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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

#481

Post by throwaway2037 »

Just some interesting points I found after Googling:

Saying "737" is actually 12 generations of the same aircraft.

Wiki (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_737) says: 737-100 -> 737-900, plus 737-MAX 7/8/9. Note: All have actually flown with commercial airlines and paying customers. (MAX 10: Not yet.)

Further, from the Wiki page for Southwest Airlines (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southwest_Airlines_fleet), first sentence in section after intro/summary: >

Deeper: >

Assuming both of these Wiki sources are correct, that means over 50 years, Southwest Airlines has flown 11 different generations of the 737.

Current fleet on Wiki says: 737-800, -900, MAX 7 & 8.

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

#482

Post by r3trohack3r »

doctorwho42 wrote: post #187
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?

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 if its not growing, then it is viewed as failing

I’ve only seen this in wealth generation instruments. Outside of those, I haven’t seen much of the “culture“ you’re referring to. In that framing, I think it makes sense and is anything but absurd.

The company is dual purpose at this point: part original mission (airline) part communal investment. Being a great airline that is comfortable with its current market definition isn’t sufficient for its second purpose. The commune’s investment expects growth in the abstract sense. They aren’t interested in Airlines, they’re interested in purchasing a piece of future growth.

Your Vanguard mutual fund’s performance depends on exponential growth - healthy retirement strategies live primarily off of growth, not principal, during the retirement phase. Maintaining value (~+2% on paper growth) doesn’t earn your company a place in society’s communal pool of assets.

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

#483

Post by jksmith »

doctorwho42 wrote: post #187
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?

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…

Your opening statement impresses me as a rather gross generalization. Kind of pro-union, anti-big business.

Nothing wrong with making an effort to lean out an organization, which is simply meant to make it more efficient and more competitive. It's not specifically just cutting staff, it's a lot of things. The trick is to not confuse leaning out with cannibalization. Like Musk says, if you aren't having to add stuff back in, then you aren't deleting enough.

The airline industry is under insane pressure given the environment, and this stuff is bound to happen. Safety may even be unintentionally sacrificed. This space is far from thermodynamically sound right now. If somebody has an easy answer for it, that would be some fat consulting stacks for the BTC fund.

I'll counter your generalization with my own: F250's are hammered with middle-management baggage. MM makes shitty decisions, and still causes tons of wait states. Having consulted for five F500's now, my observation so far is that the 250-500 range are much more incentivized to do what it takes to become more competitive. OTOH, the F20's I've consulted for severely need some waves of boomer (my gen) retirements.

BTW, the general reason M&A activity increases is because the associated market space has contraction pressure on it. What else are you supposed to do? The beginning of the end for markets, governments, empires. That's just the way us humans do things.

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

#484

Post by downandout »

unethical_ban wrote: post #471
downandout wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's less about people being against the vaccine and more about people being against the mandates . One giant issue with them is that they completely ignore natural immunity, which over 30% of the country now has and studies show is drastically better than the vaccine, but without the dangerous side effects. If the mandates were rational, they would be centered around antibody tests.

There are very rare "dangerous" side effects to the vaccines.

There have been ~180 million vaccinations in the US and approximately 16,000 deaths shortly after receiving it, along with over 75,000 hospitalizations [1]. That implies the odds of dying from the vaccine are 1 in 11,250, and odds of serious complications requiring hospitalization are 1 in 2,400. The odds of a healthy 35 year old dying from COVID are 1 in 2,700.

So the odds of serious, possibly permanent injury, or death, from the vaccine are slightly higher than the odds of dying from COVID for those 35 and younger. I realize that you will now dispute VAERS numbers, but they are the closest thing we have to accurate data on this.

