TProphet1/ A lot of people have been asking for an explainer on what is going on with Southwest Airlines and the massive meltdown that occurred. Hi, I'm TProphet. I write the Seat 31B travel blog (https://www.seat31b.com) and closely follow the airline industry. More importantly, I have a friend whom Southwest abandoned in Las Vegas until New Year's (along with his cat), and there was literally nothing I could do for him. Ready? Let's dive in.
2/ Southwest is the largest domestic carrier in the US. They fly to 23 of the top 25 airports. When it suits them they say "we're a small carrier serving small places, the rules shouldn't really apply to us" (whether it's safety or anything else) but the reality is that they're a major airline. They should be considered as such, and treated accordingly.
3/ Southwest is highly unusual. Their IT is almost entirely homegrown, with software they built themselves. It's creaky and antiquated - you'll observe this if you watch their schedules. They're irregularly and manually loaded into the system.
The majority of airlines use standardized reservations systems like Sabre, Amadeus, etc. which integrate well with other standardized tools. Not Southwest, who only supports limited integrations in specific circumstances.
4/ Other airlines (apart from Southwest, Spirit, Frontier and a couple others like Avelo and Breeze) have relationships with airport hotels so they can issue vouchers to stranded passengers and crew. They also work with each other in a system called "interlining" where they take each other's passengers to avoid total systemic meltdowns like these. For example, when Delta melted down in the past, American and United have bailed them out (and vice-versa).
whyJoe@tprophet Vouchers and hotel relationships? That's still a thing?... Not earlier this year when Jetblue dumped a bunch of us overnight and rebooked for the next day at a different airport. (It was stated mechanical failure.) No food, transpo, or hotel.
All the above cost about $500 but hey, they gave me a $100 Jetblue credit I'll never find.
🤷
Thomas Insel@whyJoe Definitely still a thing, although not required by law here. Earlier this year an evening AA flight out of ORD went mechanical and the crew timed out before they could get all on a new plane. They mailed me a link to chose which hotel I wanted before I could walk to the customer service desk.
But I wouldn't have expected that if there was a serious weather issue. And SWA is going to weasel out of this by claiming it's all weather even when every other carrier recovered in a day or two.