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The REAL Reason Why Southwest Airlines Is In Total Meltdown
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- Опубликовано: 27 дек 2022
- Outdated systems and corporate greed are behind Southwest continuing to leave thousands unable to return from traveling for the holidays. Ana Kasparian discusses on The Young Turks. Watch TYT LIVE on weekdays 6-8 pm ET. ruclips.net/user/the...
Read more HERE: www.cnn.com/tr...
"For passengers who are booked with Southwest Airlines this week, the much-needed conclusion to the carrier's troubles is still several agonizing days away.
As the beleaguered airline continues to sort out stranded passengers, uncollected baggage and out-of-position airplanes, US Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg has taken the airline to task.
He's referred to the situation as a complete "meltdown" of the system. And the airline's decision to enact "operational emergency" staffing procedures last week at the airport in Denver as a massive winter storm bore down hints at a tangle of factors contributing to the airline's operational crisis."
***
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221228__TA02_Southwest_Meltdown
How many bonuses were given to the CEOs, President, VPs, etc. that could have been used to keep their systems updated. Seems they didn't deserve those bonuses.
And conservatives wonder why we need to regulate businesses 😒
No it's fine no regulations.
the irony is regulation and protections would lead to a true free market. true competition. but that’s not what capitalism is about.
Some do understand, they just don’t care bc they don’t want shareholders to lose $$$
@@whenpigsfly_lemmeoink Then you can fly with your pigs, troll. You're not helping so just shut up.
@@AnnSmajstrla Too many of those conservatives are shareholders who don't care how they make their money.
But the government had no problem stepping in, and forcing the railroad workers to go back to work, WITHOUT the paid sick days that were the MOST IMPORTANT thing that they were fighting for! It just shows that corporate greed that's on BOTH sides of the isle!
Our government is capitalist. their is one right wing group. Just some are more right wing.
The rightists more power over the social issues, like abortions, so took over, the left has been stupid to fight over non economic things.
Let's stick to reminding Texas dumbass that their kids have no shoes or food. Remind him his lack of power in Texas, remind and educate Tennessee pete, about the tva, remind Louisiana about the dirt roads until FDR and huey lang showed up! Don't just talk to ourselves!
As a retired SWA employee in 2004, Herb Kelleher is turning over in his grave!!!!!! This is NOT the airline I retired from... just sad. AND Herb NEVER took more than a 500,000 a year salary!! He owned a ton of stock but NEVER screwed his employees.
Nice to hear that. Different planet now.
Stock? Nice way for tax avoiding
I was on a Lufthansa flight that caused a 12 hour delay between Washington DC and Nairobi. The EU passenger Bill of Rights guaranteed a 500 Euro reimbursement. I was contacted by a law firm which handled the administrative end and sent me a check for $500. The cost of the round trip was $680. The US Dept of Transportation is corporate owned and could care less about the paying public and won't do a thing to fix the problems that taxpayers face. They respect corporate money far above Human suffering and inconvenience.
US airlines donate heavily towards both politicial parties and they certainly aren't short of lobbyists.
Welcome to ‘murica
Home of the greedy
The airline should be paying for the hotel stays of all the customers.
Southwest Airlines received $7 billion free stimulus money, so that this would not happen.
What did they do with the money?
I'm disgusted, I fell through the cracks during COVID.... I got no unemployment, I lost my jeep, my business, and my bread n butter...😡😡😡but corporate America is on permanent government handouts😡😡😡😡😡
If this does not put Southwest out of business then there is no such thing as a “free market.”
In america- there has never been such a thing as a free market nor equal justice under the law.
I am currently a stranded passenger with southwest. They refused to help me even though I was running out of my medication before the flight they put me on to come home on the 31st and my medication cannot be prescribed over state lines. I got my own ticket with another airline on my last day with medication but I was charged Abbott $500 for the ticket, $35 for my luggage and $17 for my seat so far. I only paid $150 for my ticket back home with southwest. Not only am I paying almost 3 times the amount for a ticket, I have to buy food, pay for a place to stay and pay for transportation for 4 additional days. I have student loans I have trouble paying. Southwest was inexpensive to fly and seating was much better. Even their staff was better with my wheelchair service than these other airlines and their staff never told me what to pay for a tip for assistance.
Bet the same managers that didn't invest in providing a good service were handsomely rewarded for not doing so
I cannot stress this enough when a company is Incorporated their shareholders take first priority because in their bylaws there is absolutely no other stipulation that they are bound to they are not bound to good customer service they are not bound to their customer they are only bound to their shareholders to return profits!! Nothing else!
