December 27, 20222 yr 7 minutes ago, 4th&Five said: The thing that always shocks me when these stories happen is how many people still voluntarily check bags. We were on a flight once that was delayed 8 hours or something and people were panicking because they had critical medication in their checked luggage. If it's critical, why are they checking it? With rare exceptions, I simply don't understand why people check bags.
December 27, 20222 yr 16 minutes ago, 4th&Five said: The thing that always shocks me when these stories happen is how many people still voluntarily check bags. My wife brings the whole house with her. That shit isn't fitting in a carry-on. When I travel it's always a carry-on plus a backpack
December 27, 20222 yr 21 minutes ago, Aqua Buddha said: With rare exceptions, I simply don't understand why people check bags.
December 27, 20222 yr Looking for any one with information to get to a person at SWA - my daughter (no pics) had her flight from Grand Rapids to Midway cancelled for tomorrow, but her flight to Seattle from MIdway is not cancelled. We need to talk to a person to see if we can keep her 2nd leg and drive her to Chicago. None of the phone numbers I can find for SWA are going through. I think it is truly FUBAR
December 27, 20222 yr Just saw a tweet where they were telling everyone at PHX to go home that they won't have flights for 4 days. What a shit show
December 27, 20222 yr Worse today. and west coast flights haven’t even started. tomorrow looks f’ed as well.
December 27, 20222 yr This posted above coincides with an article I read last night. SWA's scheduling software is shit and they haven't invested in technology. When they need to reach an employee to ask them to work, someone manually calls and the employees know to ignore the call.
December 27, 20222 yr 58 minutes ago, 4th&Five said: The thing that always shocks me when these stories happen is how many people still voluntarily check bags. I’ll check bags only on the way home, if I check at all. 4 minutes ago, GreenspointTexas said: Its almost like flying around xmas is chaotic or something? Plus temps around Christmas were single digits to freezing in some places. Still limits to how much the human body can be outside doing ground operations when it’s 7 and feels like -13 Massive clusterfuck all around
December 27, 20222 yr Wife and I were planning to get away for 24 hours for Alamo Bowl/Riverwalk. Southwest just cancelled our Thurs flight LOL. It's going to take me a while to trust this shitty airline again after this. No desire to drive roundtrip so checked flights on AA and they are charging $2500 roundtrip from DFW to SAT. So hope the fucking DOT investigates AA for price gouging as well. Oh well - I haven't bought tix yet and hoping Chase Sapphire travel protection covers the non-refundable room (if they won't waive). I'll just watch from couch.
December 27, 20222 yr I appreciate in the Southwest Employee email that Aggie Bob says “Southwest is still a great company.” They need a dose of reality. Southwest has one fucking job - Transport passengers and their luggage on time and safely. At this point, their grade is clearly a F. Also, they can’t blame this on the weather as the weather was the same for every other major airline and last I checked WN is the only airline trying to schedule crews with a #2 pencil and a Big Chief notebook. At times in a company’s life, you have to invest in technology and WN waited 30 years too late. If Bob was being honest, he would have said - “Southwest sucks. We’re going to be paying a significant sum to passengers who had to rebook on other airlines and we still need to update our technology so this never happens again.”
December 27, 20222 yr I always thought southwest sucked but now it’s aggy level ineptitude. Unbelievable. There needs to be accountability at some point for these fuckos.
December 27, 20222 yr 7 minutes ago, Hefeweizen said: I always thought southwest sucked but now it’s aggy level ineptitude. Unbelievable. There needs to be accountability at some point for these fuckos. It's almost as if an aggy runs the company
December 27, 20222 yr Author 18 minutes ago, Your Mom said: Fucking embarrassing. That’s about all I got. Edited December 27, 20222 yr by Parliament
December 27, 20222 yr 6 minutes ago, JesusSweatDuck said: It's almost as if an aggy runs the company At least the ones who somehow take off aren’t getting listeria Edited December 27, 20222 yr by Js1
December 27, 20222 yr I’m at Love Field now, flight is now 30 mins late to MDW. Most other chicago flights have been cancelled. Not looking good. Only flight that has flown out was to El Paso. Very little air traffic.
December 27, 20222 yr Author BIL's brother and family stuck in Chicago. No rental cars, trains or busses. I suggested he buy a POS car and drive straight to the junkyard closest to their house.
December 27, 20222 yr Before anyone bags on the Aggie CEO, just know that the previous CEO was a Texas grad and he ran the business for 15 years, during which time these computer system issues reached a code red status. And yet he still didn’t fix the issues. The new CEO has only been in the job for less than a year and he’s an ex-programmer. The former CEO was a finance guy, and like what almost always happens, a finance guy as a CEO is good for near term performance and a disaster for long term performance. This makes me sad. Southwest was one of the best Texas companies ever and now it’s a complete shit show.
