Southwest Airlines has managed to turn airports nationwide into another level of hell. This post is making the rounds on Facebook. Take it for what it's worth but it seems to jibe with what is reported in the news.
A little more info on what’s going on with SWA..“My friend’s husband is a pilot with Southwest. He just posted this an hour ago. I’m not including his name or the photos he shared of packed SWA employee rooms at the airports over the past couple of days (in case his post comes back to bite him with the company—even though he’s stating facts.) He also posted a screenshot of a fellow pilot on hold with SWA Scheduling for over 22 hours. Anyway, here’s some insight for those wondering if this massive round of SWA cancellations is really all due to weather and staffing issues:“I don’t know what to say. Southwest Airlines has imploded. Their antiquated software system has completely fried. Planes are parked. Crews are stranded in the airports with the passengers, volunteering to take the passengers in the parked planes but the software won’t accept it. Phone lines are overwhelmed for both passenger and crews. I personally spent over two hours trying to get ahold of anyone in the company last night after midnight. A Captain and I did manage to get the one flight put together on Christmas night and got people home. Kudos to the ops agent and dispatcher for making it happen. We had to manually input a lot of the data and it took over an hour to coordinate with dispatch going back and forth running numbers.We spent hours trying to get the company to answer and get us a hotel when we landed as they’re all sold out. We were only put in a call que for hours before hanging up. I found one hotel with 4 rooms and we bought our own rooms at 2:30am. I even paid for a Flight Attendants room. We literally have crews sleeping on the airport floors all over the country with nowhere to go. Crews have been calling to fly anyone, anywhere, but the company says the system needs a reset. They have effectively shut down the operations for the rest of year, running 1/3 of the flights so that they can let the computer find and locate the crews and aircraft. Gate agents are in tears. They’ve been yelled at, cussed at, slapped and spit on. Flight attendants have been taking a beating. The frontline employees have had little support or communication. Terminals are standing room only with people having been there for days. Pilot lounges are packed with pilots ready to fly and nowhere to go.Embarrassing is an understatement. I’m going on my second of three days off, still stuck on the east coast and still expected to show up in the morning with no schedule. And I’m willing to fly all day if needed. Because that’s nothing compared to the passengers needing meds in bags that are lost and mothers traveling with kids, having been stuck for the same amount of days in the terminal. In 24 years, I’ve never seen anything like this. Heads need to roll! Rumors on media are floating that there is a lack of crews and pilots are staging sick calls. Absolutely not true at all. This is a computer system meltdown. Thousands of crew members are sitting in hotels and airports with nowhere to go. This airline has failed miserably.”
25 comments:
Pay up or shut down. Simple as. The working poor don’t care. They don’t fly.
All of the chaos in the commercial airline industry is due to one thing:
Tickets are too damn cheap.
Raise those prices until the demand matches the available seats and routes.
This is very unfortunate. SWA is one of the better "bargain" airlines, that allow practically everyone to fly. However, I agree with the post -- heads indeed need to roll. To have an antiquated software platform with no redundancy is unconscionable.
How much staff did Southwest force out for not getting jabbed?
You're doin' a heckuva job Bob Jordan!
I think this explains a lot about the failed computer system and corporatocracy:
"Jordan graduated from Texas A&M University with a Computer Science degree. Before joining Southwest Airlines in 1988, he worked as a programmer and financial analyst for Hewlett-Packard."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Jordan_(businessman)
Only 54 Billion dollars in Airline Welfare. Meh.
"Southwest Airlines outlined a compensation plan for new CEO Bob Jordan that could give him about $9 million in salary, bonus potential and restricted stock grants...." "Southwest made a $977 million profit in 2021. Southwest took about $3.7 billion in government payroll support through the three stimulus programs in 2020 and 2021."
The Ag Welfare Queens in Mississippi have gotten 20 Billion over the last 20 years. Yet they beg for more- more crop welfare, more Pump welfare,.... and Uncle Roger the RINO and Uncle Bennie and Cowgirl Cindy always find a way to pay for it all with the Middle Class getting the shaft and the Rich getting the tax breaks.
As the song goes, "You get your money for nothing and your chicks for free." If you are already rich.
Same as the Bankster Bailouts of 2008.
Rumors are that they’ve been hacked by state actors. Stay tuned.