You just described 80% of companies , and living in the west today greed is what drives these mongrels
You mean publicly traded, not incorporated. Correct, though. 👍🏻
Simple lesson here. Never fly SouthWest and dont "save" the airlines when there's a financial crisis. They didnt improve anything, paid their executives huge bonuses and care nothing about their customers. Let your $ count and send them a direct message.
We knew a long time ago that deregulating the industry was a bad, bad idea! The beloved airline that I flew for was a casualty of this decision. Also, many safety measures eroded to the point of more accidents and incidents occurring for all the new airlines popping up that didn't know what they were doing.
- from a retired flight attendant
Thanks for this Ana!
The government should had let them go bankrupt. What a waist of tax money.
Instead of paying your CEO $9 million maybe you could buy new software to run your company with.
I wonder when Americans will stop fighting each other and fight the companies. We're better together.
THIS!!
And that is why we have fox non news! The corporate interest will never let the people get together.
Christian confederate conservatives would rather stay racist and hateful people. 🙄
@@pilotdave1000 they miss their slaves, even though most didn't have slaves, but grand daddy was a confederate and he told us we won.
Pass the bottle, Jimbo.
Congress will bail them out again, the cycle will repeat, and taxpayer funds will be transferred to the wealthiest. This is corporate capitalism at its finest.
While not trying to give the CEO, Bob Jordan, a pass, he became the CEO in February 2022. The previous CEO, Gary Kelly, an accountant by education, became the CEO in July 2004. So, I'm going to put the majority of the blame on Gary Kelly, who became more focused on finances (Return on Investment, stock buybacks, and Wall Street) and less on operations. Gary Kelly had almost 18 years to update their outdated systems.
Yes, exactly! And I really was hoping Ana had this piece of information....but obviously not. Bob Jordan inherited a mess from Gary Kelly in February. Because people had warned Gary for a long time that this would happen if they didn't fix this. Unfortunately for Bob, Gary left Dodge before everything hit that he likely knew was coming. And to your point that doesn't seem like a coincidence. What happened under Gary's watch? Well there are two that stick out to me. The two in-flight engine explosions that I believe happened around a year a part from each other. I know there were others. But my point is, Financials stakes over system upgrades & safety cultures.....sounds all to familiar, doesn't it!? How many times have we seem cost of doing business be the end result of people losing their lives because greedy people valued money over system enhancements & people's lives.
The previous CEO was an accountant? You don't see that too often, no wonder the system wasn't upgraded.
This is also a direct cause of low corporate tax rates. They had absolutely no incentive to reinvest. They'll just pay a small fine and move on.
The European Union (EU) has regulations forcing airlines to compensate travelers for delayed flights (I believe starting at 4 hours) and/or cancelled flights. Canada has also regulation, although less stingent. Maybe it's time the US has similar regulations.
Initially, Southwest blamed it on weather/acts of god, and even under EU regulations, weather cancellations and delays aren't eligible for compensation. However, Southwest was putting it down to weather for EVERY cancellation and delay. An airline cannot say that a flight from Tucson to LAX is weather related because the crew was stuck in Buffalo b/c their flight from LaGuardia to Tucson was cancelled two days ago. If that was allowed, nearly EVERY cancellation could likely somehow trace back to weather at some point in the past.
AHHAHAHAHHAHAHAAHAHAHHAHHAH NO de-regulation is what makes thigns better, people win elections over there in America on the promise of LESS regulation...
Their water is great too - plenty of trace elements like lead.
4 hours? Try 30 minutes. They're amazing and put us to shame over here with their airline regulations and customer service support.
@@B_Bodziak that's a lie. My father had his flight delayed because of weather this year and got a full refund. It happened in Norway - formally not in EU but in practice kinda
Airline bankruptcies should have been allowed to occur.
100% and Bank bankruptcies in 2008
The airline industry thinks they can do and tell people whatever they want. They need to be held accountable in every way.
Stock buybacks should be illegal
Nice to know all those profits over 60 years has gone into pockets and not into their planes, staff, airport operations and the like. I stopped flying Southwest when they had all those plane emergencies with air pressure and maintenance on planes. It said that they didn’t keep up on safety. No thanks.
Capitalism - unfettered will always take all the profit.
My family’s flight got delayed on our way back home from France. The airline gave each of us $600 and reimbursed our hotel accommodations. We got to stay at the Waldorf Astoria in Versailles and it was all paid for because our flight was delayed due to worker shortages. Now compare that to what you get for a flight delay here in the U.S!
Do you know WHY??? Because the airlines in France FEAR government repercussions and customer anger. In the U.S., all airlines are in BED with the government, so the ONLY thing they fear is the customers leaving! Even then, the airlines would be bought by other airlines and the stockholders will receive golden parachutes!
We used to have government regulated airlines, but thanks to the Nixon and Ford administrations, Carter was essentially coerced into deregulation in 1976.
