Southwest Airlines

[BeerNut]

I somehow managed to miss all of the trouble.  Flew into LGA on 12/26 and flew home 12/30 no issues.  I did preemptively book hotel rooms if we got stuck in NYC for new years.  I have no plans to quit using SWA for domestic flights and cheap international getaways.  With TSA precheck I normally leave my house less than a hour(I've cut it way closer if getting dropped off) before boarding vs IAH leaving minimum 2hrs before boarding because of typical bs trying to fly out of there.

[editor]

When the feds said, "This is no longer a weather problem, it's a Southwest problem" I thought that was telling.

If Spirit can keep from collapsing, Southwest has no excuse other than greed.  As in, "Should we update our computer systems, or rack up another billion dollars in profit?"  Southwest's profit from September 2021 - September 2022 was $5,920,000,000.

All this time, Southwest has been all smug about being the only major airline to structure its flights in a point-to-point loop.  Perhaps running an airline the same way that city buses run isn't the best idea.

[Ross]

1 hour ago, editor said:

When the feds said, "This is no longer a weather problem, it's a Southwest problem" I thought that was telling.

If Spirit can keep from collapsing, Southwest has no excuse other than greed.  As in, "Should we update our computer systems, or rack up another billion dollars in profit?"  Southwest's profit from September 2021 - September 2022 was $5,920,000,000.

All this time, Southwest has been all smug about being the only major airline to structure its flights in a point-to-point loop.  Perhaps running an airline the same way that city buses run isn't the best idea.

I think it's more like running an airline on 40 year old technology is a bad idea. The point to point structure isn't an issue, but you have to have a system that can tolerate upsets and doesn't require a room full of 70 year old programmers to figure out what's going on. If the railroads can get their freight to where it's going, and keep track of crews and such, there's no reason SWA can't do t.

[editor]

1 minute ago, Ross said:

I think it's more like running an airline on 40 year old technology is a bad idea. The point to point structure isn't an issue, but you have to have a system that can tolerate upsets and doesn't require a room full of 70 year old programmers to figure out what's going on. If the railroads can get their freight to where it's going, and keep track of crews and such, there's no reason SWA can't do t.

I think it's both. 

The computers and scheduling were absolutely a part of the problem.  But running bus loops reduces resiliency.  Just like the more links you add to a chain, the more places it can break.

If a storm shuts down Houston, Dallas, and New Orleans, an airline using spoke-and-hub routing can just shut down those cities and the rest of the network moves along.  It doesn't affect people flying from Portland to Seattle.  It's logistics 101.  It's why Amazon spends billions on warehouses moving product closer to the customer: To reduce the number of hops required to complete a delivery.  When I first moved to Las Vegas, our Amazon deliveries — even the next day ones — came out of Phoenix or Reno.  Amazon eventually opened warehouses in Vegas.  The delivery time remained the same, but unexpected delivery delays almost disappeared.

The last time I flew Southwest, my flight from Chicago to Houston was delayed because of problems in Florida.  The plane ended up being late out of Orlando, then late out of Albany, then late out of Buffalo, and then late into Chicago, making us three hours late getting to Houston.   In the bus world, it's what causes "bus bunching."  The airline version is a Southwest Meltdown.

There's a reason that only discount airlines use that system: To squeeze every penny out of the operation, at the risk of things going catastrophically wrong.  They shift the risk and burden from the airline to the customer.

[JClark54]

37 minutes ago, Ross said:

I think it's more like running an airline on 40 year old technology is a bad idea. The point to point structure isn't an issue, but you have to have a system that can tolerate upsets and doesn't require a room full of 70 year old programmers to figure out what's going on. If the railroads can get their freight to where it's going, and keep track of crews and such, there's no reason SWA can't do t.

There's a growing position among customers that major railways don't get freight where it needs to go and have a scheduling system so burdensome they don't position crews where they need to be, or lose them altogether. 

The Surface Transportation Board just had to force UP to deliver five trains of feed to Foster Farms, a major poultry producer, for what it determined was UP's failure to uphold service it had previously agreed to and already taken money for. This is the third time the STB has had to force UP to provide service to this same customer after accepting payment. 

The order states UP must deliver five trains destined for Foster Farms facilities in Traver, Turlock, and Delhi, Calif., on a schedule provided by UP in a pleading to the board, and those five trains arrive between Dec. 31 and Jan. 3. The railroad must also provide the board with daily updates on the location of the trains, and by Jan. 3, provide the board with its plans to service Foster Farms over the next 30 days.

Foster Farms told the board that it had again reached the point “where hundreds of thousands of dairy cattle are not being fed, and millions of chickens will starve to death because of UP’s service failures.”

