People freaking out about #Southwest and accusing them of wrongdoing need to understand that the mass cancellations they had are not a part of them being "too stingy" in how they run their operations, it's literally just a result of their business-as-usual operations model.
It's the point-to-point routing of their flights that results in big domino effects anytime a flight is delayed or cancelled. It's not short turnaround times or staffing issues. It's simply a flight from Airport A to Airport B in their schedule may be the only flight making that route that day. So if it cancels, all subsequent routes it was schedule to fly the rest of the day cancel too.
The whole thing sucks and I do wonder how much more of this SWA can endure, but it's not because they made some egregious bad moves for the holidays it's simply how their operations are structured.
@alyssam_infosec Everything has to go right at Southwest to get everyone everywhere, or...
"the situation got so bad that on December 22 that a Tampa to Denver flight returned to Tampa because there wouldn’t be sufficient ground staff to assist with the flight. The airline ended up operating a nearly four hour flight to nowhere. Ouch."
https://onemileatatime.com/news/southwest-airlines-meltdown-denver/
@jaysonmassey holy crap I will never forget this moment. The perfect post does exist!
@alyssam_infosec This article inspired that toot! Southwest runs a brittle, fairweather, just-in-time system. It's superbad.
https://www.seat31b.com/2022/12/the-great-southwest-meltdown-of-2022/
@jaysonmassey @alyssam_infosec until recently I drove a couple of hours out of my way to get to an airport served by WN for a nonstop between two non-hubs. The flight is an hour and a half, runs several times a day, and always got me there within an hour of on schedule. Taking AA for those trips instead would have been five hours each way and an overnight stay.
@jaysonmassey @alyssam_infosec. The bulk of WN's business is like this. Yes, it's a shitshow at the holidays, but that's predictable. This is what, the third year in a row?
@alyssam_infosec One of the things that I would like to see is a more robust train system. Maybe we can connect these airports so if your plane can't land in Denver, just land in Boulder and catch the train down. This is not complex stuff!
@jaysonmassey as someone that has loved railroads since I was quite young, I fully agree with this!!
And if you run into issues, try the tips in this video:
https://twitter.com/ErikaKullberg/status/1608124342851833857
@jaysonmassey @alyssam_infosec @glennf We’ll need to call them ERCOT instead of Southwest Airlines.
@jaysonmassey @alyssam_infosec Southwest: the ERCOT of the sky.
@jaysonmassey @alyssam_infosec I saw someone post that the ground crews in Denver were already understaffed and didn’t want to be pitching luggage in dangerous conditions. Instead of bonuses for the hard and dangerous work they were threatened with termination if they called out and didn’t have an in person (not tele visit) doctors note. It also said they couldn’t refuse mando overtime. May be true, may not but I could totally see that in the airports that were hit hardest
You can see a copy of the alleged memo here.
@alyssam_infosec To put it another way, Southwest Airlines is the Texas electrical grid of travel.