IMHO, if the govt tried to regulate airlines, the republicans would have a hissy fit. It's a huge conundrum.
This is why we need a speed train system. But the airline industry want to continue this type of control over the customer.
Why update your computer software when you can spend millions buying back stock and lay off people to increase profits for share holders?
And also to increase the salary of the CEO and board members since part of their compensation is dependent on stock price which if you buy up raises the price
Southwest was given $7BILLION during COVID to keep them in business. They should be forced to return that money. One would think they would use some of that money to update their systems. Their Operations Executive should be terminated immediately.
They used the covid freebies to buy back stock. The rich just keep screwing us.
I want so many rich people to go to prison right now.
Self regulation ALWAYS fails.
In addition to covering what is being done to passengers, please cover the way they treat and pay their employees. We work regular 10+ hr days and receive as little as 4 of those hours paid. The airline industry as a whole needs an overhaul.
In addition to having their employees take early retirement, they also offered “Voluntary Time Off” to employees after taking those large payouts during the pandemic. Citizens got angry for the unemployment being doled out, but the majority of the money was siphoned by these companies and others.
American corruption at its best.
YES. flight attendants too. american airlines has treated a couple of my personal friends in a way i don’t know how i’d handle if it happened to me. the way the randomly change your schedule and give you weeks of no time off or barely enough and then give you two months of on call, and it could be at any time of day. it’s a little insane given that both were laid off after working their ass off during covid and didn’t get paid for like three months until after they were supposed to be paid. they don’t get paid for time waiting in the airport to take off. so if there is maintence or any delay in take off, the flight attendants have to be waiting on or by the plane for sometimes HOURS. and they’re UNPAID until take off?!?!? it is ugly.
Never fly Southwest people this is a lesson read the comments of the company you going to be using before using them
Government shouldn't reimburse passengers, regulations should force the airlines to do it. Subsidies should come with strings attached!
When I was a kid Southwest was the “business darling” of the airline industry. I’m thinking they rested on those laurels from 30 years ago.
The CEO got his 10 million dollars salary instead of investing in an upgraded system. Greed is the problem.
Ummmm, Hello!!!! It's a corporation, like the rest of the entities that are the true ones that run this country, don't be deceived. From Education, Legal systems, to Healthcare, they all are for profit, which is the reason why this country is so wealthy, and of course, they have the blessing of the government here in the U.S.A. When the government here in the USA run out of money, who you think provide the needful, and vice versa. Its called Capitalism.
It's the problem in just about every U.S. company. All they care about is the next 3 months profits for their majority stockholders. The corporations could care less about its employees as long as their investors are happy. Pathetic.
The new system would cost more than 10 million dollars.
@@superblump87 Probably, but so what? Get the system fixed and working or else the company won't exist much longer.
A bigger problem is the almost $400 million in recent dividends it paid that could have been used to upgrade its system. When SW bought AirTran, it was a horrible move all around and they have suffered financially since then. They've paid out billions in quarterly dividends and some of that should have been re-invested into the company.
Southwest: “We can’t give you a voucher for food or lodging here in Kansas City because we don’t have contracts with any hotels or food vendors in Kansas City.” Huh? It’s not like Southwest didn’t know they have arrivals and departures in Kansas City. SW must think it’s convenient that they don’t have contracts and therefore don’t pay for food & lodging. I wonder how many cities they have not bothered setting up lodging contracts.
I’m from Kansas City, Missouri & I was seriously considering flying my family (via SW) out to visit my parents in Atlanta…I’m glad I didn’t
most corporations don't compete against one another because they lose money so they CONSPIRE to raise rates together and at the same rates so they can raise rates without losing money to competition ..
No, no, Reagan promised deregulation would give us better services. So this and the melt down of America is the result.
Wall Street and the CEO union thinks things are better, for them. Thanks repukins.
America has been getting worse since the Reagan days. The measure of the country's success is not the stock market, it's how bad is the income and wealth inequality, but that's the measure that corporate-owned media almost never talks about. The income and wealth inequality directly effects everybody, the stock market, not as much.
@@50jakecs sorry to disagree, but the measure is the all seeing repukins.
It is the stock market plus how many millionaires can dance on the head of a pin.
The markets are never wrong, just as capitalists are never harmful or greedy.
Happy new year!
When this happened when I have flying out of the UK to NY, Virgin rebooked me in a BA flight leaving within the hour of my original flight and* I got a free round trip voucher for a year. The US needs to be able to rebook onto other airlines when they’re emergencies.
Legacy airlines used to have an agreement to honor tickets from other airlines when there was a cancellation. That ended in the late 90s/early 00s
Greed is bad.