FF's filing states: On Dec. 26, 2022, dairy cattle supplied by Foster Farms had been without feed for 10 days at its Turlock milling operations, impacting hundreds of customers overseeing thousands of cattle. On Dec. 29, 2022, Foster Farms shut down all feed corn processing at its larger Traver facility, which cut off the feed supply to the rest of its approximately 400 dairy cattle customers, overseeing approximately 800,000 head of cattle. By early January, Foster Farms will be unable to feed any of the 40 to 50 million chickens it owns and/or supplies feed to in California. These chickens supply a major amount of the West coast premium poultry products to Foster Farms’ United States consumers.”

 

51553.pdf

Edited January 2, 2023 by JClark54

[Reefmonkey]

On 12/30/2022 at 2:26 PM, Naviguessor said:

Southwest still is a unique product in the industry and (most) people & businesses will continue to purchase the fare and schedule that makes the best financial sense to them, at the time.  Much of the flying public will always search and pay for the lowest fares they can find, regardless of the service that get.  

That used to be very true, and I continued to think it was true for years after it stopped being true. What started to erode it for me was when working on a project in northern Oklahoma in the mid 2010s, I regularly flew home from Tulsa on Friday afternoons, and I could count on the flight running at least 45 minutes late, every time. It wasn't uncommon at all for it to run as much as 2 hours late. When the same flight is chronically late, that's a clear indication you have a scheduling problem, but one Southwest never thought to fix, for the 2 years I was flying that route. Then this spring when Southwest was jacking around my scheduled flights almost every time I booked one with them.

And I got tired of the cattle call. I used to be the biggest defender of the no assigned seats, first-come-first-served policy. I liked the egalitarian nature of it. Back when it still was egalitarian. But 24 hour in advance online checkin (which defeats the point of checking in for a flight IMO), coupled with A-listers getting bumped to the front of the line, and people being able to pay more to get an earlier boarding slot, negated the egalitarian nature. And as I started traveling more with my wife and daughter, wanting to use all the points I had racked up, getting to sit with my family became important. I got tired of checking in exactly when the clock rolled over to 24 hours before a flight, only to get a B47 boarding position.

So between all these issues, I started looking at United more and more, and found that they had more flight options, and at lower prices, than Southwest. And they run on time far more often than Southwest does, and I can always reserve an aisle seat, or a row for my family, and know that I won't have to sit in a middle seat, separated from my family.

Everything you said about Southwest was true when it was still a regional carrier, even into the the 2000s, but hasn't been true for several years now, it's not the low cost carrier to most destinations anymore, many other carriers like United are flying in and out of the close-in older, smaller airports like HOU and LUV that Southwest used to have the monopoly on, United Express, et al have filled the niche that Southwest used to be the only provider of, and Southwest has been among the 3 worst airlines for on-time arrivals for several years now, even preceding the pandemic. Southwest's only remaining "uniqueness"  - the cattle call, the bus route - that used to work when it was a regional carrier, are making it a worse travel experience, not a better one, now that it has become a major carrier. 

Southwest was riding on its older reputation, people still remembering how it used to be, loyalty over that, but I think this debacle has disabused many of their rose colored glasses about Southwest. Especially since the debacle is still not over for Southwest:

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/southwest-airlines-cancels-more-flights-monday-after-scheduling-meltdown/

Quote

Southwest as of Monday afternoon [January 2, 2023] had canceled 160, or 3%, of its flights, the most of any American airline, according to tracking site FlightAware. Another 422, or 10% of its scheduled flights were delayed.

 

Edited January 3, 2023 by Reefmonkey

[freundb]

Southwest has sucked for years now and I often find fares the same or cheaper on a real airline. I honestly don't know why people still fly them with all the issues they've been having recently. They will no doubt survive though, as they move a ton of people and have a large market share of the US domestic air travel. 

[trymahjong]

....got an email stating SWA will give 25,000 air miles to any who were disrupted.....uh how many miles needed for free flight? Uhhuh 

I 'm thinking some upper management bozo that made that decision needs to reassess......

[cspwal]

A decent deal before hand is 6000-9000 points

[mattyt36]

On 12/29/2022 at 12:18 AM, Reefmonkey said:

 It’s interesting, because this May I raised questions here about how airlines were handling their schedules, and I particularly called out Southwest, saying there was something else going on that wasn’t being shared with passengers, excuses for rescheduling that just weren’t adding up, and I was attacked for daring question the airlines’ competence/good faith. 

Interesting synopsis there of what happened.  Forget what I explained, or how your story was by your own admission embellished and driven by a desire to "get something off your chest"--what you experienced was explained in full in plenty of newspaper articles, earnings calls, commentaries, you name it.  Moreover the "excuses for rescheduling" that Southwest publicly gave that you say "didn't add up" included the very technological limitations that you say caused this mess to begin with.  In other words, they agreed with you they needed to improve!  

