> Not sure why the phone lines "jam up" exactly, don't you have a hierarchical management structure for this sort of thing? Or do 1000 pilots all report to one person?
It's not a problem of management (well it is a problem of 15 years of management fuckup which is the root cause), it's a problem of the scheduling system needing manual updates when things didn't go to plan.
At this point it's completely screwed, so it needs to be completely reset, as in the entire scheduling system needs to be reconfigured from empty, more or less.
And because SouthWest operates entirely on point to point, the same cascading properties which led to its complete collapse mean it needs to restart in a somewhat synchronised manner, otherwise you fly 3 planes, there's no followup, and you're hosed again.
> They've got like 1000 planes and like 100-150 destinations, it's not the traveling sales man problem, an optimal plan isn't needed now so much as a functional one.
The system completely lost track of crews, so all of them need to be relocated, their work cycles reworked, flight slots need to be reallocated, flights need to be re-encoded.
Here is where we should take note of how things were resolved (or are in the process of) and note where “throw more money at it” (fly inefficient routes, farm out fares, etc) would have also helped.
Then next earnings release - when they post shareholders profits - that’s exactly how much they were willing to hold back to fix this, trading profit for people stuck for days.
Good point. I think it will be smart for them to post a record loss for this quarter.
Accrue a few billion for refunds, depreciate your software to zero, and start to set aside a few billion for new cloud whatever.
Basically, take this as a huge loss and communicate that you’ve lost a lot of goodwill and trying to make passengers whole is #1 priority (after safety, of course).
Airlines are extremely low-margin businesses, discount airlines like SWA doubly so. “Posting a record loss” of this magnitude isn’t something that can be afforded. What you’re talking about is likely to turn into some form of bankruptcy. Maybe it’s a relatively minor Chapter 11 where all those refunds get written down by the bankruptcy court, or maybe SWA goes the way of TWA and Pan-Am.
Replying to a sibling comment. There will never be a bailout for SWA. Too small, too many competitors and based in a red state with a blue administration in power.
In the last fiscal quarter pre-pandemic, they had operating income of $3 billion on revenue of $22 billion, or 13%. This is not a low-margin business.
If they have operating income of eight to ten billion a year, spending a third of a billion to upgrade systems seems like it would have been a reasonable investment instead of buying back shares and increasing the dividend.
The resumption itself.
> Not sure why the phone lines "jam up" exactly, don't you have a hierarchical management structure for this sort of thing? Or do 1000 pilots all report to one person?
It's not a problem of management (well it is a problem of 15 years of management fuckup which is the root cause), it's a problem of the scheduling system needing manual updates when things didn't go to plan.
At this point it's completely screwed, so it needs to be completely reset, as in the entire scheduling system needs to be reconfigured from empty, more or less.
And because SouthWest operates entirely on point to point, the same cascading properties which led to its complete collapse mean it needs to restart in a somewhat synchronised manner, otherwise you fly 3 planes, there's no followup, and you're hosed again.
> They've got like 1000 planes and like 100-150 destinations, it's not the traveling sales man problem, an optimal plan isn't needed now so much as a functional one.
The system completely lost track of crews, so all of them need to be relocated, their work cycles reworked, flight slots need to be reallocated, flights need to be re-encoded.