It’s a hard fact that A LOT of American companies are going to have to face. More companies than you think are running on system from the 90’s because they refuse to invest in up to date systems and employee training. It’s sad.
Corporate CEOs do not manage the operations of the company. Rather, they manage the stock price. All of their daily decisions revolve around making sure that the stock price meets or exceeds quarterly expectations. So, things like updating software or hiring enough people are not done bc it would raise costs which would lower profits and fail to meet those expectations.
They have enough funds to buy other airline companies but not to update their outdated software. What a shame
The Government should prevent Southwest Airlines from operating until they can get their sh*t together. They need to update their software/computer system's and have enough personal to
operate correctly!
There should be a criminal investigation
What’s the crime that had been committed? Lack of foresight? Poor management?
@@ItsTechnicallyMagic licking too many donor b holes. That's just unsanitary!!!!
@@ItsTechnicallyMagic what's it like licking all those b holes?
@@willfungusman8666 I made sure they cleaned out first. 😉
I am a retired Irregular Operations Analyst with a competitor of Southwest. I can almost guarantee you that they will completely update their phone systems, reservations systems and operations and Crew Scheduling systems after this total meltdown, even without the Government mandating it. They are a good company that waited way too long to keep their systems updated with their fast growth. It was an inexcusable error that caused thousands of their customers severe inconveniences, but I expect they will come out of this much stronger and efficient for the future so this never happens again. I feel so badly for their customers, and I hope they can somehow make this up to them. Airplanes have to avoid bad weather, but it should not cripple their entire system for a week.
You guys reporting on this one is spot on. We’ve (airline pilots) been talking about their aging software for days now. Software navigation companies that supply tools for most airlines and their pilots have refused to do business with SWA because of their outdated software infrastructure. These companies don’t want their names to be attached to SWA in case “something goes wrong”. Case and point.
- An legacy airline pilot
I'm not really a bootlicker; but at the same time, I read an interesting, long post from a supposed 35 year veteran pilot at Southwest. He broke down Southwest's history. He basically said that the 1st CEO was reactive to the needs of customers and staff. He said that the CEOs of the past 20 years have been former accountant bean-counters who were more interested in the paper value of the company than the customer and staff needs and wants, and they wouldn't reinvest profits in needed tech & software improvements. He said that Bob Jordan, CEO only since February 1st of this year, has been a lot more receptive to customer and staff wants and need, he's been trying to make improvements; but it takes more than a year for a company that size to undo 20 years of neglect.
I read the same post. The guy seemed genuine and fairly knowledgeable about the internal history of the company.
Sounds about right. I'd like to point out that right in the middle of that 20 year period Southwest bought out and merged Airtran into their system. Given that Airtran ran a completely different business model based around hub and spoke routes and add on fees far more like a Legacy carrier that had to be a disruptive (not to mention expensive) as fuck integration and transition.
A post on facebook apparently from a southwest pilot:
What happened to Southwest Airlines?
I’ve been a pilot for Southwest Airlines for over 35 years. I’ve given my heart and soul to Southwest Airlines during those years. And quite honestly Southwest Airlines has given its heart and soul to me and my family.
Many of you have asked what caused this epic meltdown. Unfortunately, the frontline employees have been watching this meltdown coming like a slow motion train wreck for sometime. And we’ve been begging our leadership to make much needed changes in order to avoid it. What happened yesterday started two decades ago.
Herb Kelleher was the brilliant CEO of SWA until 2004. He was a very operationally oriented leader. Herb spent lots of time on the front line. He always had his pulse on the day to day operation and the people who ran it. That philosophy flowed down through the ranks of leadership to the front line managers. We were a tight operation from top to bottom. We had tools, leadership and employee buy in. Everything that was needed to run a first class operation. When Herb retired in 2004 Gary Kelly became the new CEO.
Gary was an accountant by education and his style leading Southwest Airlines became more focused on finances and less on operations. He did not spend much time on the front lines. He didn’t engage front line employees much. When the CEO doesn’t get out in the trenches the neither do the lower levels of leadership.
Gary named another accountant to be Chief Operating Officer (the person responsible for day to day operations). The new COO had little or no operational background. This trickled down through the lower levels of leadership, as well.
They all disengaged the operation, disengaged the employees and focused more on Return on Investment, stock buybacks and Wall Street. This approach worked for Gary’s first 8 years because we were still riding the strong wave that Herb had built.
But as time went on the operation began to deteriorate. There was little investment in upgrading technology (after all, how do you measure the return on investing in infrastructure?) or the tools we needed to operate efficiently and consistently. As the frontline employees began to see the deterioration in our operation we began to warn our leadership. We educated them, we informed them and we made suggestions to them. But to no avail. The focus was on finances not operations. As we saw more and more deterioration in our operation our asks turned to pleas. Our pleas turned to dire warnings. But they went unheeded. After all, the stock price was up so what could be wrong?