I read that Southwest got $7.2 BILLION in COVID relief funds. I haven't verified that personally. If that's true, Southwest should be required to answer where that went.
When this is over I’m still flying Southwest.
New SWA CEO and CTO in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1...
There is no way LUV will survive the upcoming Class Action lawsuits which will wreck this airline.
Attorneys are now coordinating Billions of dollars in damages.. good luck LUV.
6:37: So the problem is too many people can afford fly. Yeah, right.
The PPP money went to pay salaries for pilots and flight attendants and mechanics and baggage handlers for 3 months when Trump shut down all the airlines.
SWA got the least amount of PPP money.
I'm following the stock. It made me a ton on money a few years ago - 6000 shares @$9 and sold @$54.
Watch this happen again.
Over 1,000,000 customers affected.
I’m a loyal A list preferred customer who travels so much I have a gazillion points and a companion pass. I rarely pay for airfare with money.
This holiday I was in Mexico having traveled on SW and they managed to get me back into the states but I was just told your return home is “cancelled.”
There was no help from anyone at SW. it’s like they hit delete and turned the lights off and locked the doors.
I booked an expensive flight home and found an expensive hotel to stay at for the night.
I knew better than to wait for SW because it was dead silent.
I submitted an email with costs and received a claim number but nothing else.
I plan to use the claim number to submit my receipts but I also plan on filing a suit in Justice court for $3500 and have them served. We shall see where that goes.
Their exposure is in the billions and I’m not sure they can make it without filing bankruptcy to be honest.
"Tickets are too damn cheap."
Beg to differ. Perhaps some increase sure.
But seems a more simple fix is only sell tickets for the amount of seats you have.
Honor your contract to move the customer from one point to another for the agreed upon price during the agreed upon time.
Greed is ruining airline travel. Along with big lobbyists that protect them from any repercussions when they fail to honor a basic service.
Just like Banks, Automotive and Pharmaceuticals. They are too big to fail so they fear nothing.
Another post making the rounds on social media:
Larry Lonero
December 28 at 10:21 AM ·
What happened to Southwest Airlines?
I’ve been a pilot for Southwest Airlines for over 35 years. I’ve given my heart and soul to Southwest Airlines during those years. And quite honestly Southwest Airlines has given its heart and soul to me and my family.
Many of you have asked what caused this epic meltdown. Unfortunately, the frontline employees have been watching this meltdown coming like a slow motion train wreck for sometime. And we’ve been begging our leadership to make much needed changes in order to avoid it. What happened yesterday started two decades ago.
Herb Kelleher was the brilliant CEO of SWA until 2004. He was a very operationally oriented leader. Herb spent lots of time on the front line. He always had his pulse on the day to day operation and the people who ran it. That philosophy flowed down through the ranks of leadership to the front line managers. We were a tight operation from top to bottom. We had tools, leadership and employee buy in. Everything that was needed to run a first class operation. When Herb retired in 2004 Gary Kelly became the new CEO.
Gary was an accountant by education and his style leading Southwest Airlines became more focused on finances and less on operations. He did not spend much time on the front lines. He didn’t engage front line employees much. When the CEO doesn’t get out in the trenches then neither do the lower levels of leadership.
Gary named another accountant to be Chief Operating Officer (the person responsible for day to day operations). The new COO had little or no operational background. This trickled down through the lower levels of leadership, as well.
They all disengaged the operation, disengaged the employees and focused more on Return on Investment, stock buybacks and Wall Street. This approach worked for Gary’s first 8 years because we were still riding the strong wave that Herb had built.
But as time went on the operation began to deteriorate. There was little investment in upgrading technology (after all, how do you measure the return on investing in infrastructure?) or the tools we needed to operate efficiently and consistently. As the frontline employees began to see the deterioration in our operation we began to warn our leadership. We educated them, we informed them and we made suggestions to them. But to no avail. The focus was on finances not operations. As we saw more and more deterioration in our operation our asks turned to pleas. Our pleas turned to dire warnings. But they went unheeded. After all, the stock price was up so what could be wrong?
We were a motivated, willing and proud employee group wanting to serve our customers and uphold the tradition of our beloved airline, the airline we built and the airline that the traveling public grew to cheer for and luv. But we were watching in frustration and disbelief as our once amazing airline was becoming a house of cards.
