Southwest disaster

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

This is why I have a career in software consulting :)
 
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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.

But I guess my point is that the wages for the crew are such a small part of the ticket expense that it's silly that airlines are running such a lean crew.
 
But I guess my point is that the wages for the crew are such a small part of the ticket expense that it's silly that airlines are running such a lean crew.

There’s a huge opportunity for someone or some company that will market themselves to shareholders as a “a little less profit/slower growth for a lot more customers and a lot more loyal customers”. That goes for pretty pretty much every industry. I think Financial Services is slowly slowly slowly coming around to that kind of model with like a 60/40 split towards being customer-centric.
 
But I guess my point is that the wages for the crew are such a small part of the ticket expense that it's silly that airlines are running such a lean crew.

I don’t necessarily disagree but the airlines have learned from experience that consumers care about price way, way, way more than every other factor, except maybe timing/convenience of the flight. The pilots at the mainlines are all negotiating with the benefit of a union too. I think the only crew members that are not unionized are Delta’s flight attendants and mechanics.
 
Anybody go through cancellation experience yet? Advice?

I have SW return flight on Friday and the Wed/Thurs of the same flight is cancelled, they don’t show cancellations beyond that.
 
Anybody go through cancellation experience yet? Advice?

I have SW return flight on Friday and the Wed/Thurs of the same flight is cancelled, they don’t show cancellations beyond that.
My son was cancelled by Allegiant, not SW, but same problem of not having agreements with other airlines. He got a cheap direct flight on Jet Blue that got the job done, only getting back a day late. They look like they had one of the better records during this mess, which surprises me.
 
This issue is uniquely Southwest. They try to straddle a line between a major airline and a budget carrier. Customers used to benefit from the best of both of those worlds, but this particular problem highlights the worst of both worlds.

…….and their refusal to sign interline agreements with other airlines.….
Damn boomers saving their jobs again and not signing agreements.
 
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My son was cancelled by Allegiant, not SW, but same problem of not having agreements with other airlines. He got a cheap direct flight on Jet Blue that got the job done, only getting back a day late. They look like they had one of the better records during this mess, which surprises me.

I’m trying to figure out if I should just look for a flight now rather than wait two days…I guess I could wait until tonight or tomorrow morning when they show flight status on web. If i get delayed 1-2 days it’s not the end of the world, don’t want to get screwed on some expensive flight in comparison to what I had.

I mean if same flight is cancelled both today and tomorrow I’m thinking the next day is most likely too right?
 
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I’m trying to figure out if I should just look for a flight now rather than wait two days…I guess I could wait until tonight or tomorrow morning when they show flight status on web. If i get delayed 1-2 days it’s not the end of the world, don’t want to get screwed on some expensive flight in comparison to what I had.

I mean if same flight is cancelled both today and tomorrow I’m thinking the next day is most likely too right?
Not sure. I hope you don’t need to check a bag though. Son’s Jet Blue was less than his Allegiant refund though.
 
My son was cancelled by Allegiant, not SW, but same problem of not having agreements with other airlines. He got a cheap direct flight on Jet Blue that got the job done, only getting back a day late. They look like they had one of the better records during this mess, which surprises me.
For our trip to LA the day after Thanksgiving, we got an alert from Allegiant 5 days before that the return flight was cancelled. The only options were cancel the full package or pick another date/city. There were no other flights from LA for several weeks (all cancelled).

We ended up having to spend $3,600 to purchase last minute tickets through American instead of the $1,100 flights through Allegiant.

Since our whole trip was scheduled around Allegiant's ****** schedule, it made a mess of things.
 
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For our trip to LA the day after Thanksgiving, we got an alert from Allegiant 5 days before that the return flight was cancelled. The only options were cancel the full package or pick another date/city. There were no other flights from LA for several weeks (all cancelled).

We ended up having to spend $3,600 to purchase last minute tickets through American instead of the $1,100 flights through Allegiant.

Since our whole trip was scheduled around Allegiant's ****** schedule, it made a mess of things.
Good god. Glad I don't like traveling very much.
 
Pretty shocked there wasn't a backup plan if communication failed. IE, national emergency, mass power outages. Get the proper communicators gathered in the same building and slowly get planes moving again.
 
For our trip to LA the day after Thanksgiving, we got an alert from Allegiant 5 days before that the return flight was cancelled. The only options were cancel the full package or pick another date/city. There were no other flights from LA for several weeks (all cancelled).

We ended up having to spend $3,600 to purchase last minute tickets through American instead of the $1,100 flights through Allegiant.

Since our whole trip was scheduled around Allegiant's ****** schedule, it made a mess of things.
Allegiant cancelled trip here two days before storm and gave him option to keep return flight, which he did, only to cancel that Monday. He took Jet Blue from KC, which isn’t much farther for us than DM, plus he has two brothers who were going to KC anyway. Kind of wish DM had Jet Blue instead of Allegiant at this point.
 
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Southwest meltdown reminds me of the hok fan meltdown when Proctor flipped to Bama last week. Both will never fully recover from it.
 
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.
After seeing how large of an airline southwest is (they’re the 6th largest public airline company in the world by revenue), I am surprised that this happened to them. Not as surprised as it it happened to delta, United, or American, but still surprised
 
I’m trying to figure out if I should just look for a flight now rather than wait two days…I guess I could wait until tonight or tomorrow morning when they show flight status on web. If i get delayed 1-2 days it’s not the end of the world, don’t want to get screwed on some expensive flight in comparison to what I had.

I mean if same flight is cancelled both today and tomorrow I’m thinking the next day is most likely too right?
Let us know how capped the fares of the other airlines are:

 
After seeing how large of an airline southwest is (they’re the 6th largest public airline company in the world by revenue), I am surprised that this happened to them. Not as surprised as it it happened to delta, United, or American, but still surprised

“You don’t get rich spending all of your money”

-Gunner to Mrs. Gunner every other day
 
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