We were a motivated, willing and proud employee group wanting to serve our customers and uphold the tradition of our beloved airline, the airline we built and the airline that the traveling public grew to cheer for and luv. But we were watching in frustration and disbelief as our once amazing airline was becoming a house of cards.
A half dozen small scale meltdowns occurred during the mid to late 2010’s. With each mini meltdown Leadership continued to ignore the pleas and warnings of the employees in the trenches. We were still operating with 1990’s technology. We didn’t have the tools we needed on the line to operate the sophisticated and large airline we had become. We could see that the wheels were about ready to fall off the bus. But no one in leadership would heed our pleas.
When COVID happened SWA scaled back considerably (as did all of the airlines) for about two years. This helped conceal the serious problems in technology, infrastructure and staffing that were occurring and being ignored. But as we ramped back up the lack of attention to the operation was waiting to show its ugly head.
Gary Kelly retired as CEO in early 2022. Bob Jordan was named CEO. He was a more operationally oriented leader. He replaced our Chief Operating Officer with a very smart man and they announced their priority would be to upgrade our airline’s technology and provide the frontline employees the operational tools we needed to care for our customers and employees. Finally, someone acknowledged the elephant in the room.
But two decades of neglect takes several years to overcome. And, unfortunately to our horror, our house of cards came tumbling down this week as a routine winter storm broke our 1990’s operating system.
The frontline employees were ready and on station. We were properly staffed. We were at the airports. Hell, we were ON the airplanes. But our antiquated software systems failed coupled with a decades old system of having to manage 20,000 frontline employees by phone calls. No automation had been developed to run this sophisticated machine.
We had a routine winter storm across the Midwest last Thursday. A larger than normal number flights were cancelled as a result. But what should have been one minor inconvenient day of travel turned into this nightmare. After all, American, United, Delta and the other airlines operated with only minor flight disruptions.
The two decades of neglect by SWA leadership caused the airline to lose track of all its crews. ALL of us. We were there. With our customers. At the jet. Ready to go. But there was no way to assign us. To confirm us. To release us to fly the flight. And we watched as our customers got stranded without their luggage missing their Christmas holiday.
I believe that our new CEO Bob Jordan inherited a MESS. This meltdown was not his failure but the failure of those before him. I believe he has the right priorities. But it will take time to right this ship. A few years at a minimum. Old leaders need to be replaced. Operationally oriented managers need to be brought in. I hope and pray Bob can execute on his promises to fix our once proud airline. Time will tell.
It’s been a punch in the gut for us frontline employees. We care for the traveling public. We have spent our entire careers serving you. Safely. Efficiently. With luv and pride. We are horrified. We are sorry. We are sorry for the chaos, inconvenience and frustration our airline caused you. We are angry. We are embarrassed. We are sad. Like you, the traveling public, we have been let down by our own leaders.
Herb once said the the biggest threat to Southwest Airlines will come from within. Not from other airlines. What a visionary he was. I miss Herb now more than ever.
Codeshare!!!! Helps.
Airlines do whatever the hell they want, always have and always will. We need more regulations. They have a total monopoly as people are dependent upon them.
Greta sails instead…..just saying
As an aircraft mechanic my main focus is the safety of the aircraft. The safety of the traveling public and all the work everyone from the Ground Crews(Ramp Personnel, Fuelers etc), Flight Operations(Pilots, Flight Attendants, Schedulers etc), Tickets Agents and countless other personnel also are involved in the Safety of our traveling public.
The thing I don’t hear anyone talking about is the Infrastructure? Clearing the runways is just a minuscule part of the infrastructure that can cripple any airline. If one flight can’t get from point A to B the domino effect begins. This storm was the last straw to weigh down the aviation industry. If an aircraft cannot get a substantial amount of deicing fluid on the wing’s surface that planes not flying. If an aircraft gets the right amount of deicing fluid on its wings but is delayed due to the storm it has to cancel or delay its mission until the deIcing process is repeated.
SkyWest also was delayed. SkyWest feeds all the airlines.
Where does SkyWest and SouthWest fly to? Mostly airports the Major Airlines cannot profit from.
Who maintains those smaller airports? Are there enough personnel at the smaller airports to clear the runways, roads and residential areas so the passengers can get to the airports?
What the public is focusing on is the plane being canceled. What the public doesn’t see are the numbers of people and the other necessary components that ensures the safety of the traveling public.
Things could’ve been better. We heard the news reports about the upcoming storm, this story has been repeated forever. But we still want to get from point A to B at this specific time no matter what the circumstances are.
