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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

#431

Post by mschuster91 »

smsm42 wrote: post #168
hnburnsy wrote: post #36

Comment from the Southwest Pilots Union... >SWA has claimed that the immediate causes of this weekend’s meltdown were staffing at Jacksonville Center and weather in the southeast U.S., but what was a minor temporary event for other carriers devastated Southwest Airlines because our operation has become brittle and subject to massive failures under the slightest pressure. Our operation and our frontline employees have…

> 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?

Over the last decades, capitalism was not regulated very much and, as a result, companies cut costs - and one of the easiest ways to do so is to cut resiliency measures like having a standby plane and crew at every major airport to cover for delays, technical problems or staff calling in sick.

Nowadays, no one runs with any sort of buffer if that isn't explicitly demanded by government or other regulations... and when the shit hits the proverbial fan, it hits hard as a result.

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

#432

Post by nemothekid »

busymom0 wrote: post #331
nemothekid wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

[flagged]

I find it hilarious that you are echoing made up statistics about black New Yorkers to claim that I, a black man who grew up in New York, is living in an ivory tower.

Only when black people are tool to prove a political point is when you start caring about healthcare for black New Yorkers.

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

#433

Post by Zigurd »

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…

Naive finance works that way. Sophisticated finance prices-in downside risk.

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

#434

Post by Denvercoder9 »

miles wrote: post #267
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…

Southwest Airlines, passengers claim different causes for cancellations https://www.khou.com/article/news/national/southwest-airline... > The nationwide cancellations came as the airline announced Monday that the company will now require employees to get the COVID-19 vaccinated by Dec. 8. > Some customers said they were told the cancellations are a direct result of the vaccine mandate. > “I asked them specifically 'i…

> They also said that air traffic control had a massive walkout because of the vaccine mandate

This doesn't make any sense at all. If a vaccine-mandate induced ATC walkout was the cause, all air carriers would be disrupted, not just Southwest.

I suspect this is someone pitching his own views about a situation he doesn't know the true cause of.

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

#435

Post by anarticle »

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…

Just to clarify this YouTube link: HEK293 cells are used in TONS of research, yes they are derived from fetal cell lines in the 70s. When I say tons, I mean if you say "HEK cells" to someone who does any cell culture they know what you're talking about. It is completely noncontroversial, and cancer/bioenergetic research utilizes them.

I don't appreciate this YouTube channel doing what they are doing, it is pouring fuel on a giant nothingburger.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HEK_293_cells

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

#436

Post by Xelbair »

smsm42 wrote: post #168
hnburnsy wrote: post #36

Comment from the Southwest Pilots Union... >SWA has claimed that the immediate causes of this weekend’s meltdown were staffing at Jacksonville Center and weather in the southeast U.S., but what was a minor temporary event for other carriers devastated Southwest Airlines because our operation has become brittle and subject to massive failures under the slightest pressure. Our operation and our frontline employees have…

> 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?

if you remove all checks and balances, all forms of redundancy and run the system at 99% capacity.. even a simple unforeseen event can disrupt everything and grind it to halt.

Just imagine that most businesses are equivalent to running your whole stack on a single, self hosted at home, RPI. Including the git repository, and no backups.

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

#437

Post by Zigurd »

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…

It is a good thing that employers are rejecting made-up religious objections that have no basis in consistent and longstanding practice. If they don't, it will come back to bite them over and over and result in endless litigation.

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

#438

Post by AuthorizedCust »

Boarding an SWA flight at DAL now. It’s on time. Airport feels a little busy for a Monday morning, but no pandemonium, no huge lines anywhere. I’m in no way denying the issue, but this isn’t what I expected.

I also changed to this flight yesterday at 3 pm. Had to check several times over a few hours before I could find a suitable flight.

This flight is full.

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

#439

Post by nradov »

Zigurd wrote: post #433
jeffreygoesto wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Naive finance works that way. Sophisticated finance prices-in downside risk.

Sure that's the theory. But how do you accurately price in risk for rare events? The uncertainty is so large that any price you set is effectively just a guess.

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

#440

Post by Zigurd »

hef19898 wrote: post #291
NegativeLatency wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe a symptom of trading efficiency for resiliency?

In my experience, efficiency usually results in an increased level of resilience. You can easily sacrifice both, jeopardizing profits. Every time I saw that happen, it turned out some department-specific KPI (it doesn't matter which department, finance, production, sales, logistics,..) looked really good while that happened. All other sucked, but nobody cared. IMHO, this over emphasis on one silo, at the expense of a…

I have never seen a KPI that is sophisticated enough to not get gamed and not create perverse incentives.
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