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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

#391

Post by stavrus »

erostrate wrote: post #327

Some financial facts that help explain the situation: over the past 10 years US airlines have spent about 95% of their free cash flows on stock buybacks. This is the money they could have used to have a buffer to deal with these situations or to improve their systems. Why do they care so much about their stock price over long term sustainability? In 2020, Southwest lost 3.1 billion dollars and took 6 billions of gove…

> This is the money they could have used to have a buffer to deal with these situations or to improve their systems.

Matt Levine covered this last year [1]. The basic gist of it was that the CEO is focused on the shareholders, and the best use of the money was on stock buybacks. Spending money on improving customer or labor relationships wouldn't have helped during the start of the pandemic when all the airlines were stuck in the same boat unable to fly planes, and the cash used by e.g. American Airlines for buybacks in the past 7 years to increase the stock value 113% would have only bought them 4 months of operating expenses. The most long-term value for shareholders was created through the buybacks, and the government being willing to prop the businesses up during downturns reduces the risk exposure from this strategy.

[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-03-17/the-go...

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

#392

Post by orangepurple »

syshum wrote: post #379
native_samples wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's telling that this is downvoted, even though it presents actual evidence from an actual SWA employee vs the random speculation found elsewhere in the thread. The cause isn't leanness or MBAs, its pilots protesting against vaccine mandates, by the testimony of an actual pilot who works there.

That is because it goes agaist the narrative that the only people that oppose mandates are backwater rednecks that have no education. It can not be that high skilled professionals oppose having their body autonomy revoked... it can not be that "my body my choice" should extend to more medical choices than 1... no no. this can not be allowed

There is a concerted effort to eliminate autonomy and individual agency

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

#393

Post by ceejayoz »

cronix wrote: post #314
smsm42 wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> our operation has become brittle and subject to massive failures under the slightest pressure I somehow notice a lot of this lately, in many different areas. I wonder if there isn't a common cause behind those. Is it just covid or something bigger?

According to this substack[1], it was a pilot walkout/"sickout" due to vaccine mandates. It's actually happening in more companies/industries than widely reported. I imagine it's also picked up steam since last weeks revelation from leaked internal Pfizer emails[2] that they used cells from aborted fetuses while testing the RDNA vaccine (testing - it's not in the vaccine), but have publicly stated otherwise. It was a…

> I imagine it's also picked up steam since last weeks revelation from leaked internal Pfizer emails[2] that they used cells from aborted fetuses while testing the RDNA vaccine (testing - it's not in the vaccine), but have publicly stated otherwise.

The fact that fetal cells are used in testing has been public for a long time.

This article dates back to last December, for example: https://www.nebraskamed.com/COVID/you-asked-we-answered-do-t... (and here's me citing it two months ago, in case you want to claim a ninja-edit "last week": https://www.reddit.com/r/bestoflegaladvice/comments/p6f6yl/l...)

The “it’s the vaccine mandates!” argument has to figure out a way to explain why all the other airlines weren’t similarly affected when they instituted theirs.

Alex Berenson is… not a reputable source. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/04/pandemics-...

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

#394

Post by nemo44x »

thepasswordis wrote: post #232

There is currently a major outage at a major part of the infrastructure of our nation, and nobody believes anybody about why. The airline is saying it's something to do with weather, but somehow they're the only airline effected. Everybody online seems to the think it's some sort of labor strike, but the union denies this and nobody can find anywhere where people are planning this. And yet thousands of people are stu…

Seems like it’s a “wildcat strike” where some employees organize and strike silently without the consent or direction of their union.

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

#395

Post by HPsquared »

jeffreygoesto wrote: post #256
doctorwho42 wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is large due to corporations taking on lean-business models from MBAs over the last decade+. When a business runs lean, it becomes more fragile to disruptions. Unfortunately due to our economic system, there is a semi-regular boon-bust cycle, so if it wasn't COVID, it would have been something else that kicks the stool out from under the legs of these corporations. In the past this wasn't as big as an issue becaus…

But isn't this the exact point of operation, controlling and finance in any large corporation wants to find? Extract from bottom to the top until it breaks and then hope to steer back a tiny little bit and keep operating in that state? Finance never did produce, it's whole purpose is to extract. Run a gasoline engine to lean and it will start to heat and stutter... As for the growth, in a peaceful society you can gro…

I don't know about that, with P/E ratios as high as they are I think investors assume companies will have an infinite lifespan.

