Southwest disaster
- Thread starter cycloneworld
- Start date
The industry had many older pilots who they paid off with early retirement when the pandemic hit. Most airlines were just barely getting by before that, then the short sighted idea to get rid of many of the most experienced ones, they shot themselves in the foot.
It's hard to get new pilots because most newbies are stuck flying the small regional first getting crap wages. A person really has to love flying to put up with $40K a year and never being at home.
Lot of crew peeps retired during the COVID impacts to travel. If you're not flying you're not earning so a lot took the buyout incentives and retired a few years earlier than they had planned on. Now with travel ramped back up there are crew issues. Had a friend with seniority who could have bumped domestic crews with less seniority to keep flying (she only did international) but she took the buyout and bailed).
This seems like a prefect storm fuckup of (1) bad weather (2) SW's just on time quick turnaround business model (3) crew shortage and (4) completely ****** up crew assignment operating system unable to adapt and keep up when the dominos started to fall.
This seems like a prefect storm fuckup of (1) bad weather (2) SW's just on time quick turnaround business model (3) crew shortage and (4) completely ****** up crew assignment operating system unable to adapt and keep up when the dominos started to fall.
This is the same story for a lot of industries. Baby boomers are retiring and there's just not enough in the workforce to replace them. You then have companies that are so focused on shareholder returns that they are unwilling to raise wages to attract new talent. So they are seeing short term gains, but it's going to hurt them in the long run as their reputations are killed by poor service.
The mess isn’t just SW. Son that flew still trying to get back east. He lucked out on way here getting a helpful American Airlines counter guy at O’Hare.
Flights are full and if you try to switch airlines from ones that don’t have some kind of agreement with others, they bilk you for the ticket.
Flights are full and if you try to switch airlines from ones that don’t have some kind of agreement with others, they bilk you for the ticket.
I sense we are talking ourselves into why inflation may not be slowing down anytime soon, flight costs will have to come up if there is a shortage of labor and existing labor wants better working conditions.
Companies severely underfund technology even when it is at the core of their business. First thing cut when when cost savings start is all the long term IT upgrade projects. And then it massively breaks and everyone acts surprised.
I think this language is pursuant to a CBA. They negotiated this I believe.
Southwest has always been my favorite. Not having any kids to travel with I prefer their boarding and seating compared to the traditional process. Have flown with them 4 or 5 times this year and plenty in the past and can't recall a single problem outside of an engine not starting that caused about a 45 minute delay while they air started it.
I don't have any first hand knowledge, but I've heard most airlines back end systems are archaic.
Friend stuck in Boston because of SW … to get back to Phoenix he booked a $600 1 way tickect on Jet Blue for Thursday. He is what I would call Pissed Off at the moment.
My wife manages a very busy locally owned retail outlet. Seasonal help surges Thanksgiving to Christmas. They were 50% staffed going in. Owners paid a bonus to those who didn't call in sick. Bonus would go down for each time you did so and 3 strikes you got nothing. Guess what, nobody called in sick which has NEVER happened before. Very wise move.
Thank goodness there’s no downside to people who really are sick interacting with a bunch of people.
You’d be surprised how many people call in sick who aren’t sick.
I understand they were targeting the people that were gonna call in sick that really weren't, but I hope they didn't word it that way.
You’d be surprised how many people work while sick.
merge thread with long fibermyalgia thread.
This is true - all airlines had issues with the storms and it takes days to get back to normal. That is to be expected with big weather disruptions, especially around the holidays. But this SW deal is a fuckup of epic proportions. SW cancelled 100x more flights yesterday and today than the average airline.
CycloneErik
Well-Known Member
Always good to encourage sick employees to come in.
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