[1] https://openvaers.com/

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

#486

Post by downandout »

dabernathy89 wrote: post #367
downandout wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The most likely explanation is here [1]. Pilots (and apparently some air traffic controllers) are doing a sickout to protest vaccine mandates, presumably to make the powers that be understand just how difficult they can make things for the country if they proceed with intended mass firings. But the sickout is technically illegal, so nobody will acknowledge it. That is why you won't see a clear explanation of this inc…

> unless they take something that many consider to be quite dangerous. Of course, zero pushback on this nonsense idea

For a healthy person under 35, the odds of dying or having to be hospitalized shortly after receiving the vaccine are slightly higher than the odds of dying from COVID [1]. While the odds of any of these events, including dying from COVID, are low, there are certainly risks. We are faced with only bad choices in this pandemic - take a vaccine that has a high death/hospitalization rate relative to other vaccines, or roll the dice with COVID.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28829574

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

#487

Post by cratermoon »

wara23arish wrote: post #210
rmah wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would mean that 60% to 65% of those that died were not obese! Just FYI, the CDC says that about 42% of American adults are classified as "obese".

the people dying/hospitalized from covid are overwhelmingly obese. a quick google search will prove this easily. covid mortalities are not a 1:1 mapping with obese/not obese.

> the people dying/hospitalized from covid are overwhelmingly obese

Do you have a source for this claim other than "just google it"?

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

#488

Post by ceejayoz »

syshum wrote: post #461
ceejayoz wrote: post #422

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If fetuses were infectious - if you could stand by a pregnant person at the bus stop or grocery store or school, and suddenly find yourself pregnant by breathing the same air - "my body, my choice" would not be the reproductive rights slogan.

That is both a weak and dangerous argument if you place any value at all on individual freedom. As a vaccinated person I have a MUCH MUCH greater risk of dying in a car accident on the way to the grocery store than I do of contracting a deadly case of COVID. Before the vaccine was widely available you may have had a case but once you become vaccinated your risk level drops to well below other risks we already accept…

Our society has always balanced individual freedoms versus the impacts exercising them have on others.

I cannot have murder, child porn, or heroin use be a part of my religious ceremonies. I cannot have libel be a part of my free speech and expression. I cannot be Typhoid Mary and spread disease around. I cannot open a restaurant that skips hand washing. I cannot go to public school unvaccinated for measles and a number of other diseases in most states. I cannot drive drunk, despite research showing doing so actually improves my chances of surviving an accident (https://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode/odds-favo...).

Immunocompromised people exist. Tens of millions of children aren't yet eligible for the vaccines. I'm inclined to consider their individual freedoms not to be needlessly infected by a pandemic disease as important, too.

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

#489

Post by smsm42 »

toyg wrote: post #366
TeMPOraL wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Who's going to remember this? Even a large percentage of the stranded passengers are likely to fly Southwest again to save $36 on a flight. You can see how this is a problem, right? This essentially means the market is not working as it should - instead of improving quality of service, it makes people absorb the bad experience, ad infinitum. The market is not able to deliver feedback to the companies, who instead r…

> This essentially means the market is not working as it should Actually the market works just fine: it transfers price pressures efficiently across all participants - including human beings. It's society that doesn't work anymore, because it has now lost any meaning of 'value' beyond monetary terms for most of the population. Most consumers now cannot choose not to minimize expenditure: either because they cannot af…

Well, some people are OK with getting shitty service once in a while in exchange for drastically lower prices. The thing is, I don't see Southwest prices being drastically lower - I had been checking it for a while when travelling and at least where I go, their price level is no different from their competition - they occasionally have a good deal, but so do the competitors, and their regular prices aren't that different otherwise in my experience. Maybe statistically it's not true but anecdotally for me I'm not sure there's even minimizing expenditure that much...

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

#490

Post by cratermoon »

fareesh wrote: post #225
rmah wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would mean that 60% to 65% of those that died were not obese! Just FYI, the CDC says that about 42% of American adults are classified as "obese".

This assumes that COVID-19 deaths are equally distributed across the entire population, regardless of obesity. Without evidence, it is not accurate to assume this equal distribution.

Nor is there evidence for the claim that the so-called "obese" (as measured by the flawed and worthless BMI standard https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=106268...) are dying disproportionately. Calling it the fault of the "obese" is just another way of deflecting blame from the criminally selfish and incompetent behavior of the previous administration and leaders in states like Idaho, Texas, Tennessee, and Florida.
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