Southwest Airlines Cancels Thousands of Flights

Been There

Been There

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Our commercial airline pilot here on this forum, “oldman” probably knows more about this, but news agencies are reporting that Southwest Airlines has cancelled as many as 2900 flights the last few days. The news release also stated that a government or congressional investigation is going to take place to find out the reasons for these cancellations. When congress gets involved, that’s serious business.

I don’t know much about commercial aviation, but I do know if they don’t have good reasons and/or legal reasons for canceling these flights, their butts could be on the line facing thousands of dollars in fines. I’m guessing part of it is lack of pilots. I am only 61 and get calls from headhunters every week from airlines for offers to hire on almost every U.S. airline. By FAA law, I can fly until I am 65. Southwest offered me a $25,000 sign on bonus just to sign a one-year contract. I have never flown commercial and have never been interested in flying passengers, but I am beginning to think maybe it’s my duty to help.

Last week, American Airlines called me and sent me a letter asking me to meet with them at the Dallas-Ft. Worth Airport with other former military pilots to hear a presentation on joining AA as a pilot. They are offering pilots sign on bonuses, but didn’t state how much. They will send me a free confirmation number to fly down on January 3. I can’t believe it, but I am considering going down. For different reasons, former military pilots are no longer interested in flying commercial as they once were. I can’t decide.
 

They haven’t been keeping up with technology, hiring and being ready to change routes when weather conditions turn bad. Their scheduling board looks like a fifth grader has been working on it.

According to Southwest employees, hiring this new CEO wasn’t the brightest idea they could have made. Forcing employees to take the COVID shots were a bad idea. Hiring all but came to a standstill. Planes can’t fly by themselves. Letting pilots and flight attendants walk out the door was downright stupid. Southwest decided to exchange being woke for profits.

While other airlines are operating at 70-80% utility, Southwest is operating at about 30-40%. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that profits are based on market share and utility, or how many planes a company has in the air.
 
Same sort of problem here in Canada. We have been having some snow storms. There are a lot of news stories about people stuck in Cancun or Varadero, Cuba and can't get home. They are all mad at Sunwing, Westjet and maybe even Air Canada. They show photos of young couples with a baby or another story about a family of 9 that can't come home.

If you ask me, there are way too many folks flying at Christmas. This is the worse time of the year for a holiday. Furthermore, young couples with tiny babies insist on traveling to tropical paradises. There are blizzards in Canada.

However, it's rather "funny." Our airlines will fly you south but they wouldn't return you home. No, big deal if you are retired but if you got a job and need to get home ASAP; tough luck. Worse thing is that the airlines are under staffed, you get no service and you end up sleeping at the airport.

BOY OH BOY! AM I GLAD I'M HOME. YOU WOULDN'T CATCH ME TRAVELING AT CHRISTMAS TIME.
 
Southwest has long operated as being a “No frils”, “what you see is what you get “ , no first class, going with the minimum of everything . That was fine for passengers who would rather fly cheap than pay extra for service & comfort. But that left them with no reserves at all for hard times, nothing or no one to fall back on, and it has come around to bite them in the tail fin. I don’t know how they will ever recover. Sad for the staff. How could anyone ever trust them again?
 
Have been flying Southwest since the late '70s. Still remember stewardesses (Hostesses) in hot pants. It's bad out there right now but I expect things to be back to normal by next week. Got two flights booked in the first half of 2023, so no worries here. Without Southwest, the legacy carriers would eat passengers alive with exorbitant fares.

Main problem I see is that Southwest needs to get their IT system modernized. Now that the Feds are going after them because of this fiasco, hopefully the airline will get it's s&%# in order.
 
Maybe one of the big problems today with airlines is that too many people want to fly from Vancouver to Toronto (4 hours nonstop) for $59 and still be treated like they were Prince Harry and Meaghan. It ain't gonna happen!
 
Against my better judgment, I called a headhunter that contacted me about a month ago and inquired if I would be interested in commercial flying and told her yesterday that I would like to learn more. She told me they would be in touch next week. I made it clear to her that I was only interested in hearing what they had to say and offer at this point. She seemed very excited about the prospects of maybe signing on a new pilot. My guess is that they receive a bonus, if they can sign up a new pilot.

I decided to just explore the options. I remember my Colonel telling us once to never close our options in life. I thought, “What the heck.”
 
If we had high-speed rail transportation like more developed nations, we wouldn't have these problems. Remember when the U.S. used to be a leader in technological advances and innovation? It wasn't that long ago. What happened to our country?
 
SeniorBen said:
If we had high-speed rail transportation like more developed nations, we wouldn't have these problems. Remember when the U.S. used to be a leader in technological advances and innovation? It wasn't that long ago. What happened to our country?
Click to expand...
I would like to have high speed rails. They work fine and get you from point a to point b very quickly. They’re fun to ride also.
 

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