Texas Booster

Southwest Airlines’ schedule change in August 2013 created what one might consider the biggest operational snafu in the airline’s history, as measured by late flights. It ended the debacle by revamping its revamped schedule.

By TERRY MAXON Staff Writer [email protected]

Published: 27 October 2014 09:45 PM
Updated: 27 October 2014 10:46 PM

In August 2013, Southwest Airlines tightened its schedule so it could add more flights during the day. In fact, it created the equivalent of 16 more airplanes of flying, without adding the airplanes.

It spent the following 12 months trying to clean up the ensuing operational mess.

The change created what one might consider the biggest operational snafu in the Dallas-based airline’s history, as measured by late flights. The airline ended the debacle only by revamping its schedule this August and reversing last summer’s mistake.

It is only now to the point that the airline’s executives can relax somewhat and conclude that operations are back to normal.

“Well, we’ve had a little over 60 days I guess with the new schedule, and I would say that it’s performing exactly as intended,” Southwest chairman and chief executive Gary Kelly told analysts and reporters last week in a conference call. “We’ll need a little bit more experience to decide whether it needs more tuning.”

A review of Southwest’s on-time performance from consultant masFlight’s daily reports would indicate that Southwest has turned around a bad situation, although it still ranks closer to the bottom among major carriers than to the top...

Since the airline reworked its schedule as of Aug. 10, its reliability resembles that of the old Southwest more closely than that of August 2013-July 2014.
Data from masFlight indicates that 70.8 percent of Southwest flights between July 1 and Aug. 9 arrived on time. From Aug. 10 through Oct. 23, that has jumped more than 8 percentage points, to 78.9 percent.

Between July 1 and Aug. 9, Southwest had only six days in which at least 80 percent of its flights arrived within 14 minutes. In the first 23 days of October, Southwest has reached 80 percent or better on 14 days, including two days above 90 percent.

Kelly said Southwest has improved its on-time performance despite “some unusual springlike weather” in recent weeks and a Sept. 26 fire at an air traffic control tower that disrupted flights into Southwest’s Chicago Midway Airport operations, its busiest airport, for days. Southwest’s on-time average at Midway dropped below 30 percent for seven out of the first eight days after the fire.

He called Southwest’s recent on-time performance “superb.”...

Texas Booster

WN stating the obvious - we need more pilots and planes. Our fault for gunning for more revenue by squeezing in more flights into slots.

And 20 minute turns are gone forever, even in DAL and HOU.

dlaue

It has not "returned to normal" for me.

Last 2 flights were late. 18 min and 25 min.

Both started almost on time.

My experience is either exceptional, or they are delusional.

mile ho

I would have to say that they are back to normal, at least for the 10 or so flights I've taken in the last couple of months.

Still, even though it seems they are back to the on-time airline they used to be, I'm still quite ticked at what they put me through over the last 18 mos.

That was nothing short of pathetic. Late, late, late.

If I had been on the first n/s flight to DEN from DAL when GK was checking everyone in, I would have said something like, "Can't believe you're here on-time. Thought for sure you'd be late; just like 80% of my flights over the last year."

Nevertheless, I'm pleased to be back on time.

alggag

Made a 35 minute connection late in the day with rain storms in BWI a week or two ago with enough time to get to the gate area about a minute or two before they started preboards. Very impressed as this summer I really doubt we would have made that connection on time.

InkUnderNails

The concept of "Evolve Seating" applied to schedules. Maybe there is hope.

Nah, the schedule cost them cash at the bottom line. Evolve seems to make them money at our expense of comfort.

In science fiction, the bending of time and space is usually not good. There is a reason for that.

rsteinmetz70112

I don't see how this really messed up their schedule so badly. Southwest has well over 600 planes 16 is a little more than 2.6%. It would involve adding one flight per day to around 120 aircraft representing 20% of their fleet. 80% of their fleet should have been unaffected. If every one of those planes would have to be late on every single flight in order to disrupt the schedule that much.

I think it is more likely they adopted a shorter turn around time across the board which disrupted the schedule, even though only some schedules actually go in extra flights. Crew time outs may have been a factor as well.

diver858

Even one delay - particularly early in the day - can have a major impact. Combine with connections and crew changes, one event will create a domino effect across the system.

WN must have paid big bucks to the consultants who came up with the 16 aircraft addition concept, bonuses to the managers for all of the cost savings. All were obviously oblivious to the real world implications, Kelly was more interested in hitting his minimum 15% margin than inconveniencing customers.

With all of the recent consolidation, US airlines are multi-billion $$ corporations that care more about their shareholders than customers, WN is no different.

joshua362

My last 2 flights, to/from one of the most congested airport (LGA-ATL-LGA) were both 35 (THIRTY FIVE) minutes early!!! Is padding the schedule this much really fixing any problems?

djp98374

This is something more likely internally done. All airlines have teams of Analysts who do the flight and crew scheduling.

They problem with being too efficient (you see this with the legacy carriers too) is that a small delay or hiccup have cascading effects.

The bigger problem wih southwest is they dont operate a hub/spokesystem thus a nechanical delaycan really cause numerous delays later in the day.

earlier this year I was on a flight from SEA to DEN that was delayed about two hours. The source was an early morning delay buy the plane when it started the trip of flying to 5-6 cities. The early AM delay on the 1st flight cause delays on later flights. Legacy airlines in this situation would do plane substitutions on a route from the hub.to prevent later delays. Southwest rarely does this.

InkUnderNails

You need to base in a quasi-hub like BNA and experience the spectacle of the rolling gate change. Very late flight due to earlier mechanical issue still in route or on ground, connections moved to new gate to catch plane coming in that will take them to new destination, plane empties for equipment change and people at gate moved to another gate. Rinse and repeat until replacement equipment arrives. Six or seven flights delayed 15 minutes versus 1 flight cancelled. Seems like a good plan. Fun to watch. Not so much fun to be a participant.

Texas Booster

I can see trying to squeeze in an extra flight in the Midwest - smaller terminals and experienced ground crews.

Forget anything involving LGA. They simply can not win there.

I still liked the idea of flying to a smaller airport and running multiple flights daily. Wish they would have kept flying to White Plains, and to continue to Islip more.

chuckworth

They also added more -800s to the fleet and still blocked them for and attempted 30 minute turns when it was more like 50-60 minute turns. I avoided all -800 flights except for first of the day in order to have a chance to be on-time.

It wasn't just one of these factors alone but instead the combination of all of them that tanked WN's timelines.

rsteinmetz70112

That is exactly my point. There was more than a single reason for the problems, especially since Southwest actually reduced flights during the time they were having problems.

traveller001

Rolling tail swaps wasn't in the arsenal a year ago. But it can and does improve DOT ontime even it it means crew changes.

September was looking way better until the KZAU attack...October will carry on some of that though I bet WN jumps a bunch on DOT numbers in Oct.