December 27, 20222 yr Honestly kind of shocking that they had so little computerization and automation in their routing and scheduling. Hell, I know garbage collection companies with more sophisticated routing and scheduling than SWA!
December 27, 20222 yr 5 minutes ago, Dbeasy said: This makes me sad. Southwest was one of the best Texas companies ever and now it’s a complete shit show. Southwest being run into the ground Whataburger bought by Chicago and being driven into the ground Buccees is now white trash mecca for fat Texans Texas Football has been diluted because aggy just had to be in the SEC
December 27, 20222 yr In cancelling my Soufwest flight to PVR, they credited the return flight but gave me the option of credit or refund for the departure flight. No way in hell I’m asking for credit. Give me my fucking money back.
December 27, 20222 yr I’m at Love Field now, flight is now 30 mins late to MDW. Most other chicago flights have been cancelled. Not looking good. Only flight that has flown out was to El Paso. Very little air traffic. A Vegas Flight is now boarding. Mines is now an hour late.
December 27, 20222 yr A Vegas Flight is now boarding. Mines is now an hour late. Lol, Vegas flight is missing flight attendant so cannot depart. What a shitshow.
December 27, 20222 yr BIL's brother and family stuck in Chicago. No rental cars, trains or busses. I suggested he buy a POS car and drive straight to the junkyard closest to their house.Probably cheaper than a rental car since it won’t be pick up and drop off at different airports
December 27, 20222 yr 20 minutes ago, Captainant said: Hell, I know garbage collection companies with more sophisticated routing and scheduling than SWA! SWA employees right about now. Edited December 27, 20222 yr by Fuck Tim Beck
December 27, 20222 yr Probably cheaper than a rental car since it won’t be pick up and drop off at different airportsIn the past I’ve done that with National and they didn’t charge extra. I don’t rent as much as I used to though so maybe that changed. Doesn’t matter if there are no cars though.
December 27, 20222 yr Honestly kind of shocking that they had so little computerization and automation in their routing and scheduling. Hell, I know garbage collection companies with more sophisticated routing and scheduling than SWA!Airline routing is notoriously difficult to automate. Not saying it can’t be done. But my dad retired from Netjets a few years ago, and he said between weather, broken equipment, sick crew, and fickle customers they just had to do it all manually. Different market for sure but air travel suffers when conditions aren’t optimal. Additionally: I’m in the enterprise software space and you would be surprised how many massive global companies run important aspects of their business on basically excel spreadsheets and email.
December 27, 20222 yr 4 minutes ago, Homercles said: Their scheduling software sounds like a macro’d Excel sheet You’d be (maybe not) surprised at how antiquated the tech stacks are at some of the largest Fortune 500 companies. Reasoning for lack of investment is usually that the current systems still work and there is an inability to provide enough of a compelling ROI to justify the combined risk of increased cap/opex and management of the implementation at scale.
December 27, 20222 yr My wife brings the whole house with her. That shit isn't fitting in a carry-on. When I travel it's always a carry-on plus a backpack Yup. I’m in Chicago now visiting family for a few days. I think the wife brought 37 changes of clothes. But I flew the best airline in America so I’m unconcerned #delta4lyfe
December 27, 20222 yr You’d be (maybe not) surprised at how antiquated the tech stacks are at some of the largest Fortune 500 companies. Reasoning for lack of investment is usually that the current systems still work and there is an inability to provide enough of a compelling ROI to justify the combined risk of increased cap/opex and management of the implementation at scale.Budgets dollars aren’t released until something breaks, and good people keep things from breaking for far too long. They would be better off letting some of these things fail.
December 27, 20222 yr 4 minutes ago, Buzzrock said: Airline routing is notoriously difficult to automate. Not saying it can’t be done. But my dad retired from Netjets a few years ago, and he said between weather, broken equipment, sick crew, and fickle customers they just had to do it all manually. Different market for sure but air travel suffers when conditions aren’t optimal. It's far from impossible. Delta has had automated rebooking for passengers since the late '90s - I know because it was the first project I worked on there. Automating IROPs for crew and equipment is a lot more complex but can be easily automated with the kind of power and technology we have available today. It's definitely more complex for SW because of how their route network is structured but on the flip side they only have one equipment type to worry about. Bottom line is that they neglected automation for far too long and now all the chickens have come home to roost. 9 minutes ago, Buzzrock said: Additionally: I’m in the enterprise software space and you would be surprised how many massive global companies run important aspects of their business on basically excel spreadsheets and email. So true. It's been getting better but some places are....yeeesh.