Until we can circumnavigate Mother Nature this will be a reoccurrence.
The government need to be investing in high speed rail. Flying is very bad for the environment and we need to get serious if we're gonna save the planet.
🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂
Nice troll
Now I have the monorail song from that one episode of The Simpsons in my head. Thanks.
I feel so bad for all the people flying southwest. Being stuck at the airport sucks.
This is what's going to happen: If SW Airlines recovers from this, and they likely will, then they will now invest in their infrastructure and software. However, a few things will happen, first, if there are any fines, they will be nominal at best, just token fines. And secondly, SW and the other airlines will raise prices and reduce services again. Thereby, not only will they "recoup" the cost of the upgrades, that they should've already had in place, but the higher cost for less service will once again become the new normal.
When an airline doesn’t let you pick a seat ahead of time, it should be a sign to the quality of the airline and the management methods.
@iyttffgel507 I don't understand this need to sit next to someone that you're with every day, for hours on end. Are you that socially inept in life you need your 'partner' to be with you all the time? It's only a few hours, you'll get through it dearie.
@@perryelyod4870 Great you can sit nesx to my snot nosed kid...you seem like a real genius..u really got it all figured out dearie..obviously all people have the same boring circumstances as you!
Actually it speeds up the seating so they have a quicker turn around time. You can pay for 'early bird seating'. though that is not guaranteed as I found out. Still my favorite airline.
@iyttffgel507 My, my. The socially inept, insecure and lonely people, even if they're married, of the You Tube comment section sure are thin skinned. That's the best you can do? Insinuate I'm fat because I can be independent and function without my partner hanging on to me like a scared toddler?
Also, it's reasonable to want to be seated next to children, that wasn't my point.
I think my tax dollars have supported the airline industry enough and I don't need to be bailing out the passengers. That responsibility lies solely on the shoulders of Southwest airlines.
Out of all the people to blame who dropped the ball, you’re gonna go after Buttigieg? Something personal? The way you talked about him was like you loathe him. What a hack of a report!
Mark my words. The taxpayers will be bailing out SW Airlines!
Maybe if companies worked more on running their businesses than taking advantage of Citizens United by buying politicians, and hoarding all the cash for managers and shareholders things would be better in this country.
Winner winner chicken dinner.
wouldn't it be nice if, instead of (again) bailing out airlines with $billions taxpayer funds, we took that money and invested it in high speed rail?
Amen!!!!
I wonder how maintenance schedules are held and kept for their airplanes. Scary.
Yeah, excellent point!
LET THEM GO OUT OF BUSINESS!
NO TAXPAYER BAIL OUT!
i'm trying to remember when South Park was calling out this kind of nonsense YEARS before this transpired in real life. the one where Mr. Garrison made a vehicle (with questionable methods for operating said vehicle) that almost put the airlines out of business... before the government went in and confiscated all of his vehicles, since the airlines were begging for a government bailout.
forget The Simpsons writers being clairvoyant, the South Park writers need to be elected into local offices!
You won't have to worry about that. After this major fiasco, Southwest Airlines will be lucky to fly cargo...much less people anymore! When people flee a restaurant because there are thousands of cockroaches crawling everywhere, there's NO WAY IN HELL that business survives...no matter how clean they get! Southwest Airlines is a dead man walking!!!
So I flew Southwest for the first time with my girls right before Christmas and came back the day before Christmas. Both flights were delayed for about 3 to 3 1/2 hours. But the annoying thing is is that they got on the intercom. Every 15 minutes would say we’re gonna be leaving soon literally for three hours both planes.
I remember a South West Flight Attendant instructor coming into the restaurant I was working that day, she was all alone and in SC of all places! We talked, she wrote me a referral letter and I was hired by United few months later! I will never forget that!
The secretary of transportation can only apply the laws on the books. If the air lines were deregulated - laws removed, that is not Pete’s fault. The fact that the Congress has not required airlines to have updated systems that is the bigger issue. 2 solutions - contact your Congress person to request regulations and don’t fly southwest to show your concern.
Pete Buttiieg is doing a HORRIBLY INCOMPETENT job as Secretary of Transportation. Maybe he was dealt a bad hand but ALL means of cargo & transportation has been effected for the worse since he’s been elected…
These airlines need to be regulated
Yes they do! Especially after this incident.
1984 : stock buybacks allowed for first time and monopoly controls dissipated, with consumer protections, like job security, etc.
I actually read a statement from a pilot, who is with them for the past 35 years. He explained, the problem is not the current CEO, but the one before him. The current CEO took over only this year. He comes from operation and his first plan of action was modernisation and to bring back people, who actually know how to run things. The former CEO and COO were from administration and only cared about money and things like stock buybacks. Pilots and crew had told the old CEO, they need to update, they need to invest in infrastructure, but because the company made money, they didn't care about those updates. So the quote from the current CEO is most likely genuine. Just the process takes time, you can't update a system within some weeks or even months. The pandemic would have been the perfect time for the updates, with no planes in the air, but the old CEO was still in charge and didn't care.
