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Southwest operational meltdown as hundreds of flights canceled or delayed

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

#121

Post by sandworm101 »

lettergram wrote: post #107
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…

I think that's because it's technically illegal to do a walkout... https://alexberenson.substack.com/p/urgent-a-southwest-airli... In reality, a lot of pilots can just message each other on the side and say "f-it". Idk how many it takes to take down the system, but I suspect even 20% out sick could cause a cascading failure.

20%? That would mean they have 20% extra pilots on standby ready to take over for the sick. I think it is far lower than that, more like 5% or less. I suspect it might be closer to 2%, that there are no real backups. I bet that when someone is stick someone else is called in on their weekend. That would be the labor action: pilots refusing to work overtime/weekends when called to cover for someone.

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

#122

Post by tdeck »

wyldfire wrote: post #100
tdeck wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been on the other side of this and seen too many teams neglect to fix even the simplest and most frustrating bugs in a system because they're going to rewrite it "in the next six months". Usually the rewrite is still going years later, and the actual code used in production is left to rot, holding back other teams as well.

Can you blame them? These are the same teams who typically refuse to adopt practices that would allow them to create tests and we'll encapsulated designs. So inevitably the team is once bitten twice shy about breaking production. Why be the poor bastard who introduced anything but the tiniest bugfix?

I definitely agree it's a matter of incentives. Even in an environment with a now healthier quality culture, fixing bugs to bring an old system from 70% functionality to 100% is typically a career dead end.

It's much better to leave it broken and build a new system with 105% functionality so you can take credit for the whole 105%.

And typically, optimists that we are, it seems like completely reimplementing the original functionality will be "trivial" compared to merely trying to understand how the existing solution works.

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

#124

Post by 41209 »

thr0wawayf00 wrote: post #19

Seeing stories like this makes me wonder if we'll ever see a company actually go bust based purely on the instability of its decades-old, duct-taped architecture. I have a relative who works for a large credit card processor running on mainframe systems and I hear over and over again that they're all retiring and unable to fill the newly opened roles. This problem is compounded by the fact that their offshore contrac…

If they want to pay they'll find someone.

I wouldn't mind taking a 250$ an hour position with on the job training.

Odds are they're getting outbid by easier jobs. If I can write Javascript for 130k or COBOL for 130, I'm doing JS.

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

#125

Post by _8j50 »

ctdonath wrote: post #103
_8j50 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right... they can't train someone on COBOL? I call b.s. on that. It's an HR issue, you need blah blah degrees and yadi yadi yada experience. Big corps don't adopt to job economy changes over time like this unless their core business is built to adopt to economic changes. Inability to make exemptions and place the right first line managers over teams is what kills big companies, or forces them into an endless loop of…

Not if they can’t find anyone willing to learn COBOL. There’s huge demand for developers on modern systems. Seriously, how much are you going to pay a developer to do mainframe COBOL - and is that developer going to produce commensurate value, really able to hold together a crumbling antique infrastructure?

Plenty of people working helpdesk that know a bit of python who can learn COBOL if they knew a job offer was on the other end of the investment in learning the language. There are hoards of people learning python and powershell just so they can make more money, trust me when I say they (the people I see learning python for career prospects) have no sentimental attachment to the language.

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

#126

Post by EarlKing »

nradov wrote: post #85
beerandt wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Under the RLA, our Union is forbidden from taking job action to resolve labor disputes under these circumstances They couldn't admit it if that's what they're doing. They'd have to deny it either way. Even an "unofficial" unorganized sick out. On the other hand- if a pilot knew he was getting fired in two weeks for not getting vaccinated, and he happened to have two weeks sick pay, well then the company policy did a…

Even if an employee is fired for cause the employer is required to pay out accrued vacation time.

Being required to do a thing and actually doing a thing are two completely different things. Having the money to turn around and sue somebody for not disbursing your accrued vacation time is a third thing altogether.

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

#128

Post by ashtonkem »

bryan0 wrote: post #127

Instead of bizarre excuses, why wouldn’t SWA just say that employees called in sick in large enough numbers to disrupt operations? What is their reasoning for covering this up if it’s true?

Because it's illegal. Under the Railway Labor Act they have to exhaust all their other set options before they can initiate a strike or walkout, and even then only if it's considered a "major" disagreement. Minor disagreements cannot be striked over, full stop.

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

#129

Post by mikece »

cryptoanon25490 wrote: post #44
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…

Military pilots for commercial airlines. Military personnel in hospitals. When do we get military teachers and military politicians?

We've had them forever: they wear silver eagles or stars for their rank insignia.

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

#130

Post by YokoZar »

throwaway224466 wrote: post #115
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…

[flagged]

The Pfizer vaccine was fully approved on August 23

https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/fda-appr...

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