December 27, 20222 yr Their scheduling software sounds like a macro’d Excel sheetI’m working on a project for another airline now. They have tried and failed to replace a related system five times since the 90s.
December 27, 20222 yr 1 minute ago, Henry Hill said: You’d be (maybe not) surprised at how antiquated the tech stacks are at some of the largest Fortune 500 companies. Reasoning for lack of investment is usually that the current systems still work and there is an inability to provide enough of a compelling ROI to justify the combined risk of increased cap/opex and management of the implementation at scale. I used to work for one of those companies. They were in the process of updating the software to something more user friendly, but there was always something wrong with the new stuff. If you really needed to get something done you pulled up the DOS prompt and started typing.
December 27, 20222 yr Popular Post Why is SWA still considered a "budget airline?" They're the same price as everyone else.
December 27, 20222 yr So true. It's been getting better but some places are....yeeesh.And a lot of them think their problems are special and can only be done their way.
December 27, 20222 yr 12 minutes ago, Buzzrock said: Airline routing is notoriously difficult to automate. Not saying it can’t be done. But my dad retired from Netjets a few years ago, and he said between weather, broken equipment, sick crew, and fickle customers they just had to do it all manually. Different market for sure but air travel suffers when conditions aren’t optimal. Additionally: I’m in the enterprise software space and you would be surprised how many massive global companies run important aspects of their business on basically excel spreadsheets and email. Not to mention there is always the 30-year tenured employee named Bob, and everyone dreads what will happen when he retires or dies. In some companies, Bob's value is noted and he earns 500K. In others, he's makes 50K.
December 27, 20222 yr Why is SWA still considered a "budget airline?" They're the same price as everyone else.It’s the chickens in the overheads
December 27, 20222 yr 2 hours ago, Wally Fairway said: Looking for any one with information to get to a person at SWA - my daughter (no pics) had her flight from Grand Rapids to Midway cancelled for tomorrow, but her flight to Seattle from MIdway is not cancelled. We need to talk to a person to see if we can keep her 2nd leg and drive her to Chicago. None of the phone numbers I can find for SWA are going through. I think it is truly FUBAR Booked a flight out of OHare tomorrow morning, all while listening to the hold music for SWA; and it was under $1,000. Now having to deal with a daughter who is crying, and trying to figure out how early I have to get up to make sure she is there on time for a 6am flight tomorrow. We've loved SWA for cheap fares, 2 free bags, cancellation credit policy - but I think we've all know that this was a FAFO gambit
December 27, 20222 yr 3 minutes ago, conVINCEd said: I used to work for one of those companies. They were in the process of updating the software to something more user friendly, but there was always something wrong with the new stuff. If you really needed to get something done you pulled up the DOS prompt and started typing. I'm sure some of us here could write a dissertation about enterprise software implementations but I'm happy that I pivoted my career in a different direction. the only upside was the pay. Departments would only want you to customize the new software to work as close as possible to the old system. The old system is being tossed out for a reason. But no, they want customization as opposed to changing how they do their job. I would have directors beg to have the new system work identically to the old one except they wanted it to be faster.
December 27, 20222 yr 14 minutes ago, Buzzrock said: Yup. I’m in Chicago now visiting family for a few days. I think the wife brought 37 changes of clothes. But I flew the best airline in America so I’m unconcerned #delta4lyfe Flying Delta + Amex Plat gets you access to the best lounge in AUS.
December 27, 20222 yr I'm sure some of us here could write a dissertation about enterprise software implementationsWe did a 4-year $80M implementation that was customized to mimic our in house antiquated system. 5 years later, we paid $1M to just roll back that custom implementation to the default out of the box configuration and just adjusted work flows to work with that instead.
December 27, 20222 yr 16 minutes ago, Henry Hill said: You’d be (maybe not) surprised at how antiquated the tech stacks are at some of the largest Fortune 500 companies. Reasoning for lack of investment is usually that the current systems still work and there is an inability to provide enough of a compelling ROI to justify the combined risk of increased cap/opex and management of the implementation at scale. Yep, you'd be terrified on how much shit still runs off of COBOL and Mainframes. Only reason IBM is still in business
December 27, 20222 yr I have not flown SWA in almost 20 years. I hated not having an assigned seat. I am a show up 5 minutes before they close the door type flyer. If you spend 5 minutes longer in the airport than you have to, you are doing it wrong. Signed, someone who used to fly 150k miles a year. Now, I mainly fly international for work, so it looks a little different, but I still only show up as close to my flight as I can. I also check a bag. I am usually flying for at least a week, and especially in winter, that extra space is needed for coats/winter sweaters, etc.. I have only had one incident with luggage, and it got to me within 48 hours.
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