5 Things to Know About the Southwest’s Catastrophic Collapse: NPR

Travelers search for their bags in the Southwest Airlines hold baggage area at Denver International Airport on December 28 in Denver, Colo.

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Travelers search for their bags in the Southwest Airlines hold baggage area at Denver International Airport on December 28 in Denver, Colo.

Michael Ciglo/Getty Images

Families with young children stranded at the airport for Christmas. Flight attendants and pilots sleep on the floors. Huge piles of luggage — some with gifts inside, some with medication — stuck at the wrong airport. And the travelers are frustrated Stuck on hold hour after hour.

Southwest Airline’s cascading failures are verified A real bingo card from travel nightmares. And while every airline faced bad weather and cancellations in the past week, only Southwest has collapsed.

Southwest Now it says operations are back to normal. But what happened? What then? The company still has a lot to explain, but here’s what we know so far:

It wasn’t just the weather – ancient systems helped cause the crisis

A massive winter storm disrupted the initial flight, but it was the company internal software systems Which seems to have turned an ordinary problem into an amazing disaster.

Many airlines use a “hub and talk” system, routing flights through a few large airports to cut costs. Southwest has long prided itself on using a “point-to-point” system instead. It’s a smaller system by the day but it’s also mean Lots of complex scheduling challenges to get planes, pilots and flight crews in the right place at the right time.

By all accounts, Southwest was using outdated computer systems badly to run this complex system.

Southwest Airlines CEO Bob Jordan compared the airline’s debacle to a “giant puzzle” that must be solved. It’s clear, he said, that the company needs to accelerate its “existing systems upgrade plans.”

The Department of Transportation says it is conducting its own investigation into exactly what went wrong.

The airline’s epic failure surprised many

Southwest is not a fly-by-night operation, or a simple discount airline where customers have low expectations and misery is part of the deal. It was a respected – and in some cases even beloved – company.

“They have earned the best reputation for customer service and managerial agility,” analyst Richard Aboulafia NPR said. They are usually good at responding to crises. “

Customers are baffled by how awful this experience is.

“I have 50,000 miles with them,” said Hilary Chang, a traveler who lost her bag in the southwest’s disastrous maelstrom. Now, she says, “I’ve been thinking about it… I’m open to dating another airline.”

Customers are not the only ones who are angry. The staff is also frustrated

The president of the union representing the Southern Flyers described the Christmas crash as “disastrous” however Tell NPR is, for example, was not I was surprised by it – and most pilots weren’t.

“We still use, not only information technology from the ’90s, but also processes [from] He said, “When our airline was one-tenth the size, it really wasn’t expanded to the operation we have today.”

There have been several scheduled collapses in the past two years, which, while smaller than the Christmas disaster, indicated that the Southwest had a problem. The pilots were ready to go, but Southwest had no planes or routes available to them. The same situation was exposed in this disaster, and many pilots and flight crews took to social media to express their frustration with their own company.

Customers can be reimbursed for “reasonable” expenses (…whatever that means)

Southwest is required by law to provide a full refund for a canceled flight. He’s already done that, too committedFor avoidable cancellations or severe delays, to rebook passengers at no additional cost, and to provide vouchers for meals and hotel accommodations.

And Southwest appears willing to cover more costs for this disaster. But the company did not provide clear guidance on what expenses it would cover, saying only that it would honor “reasonable requests for reimbursement for meals, hotels and alternative transportation (such as car rental or tickets on other airlines)”.

And of course, there’s no making up for missing Christmas with your family, or spending a night on the airport floor with a cranky toddler and no baggage.

Southwest has too many apologies, not too many answers

For its part, Southwest is sorry. Is that true sorry. CEO sorry. Sorry commercial manager. “We can’t apologize enough,” customer service reps tell angry passengers on Twitter. (It seems they are Give it their bestanyway.)

Meanwhile, Frequently Asked Questions on Southwest Travel Disorder website It doesn’t seem as useful as Kafka.

What should you do if you receive an error message while trying to rebook online? “We encourage you to keep trying to rebook,” advises Southwest.

What should you do if you can’t find any seats on the flights? “We encourage you to keep looking,” says Southwest.

What if you are stuck on hold for hours and can’t get to an agent? If you need to contact us urgently, you can keep calling.