Southwest Airlines Debacle

[NewOrleans]

Dec 29, 2022 16:25:30 GMT -5 nothingcontroversial said:

Dec 29, 2022 11:56:07 GMT -5 NewOrleans said:

Et tu Brute?

Next you’re going to be saying fresh undies. ::dies::

the undies 

😭

[audette]

Dec 29, 2022 13:55:20 GMT -5 pixy0stix said:

Dec 29, 2022 13:39:33 GMT -5 bears said:

@puxy0stix I'm not sure if you know this, but medical devices don't count towards a carry on bag allowance, so you could carry it separately if you like.

Yes, I do know. It's a big bag, plus my personal bag, so it's chucked into a roller carry-on.

For reference, my husband's CPAP is about 4x10x12 inches.  It's not wee.  And, yes, it doesn't count as a carry-on, but like we want to be bothered with a rollerbag, a personal item, _and_ this additional thing.  Instead, it gets packed inside his backpack, or it becomes his personal item.

[BlondeSpiders]

Dec 29, 2022 10:56:05 GMT -5 Velar Fricative said:

Dec 29, 2022 10:50:09 GMT -5 pixy0stix said:

Every flight I've been on for the last two years has forced some people to check their carry on bags. Again, the industry as a whole needs to be revamped, and it has nothing to do if people fly "smart" and do or don't check their bags.

A few weeks ago the gate crew were practically begging people to voluntarily gate check their bags before boarding because the plane was full. So, they knew they’d have a problem even before we all got on, which…why would they know that if they weren’t purposely reducing overhead storage (or adding more seats without adding more overhead storage)? So yeah, revamp it all. Every seat should should correspond with the ability to store one piece of reasonably-sized carryon overhead.

Every flight I've been on this year has asked people to gate check their bags, whether the flight was overbooked or not. There's always some jackwagon shoving his roller bag in sideways, or someone putting their stuff in the 1st class overhead bins and then make their way down to row 20.

[Velar Fricative]

Dec 29, 2022 17:30:58 GMT -5 BlondeSpiders said:

Dec 29, 2022 10:56:05 GMT -5 Velar Fricative said:

A few weeks ago the gate crew were practically begging people to voluntarily gate check their bags before boarding because the plane was full. So, they knew they’d have a problem even before we all got on, which…why would they know that if they weren’t purposely reducing overhead storage (or adding more seats without adding more overhead storage)? So yeah, revamp it all. Every seat should should correspond with the ability to store one piece of reasonably-sized carryon overhead.

Every flight I've been on this year has asked people to gate check their bags, whether the flight was overbooked or not. There's always some jackwagon shoving his roller bag in sideways, or someone putting their stuff in the 1st class overhead bins and then make their way down to row 20.

In this case though, I’m talking about well before we actually boarded. But, reading earlier I thought perhaps there’s a legit reason beyond airlines being stingy with storage and seating, like maybe they knew ahead of time there would be several medical devices being brought on. Nah, I still think it’s airlines’ only greed screwing this up.

[goldengirlz]

Dec 29, 2022 18:09:24 GMT -5 Velar Fricative said:

Dec 29, 2022 17:30:58 GMT -5 BlondeSpiders said:

Every flight I've been on this year has asked people to gate check their bags, whether the flight was overbooked or not. There's always some jackwagon shoving his roller bag in sideways, or someone putting their stuff in the 1st class overhead bins and then make their way down to row 20.

In this case though, I’m talking about well before we actually boarded. But, reading earlier I thought perhaps there’s a legit reason beyond airlines being stingy with storage and seating, like maybe they knew ahead of time there would be several medical devices being brought on. Nah, I still think it’s airlines’ only greed screwing this up.

I think it’s because they know they only have space for X number of bags per flight. So if the flight is full, they already know that a certain number of people won’t be able to bring bags on board, assuming the typical X% of passengers have carry-ons. Sometimes they’re wrong about the number (I’ve been in situations where I’ve been forced to gate check a bag and then found an empty spot right above my seat — annoying) but it’s easier for them to proactively begin gate checking than do it during boarding, when it slows down the flow.

FWIW, United has been advertising new planes where every seat has a dedicated overhead luggage slot. I’m sure they’ll appear on the premium routes first (cross-country and international), but they look cool.

[Michelle]

Dec 27, 2022 22:11:07 GMT -5 SusanBAnthony said:

As an employee of a company that runs shockingly large systems in Excel instead of SAP, I am cackling with glee/horror.

i'm just getting into this thread and someone else might have said it already, but i've totally been imagining some analyst with SWA creating a whole new excel file of all their planes, where they are today, where they need to be as of January 1, and using pivot table formulas to put a plan together to reset their whole system.

