I'm genuinely curious how you recover, operationally, from such a meltdown in less than a week. It's like a 100-car pileup on Cross-Bronx Expressway. It just wrecks the whole system, to the point that not even the rescuers can get through to alleviate the crisis. Who's even running the show? Individual crew schedulers with pen and paper, simply issuing orders by cellphone? Could their managers get through to them? I'm amazed they could get a single flight out.

Without any expertise, I'd almost wonder if a true hard reset would have been more efficient. Simply announce that all scheduled flights are canceled for 72 hours. (Maybe make an exception for international flights.) You can rebook online if there is space on a later flight, but otherwise, try to make alternative plans and we'll open up a compensation portal in a couple weeks. Passengers: Don't call us. Crew: Don't call us; we'll call you. Flight crew and most airport staff: Take a 24-hour rest break. We'll start calling crew alphabetically by last name for assignments.

I don't know whether that would work, but it might have made it possible to stop the bleeding faster, rather than trying to stop it while continuing the race.

Bingo. Then if the earliest flight is sold out and you can't make the switch, consider driving.

[MENTION=258502]downinit[/MENTION] above shows how you can track a plane using FlightAware (which is what I also did). The huge caveat is that airlines (especially Southwest) can and will swap aircraft at the drop of a hat to complete schedules/missions. Given HOU is a rather large "hub" for WN, I wouldn't be surprised if there is a tail number change tomorrow.

I surmise that is what they are essentially have been doing for the past xx days. Cancelling 2/3 and flying the simplest 1/3 possible (maybe there and back) while everyone else gets into position. Tomorrow will tell...

There you go! Just drive home! Or take on Amtrak or Greyhound bus. It’s your choice.

I just saw a unicorn…hard NO on normal Friday!

I cannot believe that nytimes has an article titled


https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...e4f8185e8.jpeg
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good news... if they run close to full sched on Friday - most of flights will be not even be half full - once they clear out anyone still stuck somewhere. No new bookings to speak of, and even folks with flights over the next few days have already changed plans.

The thing they've been struggling with is knowing where all the crew are. They lost track of a lot of them in the mess, and they don't seem to have a system that lets them ask everybody to check in electronically with where they are and their duty status (i.e. whether they're legal to fly or not). It's done by phone and manually entered/tracked. Getting the aircraft into the right places seems relatively straightforward, and they all come with pilots (because aircraft can't change airports without pilots), but the pilots also have mandatory rest requirements that can't be violated. So they've been spending the week ferrying a few planes around to get the right number of planes of each type in the right location, and figuring out where the crews were and ferrying the right number of crew (with appropriate rest) into each location. Then they can put all that data into their crew/route optimizer and do a clean run, send out assignments by carrier pigeon or whatever, and start fresh friday morning like nothing happened.

I get confused over this "having to move aircraft all over" as if that is a major job.

No matter how bad it got, every Southwest plane was in a city they fly out of. sometimes more than normal, so they have to move those planes, but by simple logic, a good share of planes were in cities where they would need them

Indeed. I thought one of the huge advantages of WN was that they had a single type rating, meaning all pilots could fly all planes in the system. If true, then what does it matter if OMA normally has three 738s, but currently has a 738 and two MAXes sitting there?

It matters a lot if you don't have enough pilots in Omaha to fly all three aircraft. Many pilots likely engaged in self-help and either went home on their own or to a hotel. They need to know where the crews are and if/how much they are legal to fly. They also need to be matched with a plane and other crewmembers in the city they are in or they need to be moved to a city where they can be matched (without many flights running to use as deadhead options). Or two pilots need to be matched with a plane to move it where it is needed. It's a pretty complicated exercise once you lose track of where the resources are and their individual statuses.

I thought it was a nice show of solidarity for a VP to work the night shift with the crew scheduling and hotels teams. Could he really do anything to help? Probably not but he was there and that counts for something in my book. He could have been at home sleeping.

Pilots essentially don't leave Southwest voluntarily in anything other than trace numbers so this would be remarkable if your friend's husband resigns

Cringe and LinkedIn are like two peas in a pod.