Great post! I would add that they only staff for a smooth running operation. When the operation gets disrupted, they lose control and it’s snowballs into chaos. They have happy parties at Headquarters in Dallas (when there’re not working from home). They have huge departments now that have nothing to do with moving passengers. They care more about political correctness, than their operation. They say they are not a hub and spoke airline, and that’s the reason why they can’t recover like other airlines. That’s nonsense. They don’t want to spend the money for technology, and for proper staffing to manage during operational difficulties like this. Imagine having 750 Boeings sitting out on the ramp and it’s crews can’t communicate with the company ? Mass Chaos! This has happened before, just not at this magnitude.
IT Started in Denver CO, the senior mgmt told all the working employees OUT IN THE WEATHER, that they had to do dbl shifts, cuz they can not raise the nest shift of workers. You must work or be fired! The entire shift of workers simply resigned and walked off.. WHEW. Even the 1990s out dated computer system could not hold up the workload.
This is MOST businesses we work at. Understaffed, underpaid, outdated systems and protocols.
Running on empty...
This is why we need speed trains in the US.
Well the prices are comparable but a five hour plane trip is 12/14 hours by train.
I think I would rather take the plane.
You mean we need "high speed trains" like what they have in Europe and China.
@@marialipscomb6988 The problem is we don;t have the infrastructure. The railroad companies own the tracks and right of ways, they aren't going to put out the money to upgrade them. Transportation improvement HAS to come from the government, at which time you'll have the "who's gonna pay for it" whining, the "it's socialism" naysayers, and the few that think the government SHOULD pay for it, then give it to the railroads to maintain and reap the profits..
@@iowndvc You are correct. I guess wanting high speed rails for the US is a pipe dream. Probably will never happen.
The failure of unregulated capitalism. Here across the pond, it would be the airlines responsibility to put passages in hotels, there would also be large fines for that airline.
You can't even call it capitalism any more. The term predatory capitalism is more fitting.
They should be fined, equal to the dividends given out, those fines divided up among all those people who were stuck in airports.
Just got home! I’m traumatized! Had to take another airline home
They have High prices this is not Spirit airlines. Southwest has some of the most expensive fares, yet they never invested in IT. Such a joke
The executives don’t want to automate the airline systems too much.
Boomer mentality is strong at Southwest
Southwest was the only US carrier making money every quarter for years after 9/11. They also bought loads of oil options (fuel) for $26/barrel about 20 years ago. Other airlines had a tough time competing when oil went well over $50/barrel. Jet fuel is the largest cost (labor is 2nd) for airlines. Southwest got used to making money and we're able to keep fares low. Everything changed when they bought AirTran. The AirTran purchase was done as a reaction to Delta's hold on Atlanta's Hartsfield. Delta's contract with the ATL airport stipulated that whenever a gate in any concourse opened up, Delta was given the first right of refusal. Delta did not want competition from SW in ATL. So, whenever a gate opened up, Delta would lease it even though they had no use for it. They would literally close the gate down just so SW could not acquire it. After nearly a decade of this, southwest bought AirTran, which had the 2nd highest number of departures out of ATL after Delta. That allowed SW to acquire roughly 40 gates at the time. SW and AirTran didn't operate the same types of aircraft, used completely different types of reservation systems, huge pay scale differences. It was an incredibly bad financial move. Southwest had it's first losing quarter not long afterwards and began scaling back on customer service. SW is no longer the SW it used to be.
Let's wake up and face reality. Competitive capitalism is dead. It has been dead since at least the late '70's.
What we have now is ologopoly capitalism. In plain English, this means a small number of huge companies dominating every industry. Marxists call this "Late Capitalism." In this stage of capitalism, there is as much incentive to cooperate with rivals as there is to actually compete with them. Maybe even more.
Perhaps we can face this reality more directly by accepting that competition is not going to be as effective as it once was in making poor performers accountable.
Breaking this huge companies up may not be practical either. They have become huge employers and command huge chunks of the economy.
We may be able to encourage them to break themselves up by putting greater regulations on larger companies than on smaller ones.
We could stop fining the corporations themselves and start fining there top managers and perhaps top share holders instead.
Late, late stage capitalism
Breaking up huge companies when it needs to happen so why is it impractical? That makes no sense. AT&T was broken up once, so it can be done.
At this point, Southwest needs to buy flights on other airtto get these people home.