I say this as someone who didn't have adequate software for the >1500 ADA requests that came in during the first 2 months of covid - for a single incumbent position that was vacant at the time and previously handled about 100-140 ADA requests a year.

SWA is going to be an incredible case study for investment in IT infrastructure that isn't tangible to the bean counters who say no for every software investment, but which is absolutely imperative for maintaining value and mitigating risk.

[bronxgirl]

Dec 29, 2022 16:45:14 GMT -5 NewOrleans said:

Dec 29, 2022 16:25:30 GMT -5 nothingcontroversial said:

the undies 

😭

It sounds like the undies in question are fresh undies. Bonus!!

[NewOrleans]

Dec 29, 2022 20:29:01 GMT -5 bronxgirl said:

Dec 29, 2022 16:45:14 GMT -5 NewOrleans said:

😭

It sounds like the undies in question are fresh undies. Bonus!!

Diabolical.

[aurora]

Dec 29, 2022 18:09:24 GMT -5 Velar Fricative said:

Dec 29, 2022 17:30:58 GMT -5 BlondeSpiders said:

Every flight I've been on this year has asked people to gate check their bags, whether the flight was overbooked or not. There's always some jackwagon shoving his roller bag in sideways, or someone putting their stuff in the 1st class overhead bins and then make their way down to row 20.

In this case though, I’m talking about well before we actually boarded. But, reading earlier I thought perhaps there’s a legit reason beyond airlines being stingy with storage and seating, like maybe they knew ahead of time there would be several medical devices being brought on. Nah, I still think it’s airlines’ only greed screwing this up.

It's definitely related to the current profit model including charging to check a bag! More people will plan to carry on (compared to 10+ years ago) especially knowing that they can gate check for free of they need to.

We sometimes check, sometimes don't. H had a checked bag lost on a direct flight last year - it was loaded on a different plane to a different city. Really? But we've always gotten our bags eventually.

[Deleted]

Dec 29, 2022 16:25:30 GMT -5 nothingcontroversial said:

Dec 29, 2022 11:56:07 GMT -5 NewOrleans said:

Et tu Brute?

Next you’re going to be saying fresh undies. ::dies::

There should be some kind of "Doordash, except for underwear" service. If you lose your luggage, or your house burns down, or you have some other calamity that leaves you without underwear, the delivery person goes to the nearest Walmart or something and gets you a pack or two of underwear in your size. Nothing fancy, and not your preferred brand. Just something that fits and can tide you over until you get your luggage returned or are able to order and receive the undies that you prefer to wear. 

Basically a commercialized pants-person.

[basilosaurus]

I don't hang out on travel sites beyond planning and recs for imminent travel, but I think the packing light tips are all about convenience. Less so in us, but it's a huge pita to travel with a large bag. I nearly always regret it. Between transit, uneven sidewalks, no or tiny elevators with even smaller staircases, taxis the size of a monopoly car, my swearing can be heard around the world when I have anything larger than a backpack.

I don't care about the state of my undies 👹

I place this all at the feet of the airlines, though, not the traveler. Despite my complaints about budget regional airlines here, they usually allow about #15 free checked and most people utilize it. They'll even check bags half the size of a (non stuffed) American carry on. When you're usually bussed to the plane and walking up stairs, yep, who wants to deal with bags?

Years ago my partner and his gramma permanently lost their bags and were reimbursed $2000. She had way more than that packed (furs ersumshit). He mostly had free t shirts from being every sorority girl's safety date. Fingers crossed these travelers are in the latter category.

Also for any storage wars fans, there's apparently a giant warehouse in some place like Arkansas where people will buy the deemed lost bags.

[wise_rita]

This shit would not fly in Europe. If an airline cancels on you (or even delays 3+ hours I think it is)* they've got to pay you cash money.

* weather excluded

[cattledogkisses]

Dec 30, 2022 8:17:30 GMT -5 wise_rita said:

This shit would not fly in Europe. If an airline cancels on you (or even delays 3+ hours I think it is)* they've got to pay you cash money.

* weather excluded

Yeah, living in Europe really emphasized to me how much the US airline industry sucks. 

I hope Mayor Pete can make some change. 

[AAM2012]

Dec 29, 2022 6:24:23 GMT -5 underwaterrhymes said:

Dec 29, 2022 3:03:19 GMT -5 al dente said:

I feel like this is a dumb question... But how is luggage getting there if the people aren't? I always thought your bags just went under your own plane so traveled with you the whole way.

There was a woman on TikTok who said that SW told her that she could not get her bags, which were in her departure city which she also never left, until her bags traveled WITHOUT her to her destination city and then made their way back to the departure city.

That seems weird because what if she never travels or goes on a different airline.

I know here locally they were allowing people to come pick up their luggage but it was taking them a while to sort through tons of bags.

