Accountability

[denno]

I just read reporter Lewis Lazare's article dated July 26, 2016 in the Chicago Business Journal about the "Southwest meltdown" that occurred that month.  He said, "The evidence is mounting that Southwest's top management - or some of them anyway - were aware that the carrier's computer technology was antiquated, overtaxed and that the airline might have been operating on borrowed time in recent months."  This was SIX YEARS AGO, airline fans!!!  Gary Kelly has slid by into retirement and left this gift that keeps on giving to implode once again.  There've been at least four now.  Bob Jordan may be the current head in the guillotine, but this goes back to Kelly's long reign.  He needs to resign from the board of directors today to help rebuild Southwest's credibility and shattered passenger loyalty.

[ParSWA]

If we didn't get a Companion Pass every year, along with more points than we can use, and fly a lot domestically, I'd dump SWA in a New York Minute. 

As you point out, this problem is nothing new and has happened multiple times over just the last few years -- obviously not to this level, but it's been bad many times. 

Their latest crisis, however, has taken it to an entirely new level. This is the kind of crisis that can permanently damage a company and take years to recover from -- if recovery is even possible. This disaster will be studied as a cautionary tale in MBA programs for decades to come.

The postmortem on this will be quite spectacular.

[dfwskier]

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@denno wrote:

I just read reporter Lewis Lazare's article dated July 26, 2016 in the Chicago Business Journal about the "Southwest meltdown" that occurred that month.  He said, "The evidence is mounting that Southwest's top management - or some of them anyway - were aware that the carrier's computer technology was antiquated, overtaxed and that the airline might have been operating on borrowed time in recent months."  This was SIX YEARS AGO, airline fans!!!  Gary Kelly has slid by into retirement and left this gift that keeps on giving to implode once again.  There've been at least four now.  Bob Jordan may be the current head in the guillotine, but this goes back to Kelly's long reign.  He needs to resign from the board of directors today to help rebuild Southwest's credibility and shattered passenger loyalty.

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You do know that about every US airline (maybe except United) has had a meltdown in the last few years -- right?   Wed-Fri of last week everyone was melting down.

This was was exacerbated by SW's point to point system (that ain't going to change) and a crew scheduling system   that never really failed this way before - certainly not during any previous SW meltdown

[denno]

Dfwskier, of course other airlines have had major irregular ops like what happened last week.  A true meltdown is the inability to recover, which the other majors have done quickly while Southwest has yet to do.  They knew about this weakness in their hardware and software at least six years ago and here you are trying to say "we're no worse than everybody else."  That is patently NOT TRUE.  Problems arise for all of us, whether corporately or individually.  The measure of all is how you respond to them and Southwest's corporate management has not done well at handling a long-known vulnerability.

[floridaguy]

The new CEO needs to resign.