The Southwest Airlines Flight Problem: A Case Study with a 34-Year-Old Southwest Passenger, Taylor McClain
Analysts say Southwest’s problems are the result of a confluence of events — not just the severe weather, but staff shortages caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as employees out sick with influenza and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV). The computer system was outdated and it turned what would have been a challenging storm into a full-scale meltdown.
That failure has attracted the attention of Congress. The Senate Committee on commerce, science, and transportation will look into the causes of disruptions and their impact on customers, according to a statement released on Tuesday.
For Southwest passenger Taylor McClain, 34, the saga started last Thursday, when his morning flight from Salt Lake City into Chicago Midway was canceled. He rebooked for a 3 p.m. that didn’t end up departing until 9 p.m.
It has been more frightening for McClain to return to Utah. He was going to leave on Monday. It was canceled. Now, the soonest he’s been able to reschedule is for Thursday night.
On the Impact of Airline System Technology on Southwest Airlines Pilots and Passengers: Skyler Lenz of Denver, Fla., in December 2006
At least he’s lucky to be with his parents, but “I will burn multiple days of unplanned vacation and absorb four days worth of extra kennel fees for the dog I can’t get back to,” he says.
He says he’s flown Southwest for the past decade, but he will wait and see how the company makes him whole before deciding to fly with the airline again.
Southwest needs to bring in internal software systems that are up to date, according to Helane Becker, an aviation analyst with a financial services company.
Southwest has also acknowledged the company’s outdated infrastructure. Bob Jordan, the CEO, said in a memo that they need to do something modernizing the operation.
Southwest’s reliance on shorter, point-to-point flights is a key factor. In fair weather, it’s a system that has worked well for them. But in inclement weather, it can cause problems, says Kathleen Bangs, a former commercial airline pilot and spokesperson for FlightAware.
With Southwest, however, “their pilots take off in the morning from one city, then they fly to two, three, four, five, six other cities. There’s a flight crew change somewhere in there, and then it flies one or two more legs across the country and spend the night,” Bangs says.
When there is a weather situation like this, you have all sorts of pilots and flight attendants that will no longer be able to get to where they need to be because they are not based in the same city. “So when it’s cloudy, everything tends to get out of position.”
Capt. The vice president of the Southwest Airlines pilots association, Mike Santoro said on CNN that the pilots association was tired of apologizing for Southwest. Our hearts are with the passengers.
One of those passengers, Skyler Lenz, lives with his wife and two young children in Denver. He and his family were in New York City to celebrate his daughter’s birthday and a wedding anniversary.
The family flew out on the 21st, and planned to fly home on Christmas Eve. Just before they departed for the airport, Lenz checked his phone app “to make sure everything was good.”
It wasn’t good. The flight was not taking off. He couldn’t find an agent while he was on the phone. So, he used an app on his phone to rebook — for Dec. 28. He finally reached an agent on Monday. He asked, “Do you think this is going to be resolved by the time we fly out?”
The agent reassured him, and even moved the flight to the 27th. “But that’s when everything started to get canceled,” he says — including his Tuesday flight.
The Southwest Airlines System: A Case Study of a Times-Pressure Anomaly in Los Alamos and After the First Pandemic
Renting a car and driving back to Denver was the last thing on the family’s mind. “There’s a place about halfway through in Illinois that’s 13 hours from here and 13 hours from from Denver. So our goal is to take a quick breather at the hotel and then pick it up again so we can be there Thursday night,” Lenz says.
As badly as things have gone for both Southwest and its customers, the company has owned up to its problems, says Becker. She says that from a PR perspective, they’re in front. “They’re saying they’re buying meals for people, they’re putting people up in hotel rooms. They’re doing what they can to get you where you need to go. They’re reimbursing you. They’re buying tickets on other airlines.”
The airlines have always had a tendency to change since they began. It is hard to make money in a business with high risks and it is difficult to get the business model right. Look at Flybe – its first collapse [March 5, 2020] was, really, before the pandemic. They weren’t making enough money because of their business model. They went out of business second time around.
