2022 Christmas meltdown Competition enteries

MikeD said:
Isn’t there something about if you are an E-7 or higher, and you have red Chief shoulder rank on the dress uniform instead of gold, that you‘d been in trouble? Is this the same?
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There’s a hash mark for every 4 years of service and red if you’re less than 12 years of service or if you’ve been to Mast before.
 
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Don’t get me started.
Transcon redeye in a 737 jumpseat to a Southwest hub. SWA flight to in-laws place. No FA. 1 hr delay. 2 hr delay. 4 hrs later, cancel. Trying Spirit, same deal, 1.5 hr delay no FA, cancel. It took a United flight, an AA flight, and a DL flight to make it to family on east coast. Very tiring. Up all night no sleep.

Very disappointed in Southwest. It was clear weather in a major hub. Had some friends in MCO, they got hosed, cancelled, SWA couldn’t get them re-booked until Friday! He bought full fare AA tickets for the next day at a very high premium.


SWA made front page news on CNN…

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knot4u said:
What was the reason for the labor shortage over the weekend? Was it the logistics of flying commuting flight crews to their bases, were the bases snowed in and nothing was moving including ground crew? It's really weird how airplanes seem to break on a holiday. I remember once I was on call on Christmas Day for the one who shall not be named and a LR35 came in for basically a quick turn and a crew change and the new crew decided the transfer pumps weren't working so they couldn't fuel it up, grounded the airplane and went home. I got there about 40 minutes later and found out that they were full of •, the airplane was fine. The captain that wrote it up was fired the following business day. Another lovely X-Mas morning involved a hawker 800 with an apparent dead battery, I think they thought if they called for MX they'd be released to go home, when I got down to the ramp in about a half hour and both batteries came online they both claimed to be idiots and started discussing the gloves they were wearing, I wasn't wearing gloves, it was Van Nuys. Aviation is 24/7, I understand hating it but if you just opt to not go in when lots other people are going in and even more are depending on you I shake my head. Don't ever ask why pilots these days don't get more professional respect.
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I don’t agree with you or your demeanor very often, but you are right that the pilots are their own worst enemy when it comes to commanding respect from others in the industry. However, this thing we’re watching isn’t on the pilots. Calling out and watching it burn isn’t really the archetypal SWA pilot’s thing. Losing operational control is entirely on management.
 
A harmless post on LinkedIn by Southwest Airlines made three days ago about a new-hire computer toucher just happens to be their most-recent social media post and is now the spot for angry travellers to drag the company a li'l.

You know you've screwed-up when people release their inner Karen all the way to LinkedIn. And shame on those people for imagining no better venue than that.
 
Considering the Wx and how SWA operates, what could they have reasonably done to mitigate this?
 
Minuteman said:
A harmless post on LinkedIn by Southwest Airlines made three days ago about a new-hire computer toucher just happens to be their most-recent social media post and is now the spot for angry travellers to drag the company a li'l.

You know you've screwed-up when people release their inner Karen all the way to LinkedIn. And shame on those people for imagining no better venue than that.
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The world has to be SIDEWAYS for people to be asking their friends to hold their earrings on LinkedIn
 
MikeD said:
Considering the Wx and how SWA operates, what could they have reasonably done to mitigate this?
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I’m not an airline operations guru, but I feel like not threatening your rampers and agents with termination if they can’t work overtime is a good start.

All evidence suggests SWA has strayed from “their Why” much the same way that Wal-Mart did when Sam Walton passed.
 
MikeD said:
i mean, from an operational perspective. Or is their ops style not equipped to handle this depth of a Wx hit?
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Southwest is fine, it's climate change man! This is the "worst" winter we've ever seen! Sorry I assumed your pronouns.
 
I was a ramper at SWA before I got hired by the FAA, and it's crazy to me that its still the same 8-9 years later.

I was forced to work so much mandatory OT at SFO, it was absolutely insane. Especially on your probationary period, it was either stay for Mandatory OT after 10PM up to as late as 3AM depending on when the last arrival finally got in, or get terminated. There were multiple times I had to have a family member come pick me up and leave my car at work, because I was so tired from getting mandatoried into an almost 48 hour continuous shift, that I could not safely drive home.

More than a few of my coworkers essentially lived in the terminal and SWA break room. A large part of their issue this meltdown is lack of Rampers in DEN, and I cant blame those people for not showing up to work in the bitter cold. There was a rumor on twitter about 100+ Ramp agents in DEN quitting this week, and I cant say I blame them after the company puts out a threatening letter of termination Christmas week to a bunch of people generally working their butts off for ~$13/hr.

Hope they can get things figured out soon, was certainly quieter than normal this morning at the Center without them.
 
Flyinthrew said:
I’m not an airline operations guru, but I feel like not threatening your rampers and agents with termination if they can’t work overtime is a good start.

All evidence suggests SWA has strayed from “their Why” much the same way that Wal-Mart did when Sam Walton passed.
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The lack of rampers was the major issue (part and parcel for the reason they quit or weren’t there)?

the LUV has become a CULTure indeed.

I can hear @SlumTodd_Millionaire heartily laughing an evil laugh, as he sees SW melt down…. :)
 
MikeD said:
i mean, from an operational perspective. Or is their ops style not equipped to handle this depth of a Wx hit?
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With the point to point style of flying there’s not really a great way to reset other than overflying cities to position crews. Say you had a DEN-ABQ-SJC line of flying with a crew change in ABQ,but that crew is displaced in BNA,you could move the aircraft DEN-SJC to position for a new downline crew and flying,etc.


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nabbyfan said:
There was a rumor on twitter about 100+ Ramp agents in DEN quitting this week, and I cant say I blame them after the company puts out a threatening letter of termination Christmas week to a bunch of people generally working their butts off for ~$13/hr.
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Happens seasonally with every operator at DIA to some degree. First big storm of the winter season back in the UAX days it’d be pure chaos. No one wants to drive to Kansas daily for crap wages and crap work conditions. It’s always been a struggle and really QOL and money is the only way to mitigate it for all the carriers.
 
Southwest has had 10x more cancellations today then the next runner up. It’s not weather. Every SW pilot I talked to today said they lost operational control and they can’t match pilots to planes.

As a ex companion pass holder this is super disappointing. They really messed this one up.
 
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