So, let me start this post out by saying that Southwest is not my ‘go-to’ airline.  No, it’s not in the doghouse like American (which I will NOT fly).

But, Southwest is really an airline for leisure fliers or for those who don’t fly often.  There are no assigned seats ( you have to pay for early boarding- and still play Russian Roulette- to get the seats you want for a trip.  Which is why it’s not high on my choices.)

But, it has generally been a reasonable airline.  Until the pandemic, this was the airline that made money every year.  It’s the only airline (that has been around a while) that has never filed for bankruptcy.

Unfortunately, during the pandemic, it began hemorrhaging cash, failing to maintain its famed schedule reliability, and compounded that problem by eroding the morale of its staff.  (That is truly a  terrible development, since Southwest was known to have folks who loved working for Southwest and made sure their customers knew it.)

Now, this situation can provide us with a bunch of lessons for our own company operations, if we pay attention.  Which is the only reason I am discussing this fiasco. today and tomorrow.

With it 742 planes- every one a 737, by the way- and operations in 42 states plus 10 countries, Southwest was considered to be the low-cost airline that “could”.  (As in the “Little Engine that Could”.)

Until the week before Christmas when the weather decided to afflict all sorts of punishment on the US.  The term “bomb cyclone” was used to describe the weather situation that covered almost the entire lower 48 states.  That term is used to describe the weather conditions when a fast developing storm effects a 24 millibar atmospheric drop in a day.  (A millibar is 1/1000 of a Pascal; a Pascal is normal atmospheric pressure, or 760 mm Hg [760 millimeters of mercury].  So this drop would be equivalent to at least an 18 mm Hg drop in pressure..)

(When a low-pressure [Δ 5-8 mm Hg] moves into a region, one experiences cloudiness, wind, and precipitation.  Rapid and larger drops yield more violent version of precipitation, wind, and storms.  When a high pressure system is observed, the weather conditions are fair and calm.)

Poof.  All of a sudden, Southwest has to cancel more than 16,000 flights over the course of a few days – about 2/3 of its schedule- during this busy travel period. (There was even a day when Southwest canceled more than 96% of its daily flights.)

One of the most common, and, in my  (my much less than) humble opinion, yet errant conclusions many analysts was the problem was Southwest’s persistence in choosing to fly point-to-point.  That is used to describe the way Southwest still schedules its flights; it’s the way every airline used to do it, back when I was a 250,000 mile a year flier.  On the other hand, Southwest basically sends its planes between origin and destination- period.

Nowadays, most airlines run what is called a hub-and-spoke system.  This means they route planes between airports, connecting at various places where they can ensure that the next flight can always be full.

These analysts were claiming that the hub and spoke system was superior because there are always airplanes (at an airport) available to convey passengers to their next destinations and that there are clusters of pilots, flight attendants, etc. that can minimize travel disruptions during weather conditions. It’s clear to frequent travelers like me that these folks don’t have a clue how things really work.  Because, invariably, there isn’t a pilot or a crew of flight attendants able to take on the next flight- they’ve exceeded their hours of operation, are missing down time, or are simply not present at the hub to ‘man” the flight and have it leave on time.

I readily admit that the point-to-point has its own roster of problems- but that doesn’t mean it’s worse for travelers.  Moreover, if the airline knew there would be personnel shortages or a need an additional plane due to impending condition, they could have staged those needs at the requisite airport.

Of course, that would mean an airline like Southwest would have to have invested in the proper software to insure such a result.

Which is exactly what Southwest had not done.  Southwest lacked the software to be able to schedule and/or track staff and planes.  After all, they made no such investments in their own infrastructure (what you think it’s just our government entities that disregard infrastructure needs???).  This meant that  Southwest had to rely on paper to track staff, make and receive telephone calls to discern where everyone was, and then try to position those folks to afford fully provisioned planes to make the journey.

Obviously, not the way to get planes and personnel moving rapidly- during a crisis or otherwise.

Which brings up one of my favorite expressions : (Sorry, Colonial Penn, it’s not the 3 P’s, but the 6 P’s)   Piss Poor Planning Provides Poor Performance.

We’ll finish this discussion tomorrow.