From November 30 Media Day, almost a full month before the meltdown:

Improving the operation is one the top five priorities Jordan has set through 2026, but at a media day on Nov. 30, the CEO said he couldn’t put a price tag on the cost of slow modernization. At the event, executives discussed the $2 billion being spent to improve passengers’ in-flight experience—wifi systems, power outlets at seats, etc. They also talked about improving airfcraft productivity and flight operations, without much detail on the costs.

“We’re behind,” Jordan said at the time. “As we’ve grown, we’ve outrun our tools. If you’re in an airport, there’s a lot of paper, just turning an aircraft there’s a ton of paper. If you took our crews, we have a lot moving all over the country. If they get reassigned, someone needs to call them or chase them down in the airport and tell them.”

And it's not like anything nearly to the magnitude of what happened in December happened, in, say, May (when you first noticed something "fishy"), June, July, August, September, October, or November.  I'm interested in why you think that was the case?  Maybe this was, I dunno, driven by something else just a tad bit different?  An unprecedented national weather system during a peak travel period maybe?  

Can we please abandon this insinuation that there was some grand conspiracy, i.e., "something else going on that wasn't being shared"?  It literally was discussed publicly multiple times.  Don't you think there's a teensy bit of an arrogance in that attitude (i.e., because I didn't know it, I was being lied to)?  (I suspect you didn't really think so at the end of the day, considering being aware of all this "not adding up" as early as May, you still booked a ticket on them in December, but maybe you're way more forgiving than I am.)

On 12/29/2022 at 12:18 AM, Reefmonkey said:

And despite Southwest’s insistence that it was doing everything it could to get passengers home, Southwest pilots were sharing pictures of their ARCAS messages telling them the fleet would be parked for the next few days to “regroup.”

It's ACARS.  (Not an "attack," just a correction for the record.)

I'm not sure why you see these things as mutually exclusive.

Doing everything they could to get passengers home essentially involved shutting down the entire airline for a period of time in order to stop the bleeding.  Only then could they reaccommodate, or the number of inconvenienced passengers would only increase like a tumbleweed to a point at which there aren't nearly enough seats in the system to reaccommodate people.  At the end of the day--operationally--they did the right thing (although an argument could certainly have been made that they should have done it sooner).  However, they have not come anywhere near close to doing the right thing IMO when it comes to compensating inconvenienced passengers.  I recall the logic of our prior exchange, "If they're flying flights 6 months in advance, how can they not find a pilot to fly it?" (when the structural problem was lack of pilots and the time and equipment required to train them, mixed with the lingering effects of COVID sickouts).  The logic here seems to be similar, "They said they were doing everything they could to get me home, but I didn't get home" (when the structural problem here was that they didn't have complete backup crews in position to fly people when more than 50% of the operation was affected due to weather).  It's not like you can pick up spare pilots on TaskRabbit.  But maybe one day!  🤞

(Incidentally, thank God you are not a doctor, I'd hate to be in the ER for a heart attack and all I would hear was "I told you to go light on the French fries."  My preference would be to stabilize the patient and leave the diet change discussion for later.)

On 12/29/2022 at 12:18 AM, Reefmonkey said:

How long before Southwest goes the way of Eastern, Braniff, National? Will they even make it to 2024?

Well, first off, Eastern and Braniff went out of business because they had bills to pay and no assets left to sell (interestingly enough, Braniff sold its Latin American routes to Eastern right before it went buh bye, then Eastern turned around and did the same right before it kicked the bucket--gotta love it when things come full circle!).  Secondly, National did not go out of business--it merged with Pan Am.  (Again, not an "attack," just another correction for the record.)

Southwest is not anywhere near comparable to any of the above airlines--I'd love to hear your theory as to how they will go out of business in 2023 in an environment in which there is still undercapacity in the domestic airline industry (you seemingly predicted this would all happen back in April after all).  Southwest's stock has dropped from around $40 around the beginning of December to about $34 today.  What do you know that Wall Street doesn't?  My advice--don't do what you did in this case (i.e., buy another ticket on Southwest when you're so "on to them," so to speak for being an operational basketcase)--it sounds like it's a great time to short LUV!  You can even make money off of it this time.  

