What’s behind Southwest Airlines’s nightmare meltdown?
It's not just the weather.
Not everyone got a white Christmas this year, but pretty much everyone did get a cold one. The Arctic chill that swept across the country left thousands without power, and (according to Southwest Airlines) was responsible for thousands of canceled flights as well.
The airline canceled over 2,900 flights on Monday alone, as well as 2,500 for Tuesday and many well into Wednesday too. That’s between 60% to 70% of its overall daily flight schedules. But while Southwest blamed the weather for the meltdown, other airlines did not experience similar issues.
In fact, 50% of all canceled flights on Monday were on Southwest. Delta canceled a mere 262 flights in comparison, followed by United with 133 and then American with only 12 (though they did have nearly 800 delays). Many are calling the implosion at Southwest one of the biggest travel debacles in history, and there doesn’t seem to be an end in sight.
The company’s hotline reportedly had a five hour plus wait, which mirrored times customers waited in line to speak to a gate agent as well.
Southwest is blaming the weather for the situation. But that can’t explain it all, given that other airlines experienced nowhere near the same amount of problems. What’s more, it conveniently seems meant to get the airline out of its obligations to consumers. Most airlines provide hotel accommodations and other travel vouchers for delays—except for when they’re caused by weather or other “acts of God.”
Using this excuse may help Southwest get out of paying for the needs of the people it is stranding across the country. (Although they’re saying you can submit expenses to them and they’ll honor “reasonable requests.”) And since few can even get through to a representative for assistance, their only real option is to bite the bullet and cough up a pretty penny to book last-minute on another airline.
But while the company seems to be less than forthcoming on its internal problems, a Reddit thread filled with (self-identified) staff of the airline is spilling the tea. In part, they explained the collapse as due to outdated technological issues the company had neglected.
One anonymous employee wrote on Reddit: “This shitstorm is because the crew scheduling software went belly up and it almost all has to be unraveled over the phone with crew members calling scheduling. If we had better technology which eliminated the need for phone calls, this would have been fixed by now.”
And a union representing their flight attendants has also spoken out while pointing to the real cause of the disruption, “years of neglect to technological improvements that would fix operational issues.”
In response to the disaster, the Department of Transportation announced it will launch an investigation into the matter.
It’s important to mention here that a free market hasn’t been seen in the airline industry in decades. Rather, we consistently bail them out with taxpayer dollars, regulate the industry to the point it’s almost impossible for new competition to spring up, and our government sets up policies that typically favor the companies over the consumers. Most airlines should have been allowed to fail a long time ago.
Given the current conditions, it is worth demanding answers on behalf of taxpayers. If they’re going to give our tax dollars to these companies we shouldn’t be left with the bill when they screw up.
We need a free market on the ground and in the skies. But in the meantime, we need accountability and reparations when a government-backed company messes up at this scale.
https://www.based-politics.com/2022/12/27/whats-behind-southwest-airliness-nightmare-meltdown/