Southwest is one of the few airlines that has non-stops from AUS and Chicago and Kansas City, so I fly them almost exclusively. In general, I'm always impressed with how well everything is run, and how professional and friendly their crew are.
Massive Southwest Airlines disruption leaves customers stranded
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Re: Massive Southwest Airlines disruption leaves customers stranded
#22https://old.reddit.com/r/SouthwestAirlines/comments/zw32yt/p... (From another HN posting at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34145303 )
Title: "PSA from a SWA employee since the company won’t give any info" to give some idea of what you're clicking on
Re: Massive Southwest Airlines disruption leaves customers stranded
#23Found this interesting reading as to a possible reason why their flight system seems so much more fragile than the legacy carriers: https://www.inc.com/kelly-main/southwest-becomes-one-of-amer...
Extreme nitpick on my part: Southwest isn't actually a legacy carrier: they were one of the first "low-cost" carriers to begin interstate travel after the airlines were deregulated in 1978. The only remaining legacy carriers in the US are Delta, American, United, Hawaiian, and Alaska.
Sorry I wasn’t clear- you’re correct. I didn’t intend to imply southwest is one of the legacy carriers. I edited my original post.
Re: Massive Southwest Airlines disruption leaves customers stranded
#24There's an unsubstantiated rumor that 120 Southwest ramp agents walked off the job at Denver International Airport after the VP of operations out of Dallas sent a demanding (and possibly unreasonable) memo to the Denver staff banning sick time without a doctors note and requiring mandatory overtime. https://twitter.com/AtSouthwest/status/1606543397996855296 If true, it could account for a majority of SW's cancellatio…
Yep, I'm never flying southwest again
Re: Massive Southwest Airlines disruption leaves customers stranded
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've flown Southwest dozens of times. While I like their lower costs it's pretty easy to see where they are cutting costs with operations. In "normal" conditions their cost cutting is just functional. In any sort of exceptional situation their entire system fall apart.
On what other occasion has their entire system fallen apart? Most every other passenger I encountered during this debacle said something to the effect of “this never happens on Southwest”. I do agree that they’ve been squeezing the system (especially labor) the last few years during their covid expansion, however. This weather was apparently the final straw.
Every single one has had this happen. Delta by memorial day, Alaska Airline in May, a whole bunch of them Aug 7, and June 17-20, Apr 3.
I happens quite frequently, but unless you follow airline news, or you were personally impacted you would not necessarily know.
Re: Massive Southwest Airlines disruption leaves customers stranded
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've flown Southwest dozens of times. While I like their lower costs it's pretty easy to see where they are cutting costs with operations. In "normal" conditions their cost cutting is just functional. In any sort of exceptional situation their entire system fall apart.
On what other occasion has their entire system fallen apart? Most every other passenger I encountered during this debacle said something to the effect of “this never happens on Southwest”. I do agree that they’ve been squeezing the system (especially labor) the last few years during their covid expansion, however. This weather was apparently the final straw.
The inc article I linked to above has several examples of other days where SWA cancelled hundreds to a thousand flights at one time. But today has clearly dwarfed even the worst of the previous incidents.
Re: Massive Southwest Airlines disruption leaves customers stranded
#27There's an unsubstantiated rumor that 120 Southwest ramp agents walked off the job at Denver International Airport after the VP of operations out of Dallas sent a demanding (and possibly unreasonable) memo to the Denver staff banning sick time without a doctors note and requiring mandatory overtime. https://twitter.com/AtSouthwest/status/1606543397996855296 If true, it could account for a majority of SW's cancellatio…
I wouldn’t doubt this, although a friend stuck at Denver yesterday told me he ran into a Southwest employee who couldn’t figure out where he was supposed to be for hours. WSJ mentioned it could be due to their call-in scheduling system being totally overwhelmed.
It's crazy that airlines can't keep their internal tools working.
Re: Massive Southwest Airlines disruption leaves customers stranded
#28There's an unsubstantiated rumor that 120 Southwest ramp agents walked off the job at Denver International Airport after the VP of operations out of Dallas sent a demanding (and possibly unreasonable) memo to the Denver staff banning sick time without a doctors note and requiring mandatory overtime. https://twitter.com/AtSouthwest/status/1606543397996855296 If true, it could account for a majority of SW's cancellatio…
I don’t know about majority. Looking at pilot forums their scheduling system seems to be in complete disarray. Hours long wait times to get through on the phone, no awareness of where crews are even located.
Re: Massive Southwest Airlines disruption leaves customers stranded
#29There's an unsubstantiated rumor that 120 Southwest ramp agents walked off the job at Denver International Airport after the VP of operations out of Dallas sent a demanding (and possibly unreasonable) memo to the Denver staff banning sick time without a doctors note and requiring mandatory overtime. https://twitter.com/AtSouthwest/status/1606543397996855296 If true, it could account for a majority of SW's cancellatio…
You have cause and effect backwards.
That memo appears to be issued as a result of all the flight problems. And it says it's a temporary emergency policy due to the current trouble they are having.
Re: Massive Southwest Airlines disruption leaves customers stranded
#30There's an unsubstantiated rumor that 120 Southwest ramp agents walked off the job at Denver International Airport after the VP of operations out of Dallas sent a demanding (and possibly unreasonable) memo to the Denver staff banning sick time without a doctors note and requiring mandatory overtime. https://twitter.com/AtSouthwest/status/1606543397996855296 If true, it could account for a majority of SW's cancellatio…
Yep, I'm never flying southwest again
Understandable but on the flip side, the backlash from this may result in them being one of the best airlines to fly in the near future.