It’s not all good news. “The biggest problem has been the recovery – last summer, airports just couldn’t cope with the bounceback in passenger numbers,” he says.
The company has apologized to its customers and employees for its frequent canceled flights and reduced their capacity by roughly two-thirds on Thursday according to a CNN review of flight data.
Over the years, the airline’s cancellation rate has crept up, tripling from 2013 to September 2022, the most recent data available from US Bureau of Transportation Statistics, which tracks the airlines’ performance, and well before the recent crisis.
The bureau has only released data for 2022 through September. To ensure a fair comparison, CNN only analyzed the carrier’s data from January to September in previous years.
It is more than just cancellation. Southwest’s on-time percentage fell to its lowest point in a decade. Only 7 in 10 of the carrier’s flights have arrived on time.
Unlocking the World: Travel News from the Cold War to the Early 20th Century – The Fate of the Airline Correspondence
CNN Travel’s weekly newsletter, Unlocking the World, has an editor’s note. Get news about destinations opening, inspiration for future adventures, plus the latest in aviation, food and drink, where to stay and other travel developments.
The risks are still there though. Wars, global and regional recessions, Covid resurgence, changed travel patterns, the climate crisis, and many other factors are outside aviation’s control.
IATA, the trade association for most airlines worldwide expects airlines to return to profitability in 2023 after a loss making 2022, mostly the result of a Covid-19 shutdown hangover, but also the rise in fuel prices.
In most ways that matter to airlines and their passengers, the world is now open. The big question almost everywhere — when China’s quarantine and other travel restrictions will end — has finally been answered. Travel restrictions were amended from January 8.
Another big question is Russia. Russian airlines were not allowed to fly in the airspace of many countries after Russia invaded Ukraine.
Outside of the conflict zone, the biggest effect of this has been to flights between Europe and east Asia, which must either fly south of the conflict zone and over the Caucasus or north over Alaska. As a result, many European and Asian airlines cut their services.
There are fewer flights between Asia and Europe, as well as quite a lot of European and Asian airlines that have aircraft that they were planning to use on the routes, and they are now looking to see where else they can fly them.
New routes between North America and Europe are already taking flight, with the big three transatlantic joint venture airline cartels — corresponding roughly to the Oneworld, Star Alliance and SkyTeam alliances, and which have been allowed to coordinate pricing between their members — adding many new routes and beefing up existing services.
If you see a new nonstop flight open up, it could be worth taking the chance on. If European airlines regain access to Russian airspace and Chinese airlines return, the new nonstops may go back to requiring a layover.
The longstanding rumor that China Southern will join the Oneworld alliance seems to be gaining traction, as Virgin Atlantic is expected to join Delta in the SkyTeam alliance early in 2023. That will open up some new connections for those airlines’ partners — and their passengers.
The COMAC C919, China’s first modern narrowbody airliner is expected to enter passenger service as 2022 ticks over into 2023. The new plane will give passengers in China a new option, although it’s not much different than the experience on a Boeing or Airbus A320.
We may see new aircraft variants announced. Airbus has been making positive noises about the much-rumored stretch of its small narrowbody A220 jet airliner, popular with passengers thanks to its wide seats, big bins and large windows.
That means those new nonstop flights between smaller airports, notably transatlantic routes, will be announced in 2023 — it’s worth keeping an eye out and booking fast.
“The rising number of Airspace cabin equipped aircraft entering the market means more and more passengers will benefit from comfort features as well as connectivity,” Airbus’ vice president of cabin marketing, Ingo Wuggetzer, tells CNN. “This is key for me in 2023 — it is about bringing these innovations to a growing number of passengers worldwide.”
He expects a wave into the daily business of airlines. Digitalization is helpful for passengers: a more connected airline offers more information and more self-service options, helping to avoid airport lines or long waits on the phone.
The massive is huge: Airbus A380’s return and the future of airline cabins in the US, Europe, and the Middle East
The huge is hugely popular. Airbus A380 superjumbo is coming back into service. The A380s brought back by Abu Dhabi-based Etihad mean more seats in the economy section of the plane. It’s good news for passengers.
