Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Southwest operational meltdown as hundreds of flights canceled or delayed

thepointsguy.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 627 posts

Re: Southwest operational meltdown as hundreds of flights canceled or delayed

#61

Post by dragonwriter »

AndrewBissell wrote: post #50
toomuchtodo wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If this is the result of a sickout, I assume the current administration could direct the Dept of Defense to make military pilots available to Southwest in the event of an extended availability issue with their union pilots. Not as brutal as Reagan breaking the ATC union, but supporting a common carrier in a time of crisis. I don’t believe a federal case has been heard yet where the vaccine mandate or terminating thos…

> I assume the current administration could direct the Dept of Defense to make military pilots available to Southwest Yeah just have them switch to a completely different type of aircraft without getting trained or checked out at all, this will definitely fix the problem in short order.

> Yeah just have them switch to a completely different type of aircraft without getting trained or checked out at all

Southwest’s fleet is all 737s; is this really a different type from the C-40?

Re: Southwest operational meltdown as hundreds of flights canceled or delayed

#62

Post by cratermoon »

dang wrote: post #30
cratermoon wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Would you please stop posting unsubstantive and/or flamewar comments to HN? You've been doing it repeatedly and we've already had to ask you more than once. I don't want to ban you, so it would be good if you would review the site guidelines and use the site as intended: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html .

I have edited my comment in an attempt to provide substantive detail.

Re: Southwest operational meltdown as hundreds of flights canceled or delayed

#65

Post by evgeniysharapov »

It's spectacular to see LUV devolving from one of the best managed and employee oriented airline company to this. It's not an outstanding incident though, the company was on the downward trajectory from, I would say, end of 2017. Sooner or later every US airline company declares bankruptcy, LUV so far has escaped it. But one would bet it will happen this year (unlikely) or next year.

Re: Southwest operational meltdown as hundreds of flights canceled or delayed

#66

Post by anamexis »

thr0wawayf00 wrote: post #57
detaro wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I imagine this kind of thing cascades quite badly if it goes wrong, so it's not unimaginable that they just got unlucky regarding where machines are/where crews that are rested are and it collapsed from there, whereas other airlines got lucky/predicted the consequences better/had more resilient planning. (EDIT: which would match the union statement /u/hnburnsy quotes: but what was a minor temporary event for other ca…

The union explicitly denies that a sickout is occurring in that same statement you've quoted: > There are false claims of job actions by Southwest Pilots currently gaining traction on social media and making their way into mainstream news. I can say with certainty that there are no work slowdowns or sickouts either related to the recent mandatory vaccine mandate or otherwise. Under the RLA, our Union is forbidden fro…

Was anyone claiming that it was?

Re: Southwest operational meltdown as hundreds of flights canceled or delayed

#67

Post by hnburnsy »

sp332 wrote: post #45
iJohnDoe wrote: post #21

Doesn’t add up. Severe weather and military training in the same airspace? Other airlines not affected? Odd to say the least.

According to an analyst that CBS talked to https://www.cbsnews.com/news/southwest-flight-cancellations-... Southwest was hit harder because of they way they organize their routes. Not having "hubs" means they can't create alternate routes quickly. So the delays in Florida cascaded back, stranding planes and crews as well as passengers. He also says they'd already scheduled more flights than they can handle, but I don…

This has always been the case with Southwest not anything new. Without late night flights they should be able to reset. Something else is going on.

Additionally with many similar aircraft and oy one class of service, substituting equipment is much easier for Southwest than traditional carriers.

Re: Southwest operational meltdown as hundreds of flights canceled or delayed

#69

Post by edoceo »

sp332 wrote: post #45
iJohnDoe wrote: post #21

Doesn’t add up. Severe weather and military training in the same airspace? Other airlines not affected? Odd to say the least.

According to an analyst that CBS talked to https://www.cbsnews.com/news/southwest-flight-cancellations-... Southwest was hit harder because of they way they organize their routes. Not having "hubs" means they can't create alternate routes quickly. So the delays in Florida cascaded back, stranding planes and crews as well as passengers. He also says they'd already scheduled more flights than they can handle, but I don…

> more flights than they can handle

More flights than pilots.

Like when your PM brings in work from the previous sprint, to the current, fully loaded sprint.

Re: Southwest operational meltdown as hundreds of flights canceled or delayed

#70

Post by drfxyjhdyfrhgc »

baggy_trough wrote: post #58
thr0wawayf00 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They also explicitly deny that a sickout is occuring: > There are false claims of job actions by Southwest Pilots currently gaining traction on social media and making their way into mainstream news. I can say with certainty that there are no work slowdowns or sickouts either related to the recent mandatory vaccine mandate or otherwise. Under the RLA, our Union is forbidden from taking job action to resolve labor dis…

Would it be in their interest to state this even if it wasn’t true?

Yes, in fact they would be required to make this statement.

>...our Union is forbidden from taking job action to resolve labor disputes under these circumstances...

Post reply on HN