So deregulation is the thing to do? Wasnt deregulation something Republicans want. Also does it take time to fix things?
Both of the paгties want the same for their wealthy donors. They work for the same people and have been deregulating together since the Clinton Gingrich days.
Deregulation happened in the 80s!
My flight was cancelled and the airline refused to even pay for cab fare to the house where I would have to stay for 3 days until they could provide another flight. It's a good thing I didn't have to pay for where I was staying, I imagine they wouldn't have reimbursed me for that either.
Probably should stop trying to travel so much during the worst weather time of the year.
If companies are having a hard time keeping up with the maintenance aspect of work, then they need to stop being so cheap for profits.
Oh,They took the money and ran as usual and Southwest is not going to be the only company that we see pull the same stunt because they didn't invest in their equipment or company.
Southwest canceled my flight, too. Luckily, I was flying out to visit friends and family in Florida so I was stranded at home. I feel terrible for the people that were stranded in airports and cities away from home. Southwest needs to support their infrastructure instead of CEOs that get paid for doing nothing
As someone who works in IT and Cybersecurity, I see this all the time.
Companies paying their CEOs millions while they can't upgrade a simple program that yes, costs lots of money, but is pennies compared to the profits they're making. That upgraded software also brings other benefits in the form of new features previously unavailable.
In the EU the airline has to compensate the customer if the flight is delayed or even cancelled. It's not much, starts at 250 EUR, but it's a lot better than this mess.
#taxthecorporations, stop buy backs, no more bail outs, no more loans, imprison CEO’s and other executives, employees need to go on strike after the holidays
Sounded like pete was saying that the airline has just made even bigger promises to him….that they still will not keep.
The corporate offices of Southwest are in Dallas. I can almost guarantee that if the DOT tries to impose stricter regulations on the airline industry some Texas judge will intercede claiming "government overreach." The case will then make its way to the SC where the SC will make a similar ruling as they did in the EPA case. The country is falling apart over a never ending stream of litigation.
GREED!!!
My daughter and I sat in the Orlando airport all day 12/26 while watching an airplane sit at the gate but had no crew to fly the plane. They gave zero updates! I relied on flightaware to get update departure info and eventually after sitting for about 7 hours, they cancelled the flight. 3 days later, we still dont have out bags. Plus we sat on hold for 5 hours just to rebook an initial Christmas Eve flight for New Years Eve. We will hopefully celebrate Christmas a week late. Thank God we are at home and not stranded.
I was there too. Unbelievable, but we didn't get one single update either, not one word about our flight. Just got our luggage yesterday. We were fortunate to afford a hotel and book another airline the next day.
*CAPITALISM* this is what happens when you cut and cut and cut to make more profit - eventually it collapses...
Its just happening with the UK rail network - privatised 30 years ago - costa the Govt way more % of GDP now and it is TOTALLY BROKEN
Airlines also found convenient ways around involuntary layoffs as well during Covid. My city went from 21 flights a day down to 2. They said they no longer needed an operations manager, so they offered me Philadelphia OR Miami. Neither was an option as I am the caretaker for my elderly disabled mother. When I told them I could not transfer, they said "Ok you just quit, I need your badge and keys" Thanks for 30 years!
I'm sorry they did that to you.
That’s horrible! I’m really sorry.
Who wants to bet the Southwest CEO still gets a bonus next year?
Extra bonus for “hazard” pay. What he must have gone through worrying about all the people who were stranded for days and days … oh, sorry, CEO only worrying about getting a bigger salary, bonuses and perks. F-him
Corporate Greed???
Written at the very beginning of the vid, and my guess is proving to be accurate.
Up to 1977 or so, the airlines were treated as *public utilities* - and regulated accordingly.
Now imagine how bad it is in their maintenance departments? Future problems are forecast.
The upper echelon should not be pulling in more than 1990''s salary etc....
I have flown a lot through Southwest, especially 2021 when their flights were much cheaper. They do have terrible customer service from my experience earlier 2022. It's terrible what they are doing to their customers now.
But unsurprising...
The change in making flights and hotel rooms nonrefundable was a boon to those industries. They can charge you for something they never delivered and the government made that legal. I don’t quite know how it was allowed to happen, but the tide is now turning you may have to pay a little more for a refundable ticket, which should not be the case, it’s up to them to fill the seats in the rooms it’s not up to us to fund these companies like they’re a government entity and this is a tax
Never flying Southwest again - an extra $30-50 (when SW is actually cheaper than other airlines, usually they’re not) is well worth not being at the mercy of crap systems
A lot of industries consolidated. And none of them made it better for the consumer. It was done for the stockholders. Look at the railroads. Between mergers, abandonments, and PSR I am betting in less then 10 years they will be hollowed out and begging for bailouts