(continued)
(continued)
A half dozen small scale meltdowns occurred during the mid to late 2010’s. With each mini meltdown Leadership continued to ignore the pleas and warnings of the employees in the trenches. We were still operating with 1990’s technology. We didn’t have the tools we needed on the line to operate the sophisticated and large airline we had become. We could see that the wheels were about ready to fall off the bus. But no one in leadership would heed our pleas.
When COVID happened SWA scaled back considerably (as did all of the airlines) for about two years. This helped conceal the serious problems in technology, infrastructure and staffing that were occurring and being ignored. But as we ramped back up the lack of attention to the operation was waiting to show its ugly head.
Gary Kelly retired as CEO in early 2022. Bob Jordan was named CEO. He was a more operationally oriented leader. He replaced our Chief Operating Officer with a very smart man and they announced their priority would be to upgrade our airline’s technology and provide the frontline employees the operational tools we needed to care for our customers and employees. Finally, someone acknowledged the elephant in the room.
But two decades of neglect takes several years to overcome. And, unfortunately to our horror, our house of cards came tumbling down this week as a routine winter storm broke our 1990’s operating system.
The frontline employees were ready and on station. We were properly staffed. We were at the airports. Hell, we were ON the airplanes. But our antiquated software systems failed coupled with a decades old system of having to manage 20,000 frontline employees by phone calls. No automation had been developed to run this sophisticated machine.
We had a routine winter storm across the Midwest last Thursday. A larger than normal number flights were cancelled as a result. But what should have been one minor inconvenient day of travel turned into this nightmare. After all, American, United, Delta and the other airlines operated with only minor flight disruptions.
The two decades of neglect by SWA leadership caused the airline to lose track of all its crews. ALL of us. We were there. With our customers. At the jet. Ready to go. But there was no way to assign us. To confirm us. To release us to fly the flight. And we watched as our customers got stranded without their luggage missing their Christmas holiday.
I believe that our new CEO Bob Jordan inherited a MESS. This meltdown was not his failure but the failure of those before him. I believe he has the right priorities. But it will take time to right this ship. A few years at a minimum. Old leaders need to be replaced. Operationally oriented managers need to be brought in. I hope and pray Bob can execute on his promises to fix our once proud airline. Time will tell.
It’s been a punch in the gut for us frontline employees. We care for the traveling public. We have spent our entire careers serving you. Safely. Efficiently. With luv and pride. We are horrified. We are sorry. We are sorry for the chaos, inconvenience and frustration our airline caused you. We are angry. We are embarrassed. We are sad. Like you, the traveling public, we have been let down by our own leaders.
Herb once said the the biggest threat to Southwest Airlines will come from within. Not from other airlines. What a visionary he was. I miss Herb now more than ever.
"I read that Southwest got $7.2 BILLION in COVID relief funds. I haven't verified that personally. If that's true, Southwest should be required to answer where that went."
Designer Jeans with those new extra large pockets.
They are too big to fail. Another bailout is incoming. Stock holders have to be taken care of.
It’s a mess, but it’s totally bogus that a SW pilot posted that on social media and then a friend made it go viral. Geez
"The PPP money went to pay salaries for pilots and flight attendants and mechanics and baggage handlers"
Please provide a source for the information that supports that statement.
Events like this expose our utter and ridiculous dependence on computers for everything. Think about it we sent a man to the moon with the puter power of an Iwatch or less. We built Hoover Dam with little if any computers.
And yet when a scheduling system going down- assets (planes and crews) just sit around doing nothing - waiting on the computers to tell them what to do.
The tail is indeed wagging the dog here.
There must be a better way than to outsource ALL common sense and ability to scheduling software with no human backup ....
@ December 30, 2022 at 10:26 AM
Very easy to find the repeated post on the SWAPA FB page, as well as to find the original on Larry Lanero's FB page. But, ignorance is bliss, eh?
@11:13 a.m.: Unless we have mentats (a la Dune) human backups could not keep up with the data necessary to keep a large airline running. There are too many moving parts—thousands of employees, thousands of passengers, hundreds of planes, maintenance and service data, airport locations, gates, weather, etc. — to manage. The key isn’t human backup, but effective, up to date, secure computer systems and backup computer systems. But but no large airline can operate without an effective computer system.
The SWA IT department determined that their Commodore 64 computer overheated and failed. Replacement parts could not be located.
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