to consider flying with. Their stock price is only down ~10% since the meltdown, which seems extremely optimistic to me.

There are plenty of PR firms that will help them get out of this.