All of the above said, Southwest's operational meltdown cost them at least half a billion dollars, did serious damage to the brand (without a doubt the worst in its history), and I fully expect there to be a major shakeup with plenty of lambs sacrificed.  You are 100% correct that they did this to themselves by overscheduling aircraft and crews and stubbornly not updating their computer systems to even 1990 standards.  The response to severely and inexcusably inconvenienced passengers such as yourself (the $300 equivalent) is an absolute pittance--at this point it's almost like the people who ultimately get shown the door need to be rehired only to get fired again for their absolute tone deafness.  There may be some major near-term network shakeups resulting from the inevitable change in leadership--there will certainly be a continued public desire for blood, theatrical Congressional hearings for sure, and Southwest will be expected to demonstrate meaningful penance to shareholders and customers with at least some restructuring.  One of the worst chapters in their history, if not the worst?  Absolutely.  But I suspect it'll end up being more comparable to post-cyanide Tylenol in a future HBR study than Eastern.  As long as they don't charge for bags, they'll have a future.

BUT I'm a humble guy, as you know, so I say why not we regroup this time next year and see who was more "right."

FOR THE RECORD, I HAVE BEEN GOING WAY, WAY, WAY OUT OF MY WAY TO FLY SOUTHWEST SINCE I WAS FIVE YEARS OLD SO PLEASE DON'T TAKE ANY OF THE ABOVE AS SOME PRO SOUTHWEST RANT.  Don't fly an airline that doesn't have interline agreements--it's that simple.

[trymahjong]

So today SWA 's email invited me to do a marketing survey.... with a chance at very lux prizes just to participate......

that same manage team that decided to go on the cheap with frequent flyer miles thinks to get the "real low down" on how customers view SWA by offering prizes at  a kazillion to 1 odds?

Again probably time for that team to reassess

[mattyt36]

7 hours ago, trymahjong said:

So today SWA 's email invited me to do a marketing survey.... with a chance at very lux prizes just to participate......

that same manage team that decided to go on the cheap with frequent flyer miles thinks to get the "real low down" on how customers view SWA by offering prizes at  a kazillion to 1 odds?

Again probably time for that team to reassess

You would've thought by the end of this week some highly publicized mea culpa and "grand plan" would've been announced.  Now they risk looking like they're ignoring it.

[Ross]

14 hours ago, mattyt36 said:

You would've thought by the end of this week some highly publicized mea culpa and "grand plan" would've been announced.  Now they risk looking like they're ignoring it.

Far too many people think apologizing or admitting a mistake is a sign of weakness. The truth is that apologizing and providing even the bare outline of a plan goes a long way towards eliminating animosity from others.

[Reefmonkey]

On 1/4/2023 at 5:47 PM, mattyt36 said:

Interesting synopsis there of what happened.  Forget what I explained, or how your story was by your own admission embellished....

Your first sentence starting off so far from the truth of what actually happened reminded me what a waste of time it was getting sucked into an argument with someone with such a glancing acquaintanceship with truthfulness or civility last Spring, so I didn't bother to read beyond that. Today you'll have to seek out Blue Dogs or Texasota or samagon or j_cuevas or one of your other usual targets to fill the hole picking online fights fills for you. Peace.

Edited January 10, 2023 by Reefmonkey

[Reefmonkey]

So far got the points for my, my wife's and my daughter's return flights redeposited, my stepson's full airfare refunded, plus 25,000 in goodwill points per person. Still waiting to hear back on ~$450 in expenses (extra night of hotel, one-way car rental, gas, extra day of parking, meals) I submitted.

[mattyt36]

5 minutes ago, Reefmonkey said:

Your first sentence starting off so far from the truth of what actually happened reminded me what a waste of time it was getting sucked into an argument with someone with such a glancing acquaintanceship with truthfulness or civility last Spring, so I didn't bother to read beyond that. Today you'll have to seek out Blue Dogs or Texasota or samagon or j_cuevas or one of your other usual targets to fill the hole picking online fights fills for you. Peace.

If only it were nearly as deep as the "hole" you must feel for thinking:

I was inconvenienced + my buddy said he wouldn't fly Southwest anymore, either = Southwest will die like Braniff

I mean that's quite the ego trip there.  The path to self-awareness can be a long and bumpy one.

Do keep us posted on your travel (mis)adventures in the future!  

[Reefmonkey]

Ah, I see this forum has an "ignore" button on users' profiles. Think I'll give it a try.

[mattyt36]

On 12/29/2022 at 12:18 AM, Reefmonkey said:

But now that Southwest’s long-term neglect of its systems has led to this unprecedented meltdown, I wonder how the airline could possibly recover? I certainly never plan to fly them again, and I have heard many people on the news say the same thing. How long before Southwest goes the way of Eastern, Braniff, National? Will they even make it to 2024?

For posterity, Southwest returned to profitability in Q2 2023 with $683 million in net income, off of record quarterly revenues of $7 billion, a mere two quarters removed from the winter operational disruptions.