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

#396

Post by roenxi »

Cederfjard wrote: post #368
roenxi wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That isn't true. There are a lot of unvaccinated people - notably any that have recovered from COVID - who pose less danger to their coworkers than someone who has only been vaccinated. This isn't based on risk assessment, this is based on ideology. There are situations developing where someone who is less likely to transmit COVID is being fired while someone more likely to transmit the disease is kept on - and every…

So would you be happy if in addition to vaccination and regular testing, regular antibody tests were also an alternative? And do you agree that this would also increase complexity (in my mind to questionable benefit)?

No, I wouldn't accept that approach either. But at least it would be focusing on the risk instead of being a status play. At the moment you're accepting a risk without knowing anyone's antibody titer at all. It says a lot about the situation that nobody is measuring it and nobody minds that it isn't being measured. People's susceptibility to COVID is barely in the conversation. A risk-based strategy is not being employed.

Despite all these measures you are still going to be exposed to the coronavirus. Just like the every flu that we've dealt with for the last however many thousand years. This rigmarole is just upsetting people for no real gain to you.

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

#397

Post by [deleted] »

ethanbond wrote: post #372
hef19898 wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wondered always why people wondered. Airbus went to great length to make cross-certification of pilots possible for that very reason.

Nobody is wondering anything. Advantages are obvious. They were wondering why you’d prioritize that over the aircraft’s ability to stay in the air.

[deleted]

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

#398

Post by brandmeyer »

londons_explore wrote: post #361
smsm42 wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> our operation has become brittle and subject to massive failures under the slightest pressure I somehow notice a lot of this lately, in many different areas. I wonder if there isn't a common cause behind those. Is it just covid or something bigger?

The root cause is because "anti price gouging" laws are being enforced. Previously, if there was a shortage of say plane brake discs, the wholesaler would jack the price up 10x for the last 3 sets. That would lead to one of the 4 customers who wanted to buy them to say "nah, it's too expensive, we don't need it that badly". The person who wouldn't get a set was probably the guy restocking the spare parts shelf, while…

Careful: you're letting ideology get in the way of the facts.

Price gouging laws are exclusively a local and state matter, and only apply at the retail level. Although there have been proposals for price-gouging laws at the federal level, none have been enacted. State laws don't generally apply to B2B interactions.

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

#399

Post by pc86 »

valray wrote: post #217
killerdhmo wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your hate of MBAs is unfounded and unproven. Their COO has worked there since 1993, and doesn’t have an MBA: https://www.swamedia.com/pages/michael-van-de-ven

Your statement shows lack of understanding of how the modern corporation works. The COO may have been there 30 years, and may lack an MBA, but increasingly it is this type of CxO that has been reyling upon MBAs and other consultants (operations research) to restructure the organization into an optimized-but-fragile state. It is the rare old-hand that can standup to younguns talking tech and math, subjects he does not…

Such a bizarre statement to imply that old people don't understand math, and all but destroys any credibility for the rest of your comment.

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

#400

Post by brandmeyer »

cronix wrote: post #314
smsm42 wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> our operation has become brittle and subject to massive failures under the slightest pressure I somehow notice a lot of this lately, in many different areas. I wonder if there isn't a common cause behind those. Is it just covid or something bigger?

According to this substack[1], it was a pilot walkout/"sickout" due to vaccine mandates. It's actually happening in more companies/industries than widely reported. I imagine it's also picked up steam since last weeks revelation from leaked internal Pfizer emails[2] that they used cells from aborted fetuses while testing the RDNA vaccine (testing - it's not in the vaccine), but have publicly stated otherwise. It was a…

> And a lot of "religious exemptions" are being turned down. This would be a bit like taking a staunch vegan and forcing them to eat something (via threatening career) that was tested on animals while they said otherwise.

Considering all of the other household items that are also commonly tested using fetal cell lines (including acetaminophen, aspirin, ibuprofen, albuterol, pseudoephidrine), the analogy doesn't apply.

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