[ellipses84]

It’s crazy! I usually fly Alaska over SW on the west coast and I’m sure glad we did for our current trip. I heard SW was trying to blame staffing issues at first and current staff has come forward anonymously along with former staff to say it’s the computer system, and people who brought up the issues were seen as problems while people who swept it under the rug were promoted. Staff was showing up at airports just in case they could fly and the computer system would not let them, and it was taking hours to manually input everything they were required to. Their staff was stranded in random cities, sometimes without hotel rooms, during the holidays. I feel so bad for all of the passengers who had holiday plans ruined or were stranded.

There are some sweet stories like strangers road-tripping or people taking photos of the luggage tags on abandoned luggage at airports and texting people to let them know where bags were.

[TR]

I honestly feel a little bad for the new CEO. Apparently he just took over at the beginning of 2022 and wanted to fix the operations issues that the previous CEO had caused, but you can't do that so quickly and now he's really taking the fall for this.

[melmaria]

Great op-ed by WaPo (gift link), which notes that this problem happened before and they still failed to do something: wapo.st/3G5sEdc

“What’s particularly egregious is the fact that Southwest had the money to upgrade its systems but chose to hand it to shareholders instead. The airline recently announced it would pay a dividend again that amounts to $428 million a year. Southwest also received more than $7 billion from the U.S. federal government to shore up its operations during the pandemic. It paid a quarterly dividend for years before the coronavirus struck, signaling to Wall Street that the airline had cash to spare.

…

But the fact is, Southwest should have seen the debacle coming and averted it long before now. This isn’t the first time Southwest has had this kind of systemwide meltdown. In October 2021, the airline canceled more than 2,000 flights over four days, blaming bad weather in Florida. The ordeal cost the airline $75 million. Executives apologized and handed out vouchers to irate customers. As recently as Dec. 21, The Post reported, an internal company memo foreshadowed the current crisis. As the storm was preparing to hit, the memo warned, Southwest’s Denver operation was reaching a “state of operational emergency” because of an “unusually high number of absences” of ramp employees, who handle baggage and help planes park at gates.

Southwest markets itself as a different kind of carrier — a plucky, friendly one that shook up the stodgy airline industry in the 1970s to make jet travel easier, more flexible and more affordable. The airline prides itself on its corporate culture, unfailingly nice employees, cabins where there are no seat assignments and fares that are often among the cheapest to be found. Its logo is in the shape of a heart, and its stock symbol is LUV. All of that — as well as Southwest’s bottom line — has now been put at risk by its leadership’s shortsighted decisions to ignore needed investments while tending to investors.”

[mcsangel2]

Dec 30, 2022 11:53:05 GMT -5 TR said:

I honestly feel a little bad for the new CEO. Apparently he just took over at the beginning of 2022 and wanted to fix the operations issues that the previous CEO had caused, but you can't do that so quickly and now he's really taking the fall for this.

I read a FB post by a SW pilot this morning (a different pilot who posted on Twitter a few days ago) and he outlined the timeline of what was happening in the company from the late 90s (when this pilot started) to now. He said the CEO back then is the one who really made SW successful. He retired in 2004, and the next CEO was someone who was an accountant, who basically only cared about squeezing nickels out of the operation and stopped engaging with anything to do with operations. The pilot said the company went along fine for the first 8 years or so of that CEO's tenure because of the work the previous CEO had put in. The cracks started showing in the early-mid 2010s. Then this asshole retired at the beginning of this year.

The current CEO's been here less than a year! The pilot says this catastrophe isn't his fault, it's been 2 decades in the making. Also says he had already committed to upgrading their computer systems, but it was still in progress. 

If that's all true, I'd agree that it sucks for this CEO to be the fall guy. That said, DH and I are wondering if SW can even survive this.

[pixy0stix]

Dec 30, 2022 15:56:38 GMT -5 mcsangel2 said:

Dec 30, 2022 11:53:05 GMT -5 TR said:

I honestly feel a little bad for the new CEO. Apparently he just took over at the beginning of 2022 and wanted to fix the operations issues that the previous CEO had caused, but you can't do that so quickly and now he's really taking the fall for this.

I read a FB post by a SW pilot this morning (a different pilot who posted on Twitter a few days ago) and he outlined the timeline of what was happening in the company from the late 90s (when this pilot started) to now. He said the CEO back then is the one who really made SW successful. He retired in 2004, and the next CEO was someone who was an accountant, who basically only cared about squeezing nickels out of the operation and stopped engaging with anything to do with operations. The pilot said the company went along fine for the first 8 years or so of that CEO's tenure because of the work the previous CEO had put in. The cracks started showing in the early-mid 2010s. Then this asshole retired at the beginning of this year.

The current CEO's been here less than a year! The pilot says this catastrophe isn't his fault, it's been 2 decades in the making. Also says he had already committed to upgrading their computer systems, but it was still in progress. 

