From what I’ve seen floating around the internet from employees, the start of the problem was their scheduling system/software crashed and burned and they are still trying to recover from it.
I won’t speak for John and I’m sure he has some inside shit that isn’t making the rounds, but what I was reading last night sounds like their scheduling was all built on a really old and increasingly unstable software/hardware, and that domino going over just absolutely snowballed in to the slow motion shit show/butt-slide we see happening still today.
I have also read that many of their processes are so antiquated that they require moving of actual paper documents, and reliance on phone conversations with humans instead of electronic/automated systems. Saw a post from a pilot that said he’s supposed to call in to get his assignment and can’t even get anyone on the phone.
See now you’ve got me imagining the butt slide but if the fielder had shit his pants first, and come to think of it, that seems like an apt description for Southwest right now.
I got bit by this on Sunday (Christmas) night. Scheduled flight OKC-HOU delayed from 7:15PM to 11:45PM and then eventually cancelled at 10PM. Flight was inbound from DC when they cancelled it, so I can only assume there was no crew to fly us to Houston. Since we had to be back for something on Monday we rented a car and drove home, arriving at 5:30AM. Do not recommend…
When I dropped off the rental at Hobby yesterday it was an absolute madhouse there. Hobby’s baggage claim is always terrible but it looked like Lord of the Flies in there yesterday. Just glad I was just passing through to get to the parking shuttle.
There have been several accurate points made here about our operations at SWA.
I can tell you as a frontline worker bee for 6 years here now, there is IT/tech deficit we’ve been complaining about for years, our phone system is antiquated (the stories of crews being on hold with our NOC (Network Operations Control) for hours are sadly accurate), our system for cataloging and tracking maintenance issues is a newly installed flaming pile of horseshit and the software Crew Scheduling “utilizes” to fix reroutes, delays, sick calls, et al is worse than the software used on original Commodore 64 computers what with its “solutions” it spits out for us during IROPs (irregular ops). I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been rerouted and the reroute was a fucking head-scratcher.
It’s incredibly maddening to watch this all unfold knowing that for years there have been issues staring at us in the face that needed to be addressed, but the C-suite at Love Field was ultimately more concerned about spending money/capital on share buybacks, about profit sharing, about profits over workers and shareholder dividends, and treating some of our rampers, gate agents, etc. like shit. Sadly, this is how it’s done in Corporate America nowadays.
We’ve created this mess, we’ve decided to kid ourselves that a once tiny Texas airline could grow so fast without adequate resources to do so properly and, as I stated before, we may pay a heavy price for this meltdown.
Gonna be an interesting 3 day trip tomorrow, y’all!
I haven’t been a frequent flyer for 20 years, don’t miss it, but SWA was where most of my travel occurred.
Living in Dallas area I much preferred it to the enormity of AA and D-FW airport.
Now, as a senior, most of our travel is by auto including long distance trips to both coasts. It is, of course, the only way to see fly-over country which, in many cases, is underrated.
I played Sunday league soccer back in the day. We were playing on a park pitch, and we were greeted with a pile of dog shit that appeared to have been left by a Great Dane after Thanksgiving. It was just outside the penalty area that we were defending in the first half.
Otherwise, the pitch was nice and soggy which is fantastic for sliding tackles, many of which were deployed during that first half. At the end of the half, we were all suitably muddied up from all the action. One of us (not me) was, unfortunately, muddied up in a different way, because there was a track from a sliding tackle that went right through and had obliterated the giant pile of dog shit.
When I was a kid, the local outlaw motorcycle gang had a “clubhouse” in the house behind my grandmother. Rumor was that part of the initiation was you had to go a week with dog shit smeared on your chest and neck.
Not long after moving off of South 1st a friend of mine once saw a topless woman wearing a grass skirt walking a goat on a leash. It was quite the introduction to south Austin after living north of the river her whole life.