The MAX 7 and the MAX 10 are currently in limbo with an end-of-year deadline looming.
The US wants Boeing to install more safety systems. That will be expensive for Boeing, not least because it contractually promised some airlines that it wouldn’t need to do so in order to avoid them having to spend time and money training pilots on the differences.
This won’t likely have any short term impact on passengers, but airlines’ longer term plans to use these planes to replace older ones and to start new routes may be delayed.
The “liquid ban” at some airports will be eliminated in 2023 and you can only carry liquid-paste-cream-gel in a zip-lock plastic bag.
Fliers may already have experienced early versions of the scanners that allow you to leave your liquid bag and electronics in your hand luggage, but these are rolling out more widely. They are expected to be introduced in airports in the UK.
Some of the growth in more sustainable aviation fuels are made from a variety of sources, such as waste oils and vegetable oils. Virgin Atlantic recently announced it was trialing the first transatlantic carbon “net-zero” flight powered by SAF in 2023, following similar projects by other airlines.
We talked to cabin designer Martin Darbyshire from tangerine, the design agency responsible for many of the most innovative cabins in recent times, who highlights that, “as designers we have a responsibility to remove complexity, weight and cost, and deliver longer lasting and more repairable, and recyclable solutions for the airline interiors industry. Our clients are demanding it and we owe it to society to make it happen.”
Source: https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/aviation-lookahead-2023/index.html
Passing the Onslaught of Bankruptcies: Why the Internet is Booming and What Do We Expect to Learn from Flybe?
He says it is astonishing that it has taken so long to gather steam. Without a shadow of a doubt, social and corporate governance will be dominated by in the decade to come.
In the meantime, Flybe’s administrators look as if they might get a temporary operating license from the UK’s Civil Aviation Authority. The company is said to be nosing around the companies.
He thinks the bankruptcies are part of a general trend of consolidation. Regional airlines will amalgamate under the same umbrella organization in the future. In Europe, IAG has already acquired Aer Lingus, British Airways, Iberia, Level and Vueling. Suau-Sanchez thinks it will become more common because the individual airline names are kept plain and easy to remember, rather than showing any difference.
So what does the future hold? Suau-Sanchez thinks fare increases of up to 25% will continue for the “for a few years,” as airlines need recovery money, fuel prices increase, and the aviation industry invests in sustainable technology.
If you are on a budget flying to certain destinations is no longer possible. Fares to New Zealand, for example, have increased 81% year on year, they say, while flights to South Africa from the UK are up by 42% in economy and 70% in business. There is context for both destinations. South Africa was the center of the Omicron variant while New Zealand was closed.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/pandemic-airline-bankruptcies/index.html
Predictions for the next three years of the Euro-Pandemic and he expects the market to stay that way despite external forces
That’s not set to last, however. The vice president of ForwardKeys says he is optimistic that the summer season will be busy as long as external factors don’t intervene.
Alitalia has been a financial basket case for so long, that I was surprised to see it go.
He says that the past three years have seen a lot of launches. Flybe’s second iteration and Flyr are already out of the picture.
The model that the rest of the world is moving towards as a result of the Pandemic is that of the Cranfield University and the Open University of Catalonia.
There are more players in Europe, they are smaller and specialized in the geography, so they are more subject to external forces.
The Pandemic has taken a toll on regional airports with airlines concentrating on larger hubs to speed up recovery. Business travel has taken a huge hit, and travelers en route to different cities are core clients for regional airports. Losing a few passengers can be a major issue when the market is small.
European shorthaul has been stable, with decent fares. The demand is strong, the competition is high, and the market is functioning.
It comes down to demand coming back faster than supply, and that’s what’s causing the high prices at the moment. Longhaul fares are a lot higher than this time last year and they can charge a premium for flights.
He thinks that fares will go down as long as it is equal. I’m not saying you’ll be able to fly from London to New York for £200 return but I think prices will come down – but over what period I don’t know.”