If that's all true, I'd agree that it sucks for this CEO to be the fall guy. That said, DH and I are wondering if SW can even survive this.

That's literally the post in this thread.

[wise_rita]

Dec 30, 2022 10:47:27 GMT -5 mofongo said:

Dec 30, 2022 8:17:30 GMT -5 wise_rita said:

This shit would not fly in Europe. If an airline cancels on you (or even delays 3+ hours I think it is)* they've got to pay you cash money.

* weather excluded

I believe legally they have to, I saw a news segment about it. You’re entitled to a refund, not just credit for future flights.

I don't mean a refund of what you paid, I mean PAY you for the inconvenience.  It's based on the length of the flight (km), between 250 and 600 Euros with zero regard for what the flight cost.

The sweet spot is a flight delayed by 3 hours but you still get to your destination.  One time I got 250 Euros for a flight that cost less than 50!

Passengers have rights and is a huge culture difference.

[underwaterrhymes]

Dec 30, 2022 10:36:44 GMT -5 AAM2012 said:

Dec 29, 2022 6:24:23 GMT -5 underwaterrhymes said:

There was a woman on TikTok who said that SW told her that she could not get her bags, which were in her departure city which she also never left, until her bags traveled WITHOUT her to her destination city and then made their way back to the departure city.

That seems weird because what if she never travels or goes on a different airline.

I know here locally they were allowing people to come pick up their luggage but it was taking them a while to sort through tons of bags.

It sounds like a lot of people got the same message, but that it’s not consistent. I also heard that it could take months for people to get their luggage, but I’m encouraged to hear that some people are starting to be able to access them.

[steamboat185]

We finally got home today a few days late and on United instead of Southwest. We took the train and for whatever reason 2 trains in a row were cancelled so we got to hang out on a standing room only train for about 45 minutes. Once we finally got to the car the battery was dead AAA was backed up for a long time and there were zero lyfts/Ubers. DH ended up walking 2 miles round trip to store to get a car battery starter. I’m guessing the -20 (or whatever Denver had last week) killed the battery. While neither of those were the fault of Southwest, it just put a nice ending on already crappy and expensive situation.

[erbear]

Dec 30, 2022 10:36:44 GMT -5 AAM2012 said:

Dec 29, 2022 6:24:23 GMT -5 underwaterrhymes said:

There was a woman on TikTok who said that SW told her that she could not get her bags, which were in her departure city which she also never left, until her bags traveled WITHOUT her to her destination city and then made their way back to the departure city.

That seems weird because what if she never travels or goes on a different airline.

I know here locally they were allowing people to come pick up their luggage but it was taking them a while to sort through tons of bags.

My bag never made it on my flight for my honeymoon. NBD, I bought a couple of dresses and bathing suits and called it a day (I did get reimbursed). When we returned to Philly, I went to try to track it down and low and behold, there was my bag, on the floor of the office, never boarded a plane a week later 🙄. They wanted me to fill out a bunch of forms and I remember just saying “yeah…I’m going to take my bag and go home” and walking out.

[escrow]

Dec 28, 2022 11:45:06 GMT -5 bears said:

Dec 27, 2022 23:04:59 GMT -5 SusanBAnthony said:

Yep, exactly. Every year individual contributors and mid level managers share a message that this is going to end in catastrophy, and every year it gets bigger and bigger and harder to fix.....

I can't imagine that there's any quick solution to fixing the outdated software unless they are in progress. Even with fast tracking, outsourcing, taking people away from their core responsibilities to help build, and throwing money at the problem, I don't see how they can feasibly get a solution any time soon (I'm thinking at least a year).

I am just now reading though this... so I am a Software Engineer at Southwest... sigh... I work in revenue management, so nowhere near any of the inflight or crew systems and I really had no idea how bad things were. I started six months ago. I will say that for the last several months the CEO has been discussing the absolute priority of modernizing the operations - throughout the company - and projects are already in the pipeline. I know on my team most of what we are working on is modernization. I really hope this is the swift kick in the ass needed to make the higher ups get this implemented asap, along with some solid plans for what we will do when weather hits next time and we are still using the tools available today.

I know the crew scheduling systems are several systems that communicate back and forth, and when cancelations started coming in the messaging all got bogged down and just could not keep up, essentially shitting the bed. The horrible weather and -20 temps across the country were definitely the catalyst - but we need to build in some buffer to beef up staffing to have proper back ups.

So many things. My brain is fried, and I can't even fathom being one of the front line workers going through this mess (not to mention all of our poor customers). 

I will say - I have worked at many places throughout my years and I have never ever felt as much appreciated and cared for by an employee ever - like not even close. I really really hope we can get out shit together. Looks like flights are back to normal operations as of today (Friday).