Southwest disaster

[ScottyP]

Or we could just stop bailing out anyone and let the market do its thing.

If this was an industry-wide thing, I could understand considering a bailout. In this instance, it is mainly one company that is causing the issue so letting the market fix this makes sense. SW is getting publicly humiliated and ridiculed and their leadership absolutely deserve it.

This should be a wake-up call across various industries on what happens when you don't invest in IT and other systems. Sadly, I doubt much changes in these companies.

Also, this will be a good opportunity for some updated regulation to happen in the industry. We've already seen some discussion of this already. It might help a little bit, at least.

 

[Gunnerclone]

How much are Peach Bowl tickets going for right now? Lowers.

 

[dmclone]

I guess I'm the only one surprised this is happening to Southwest. I don't do a TON of travel but Southwest has always been these best and it's usually not close. It sounds to me like it's their technology that they've really failed on.

 

[enisthemenace]

Easy to say, hard to accomplish. These events are different every time and they are not just something you can "create a Confluence page" . There are a lot of "Oh I think I remember something similar happening 3 years ago and we contacted Mike on the firewall team to resolve this issue we were having with VDI's, let me contact him". As opposed to "let me do a search on our Knowledge Base about "people are having trouble with their VDI's, please help".

Confluence and Jira. Kanban boards. Bash me over the head with a shovel. Thanks in advance.

 

[simply1]

I guess I'm the only one surprised this is happening to Southwest. I don't do a TON of travel but Southwest has always been these best and it's usually not close. It sounds to me like it's their technology that they've really failed on.

Southwest used to have a good reputation, right?

Going to say they used to have press on being pretty good and good culture.

 

[ScottyP]

Honestly, I'm surprised that this didn't happen a long time ago with SW.

 

[cycloner29]

F that. This is why I travel with a bagpack and a carry on case. I can’t stand dealing with luggage claim

I get it, but hate the a-holes that think they can put their carry on, coat, murse (satchel)/oversized purse, and everything else they can strap to their back or shoulder, in an overhead bin. Meanwhile I have to shove my backpack under the seat and I feel like my knees up to my chin.

I go to a lot of trade shows so I have no choice but to check luggage. I just think the carry on bags keep getting bigger every year. I also avoid places like Chicago and Denver during the winter due to the potential for flight issues.

 

[theshadow]

 

[Gunnerclone]

Confluence and Jira. Kanban boards. Bash me over the head with a shovel. Thanks in advance.

Sometimes those boards are like looking at “fine art”. What are people seeing? I just see scribbles and blobs of paint.

 

[SEIOWA CLONE]

Southwest is the Airline that we generally fly with, we like that we both can check 2 bags apiece. Bought tickets a couple weeks ago for SF in July, after looking at Delta, United, American, and Southwest, found that SW was a couple hundred dollars cheaper, and we could fly out of Des Moines instead of KC like we usually do. Even after getting the early boarding for both of us, was still cheaper than the other carriers.

 

[ianoconnor]

Supposed to fly SW in early Feb... Hopefully it's a little better by then.

 

[Cyfan2901]

I get it, but hate the a-holes that think they can put their carry on, coat, murse (satchel)/oversized purse, and everything else they can strap to their back or shoulder, in an overhead bin. Meanwhile I have to shove my backpack under the seat and I feel like my knees up to my chin.

I go to a lot of trade shows so I have no choice but to check luggage. I just think the carry on bags keep getting bigger every year. I also avoid places like Chicago and Denver during the winter due to the potential for flight issues.

Oh yeah the bags people try to pass on as carry on’s these days are wild. Most airlines don’t even check the size, only time I’ve had that was flying Icelandair.

 

[BoxsterCy]

Most non-sports CF threads of more than a few pages inevitably evolve into threads on how work culture sucks. It is the way of things.

 

[CloniesForLife]

Most non-sports CF threads of more than a five pages inevitably derail into postings on how work culture sucks. It is the way of things.

I mean we do all post on a sports message board all day so we obviously aren't too interested in work

 

[exCyDing]

So a 747 holding 400 people means that a less than $1 / hr / passenger is going to the pilots? That would mean if you bought a ticket to go from Denver to NYC, about $4 of that ticket goes to the pilots? So if we were to double the salary of pilots to encourage more pilots to fly, it's be an additional $4 per ticket to avoid this mess? That's what we're talking about? Creating such a shortage in available pilots to save $4 per ticket?

It's kind of like how we can't possibly increase minimum wage to $15 an hour for fast food workers, because increasing the average order price by something like $.25-$.35 is a complete non-starter.

 

[cyIclSoneU]

So a 747 holding 400 people means that a less than $1 / hr / passenger is going to the pilots? That would mean if you bought a ticket to go from Denver to NYC, about $4 of that ticket goes to the pilots? So if we were to double the salary of pilots to encourage more pilots to fly, it's be an additional $4 per ticket to avoid this mess? That's what we're talking about? Creating such a shortage in available pilots to save $4 per ticket?

Nobody is flying a 747 from Denver to NYC and I think the crews on 747/A380 type planes flying long hauls are often four pilots that alternate between 2 in the cockpit and 2 resting.

With all that said, airline margins on routes with competition are generally small. If you buy an economy ticket on a popular route (something like New York to Chicago), and you buy it not too early and not too late, the airline is probably just about breaking even on flying you there. Where they will make money on that flight are premium cabins, checked baggage fees, and all the people who pay an annual fee for their United or American-branded credit card so that they can get some miles or get lounge access or get a free checked bag or get elite status and be eligible for upgrades.

Airlines now make a huge chunk of their money by selling miles to credit card companies. They make almost no profit at all from economy-class ticket sales.

 

[Gunnerclone]

Southwest is the Airline that we generally fly with, we like that we both can check 2 bags apiece. Bought tickets a couple weeks ago for SF in July, after looking at Delta, United, American, and Southwest, found that SW was a couple hundred dollars cheaper, and we could fly out of Des Moines instead of KC like we usually do. Even after getting the early boarding for both of us, was still cheaper than the other carriers.

The free golf clubs is the kicker that puts SW over the top for me. Pretty much 75% of my travel those things are coming with me.

 

[brett108]

Going to say they used to have press on being pretty good and good culture.

They were the budget airline with big airline features. But as their long term contracts expired they were no longer low cost with higher expenses. They seem to have become the brand with big airline prices and budget features.

 

[ScottyP]

It's kind of like how we can't possibly increase minimum wage to $15 an hour for fast food workers, because increasing the average order price by something like $.25-$.35 is a complete non-starter.

What ends up happening is they increase the price anyways, without the minimum wage increase.

 

[Cyclones_R_GR8]

This. All day this. Having spent quite a bit of time in both Banking and Insurance, some of the systems running multi-billion dollar companies are still green-screen.

A very large beer company was using automation that a sysprog started writing in the 70's and just kept adding to it until he retired without anyone knowing a thing about all that stuff. It was so imbedded into so many processes so I just kept figuring it out and keeping it working for 10 years until they got moved to the cloud.

State agencies are even worse