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As I understand it, Southwest is particularly badly affected by such issues because they run a lot of flights that are not in a hub-spoke model, but rather seri

As I understand it, Southwest is particularly badly affected by such issues because they run a lot of flights that are not in a hub-spoke model, but rather serial flights one non-hub city to the next and next (like eventually coming back in a loop). You can see this by going to Flightaware.com for example, and following back a flight's previous destinations. See for example https://flightaware.com/live/flight/SWA1092/history/20221223/2210Z/KSJC/KSAN https://flightaware.com/live/flight/SWA1092/history/20221223... and "track inbound plane" a couple times. They jump around the country, much less frequently going back to a hub as other airlines do. That means that the planes and crews have a relatively harder time recovering from system-wide disasters because they don't have as part of normal operations as much ability to centralize or pool resources and get people/planes reorganized. (everyone go back to base, consolidate passengers, crew, planes and redeploy them and sort things out in one place) Unfortunate, but that's their model. Good for some purposes, not so good for others. Maybe it's them being quirky and an active choice. I mean, up until a few years ago they did not fly to Hawaii because their scheduling system / people / processes did not want to have redeye flights.

Waterluvian 4y ago
I don’t fly much but I noticed things like “the same flight number takes off at the same time each day and is always the same plane as a different flight number coming the other direction.” It must really help all the employees with routine and consistency even if it’s not optimal.
- Bonooru 4y ago
  Optimal isn't the right way to think about it. It's a tradeoff. Hub-and-spoke is usually better at getting you to your destination in less absolute time given the same number of total flights since you can have more frequent "shuttle flights" that travel to the hub, exchange goods/passengers, and shuttle back. Point-to-point on the other hand, is better for minimizing travel time since you go directly to the destination.
  - thrashh 4y ago
    I heard it’s optimal for staffing though because you can just have people on standby living near your spokes, which would be important if you’re dealing with cancellations, which can severely cascade with point to point
- marcosdumay 4y ago
  Pilots don't get into work on the morning, stay there for an entire cycle, and get back home in the night. The planes are scheduled that way, but the people won't stay for the entire plane's cycle.
- dehrmann 4y ago
  Most airlines have schedules that are consistent day-to-day. It's the efficiency vs. resiliency tradeoff that's interesting. I'd probably summarize it as "don't fly Southwest in the winter." That said, I flew Southwest from SJC to LAS for CES one year, connecting in SAN. Weather wasn't great, and they'd put you on the next available flight with an empty seat. They were even able to shuffle people without going up to the podium. Legacy carriers would have drug their feet, there'd be a line, and they'd charge for the privilege of changing flights.
  - chrisbolt 4y ago
    United proactively rebooks you on a new flight if you will misconnect, gives you options in the app, and issues waivers that let you avoid weather by rebooking your own flight (often waiving fare differences as well). Haven't flown Delta or American as much, but at least United's tech is a bit more modern.
    - DoingSomeThings 4y ago
      Someone below linked this company as an example of resiliency tools used in airfare. Interestingly, there's a testimonial from United on one of the front page videos. Maybe not 1:1 for what you're describing, but it solution/reason, but does seem like a possible sign that they're investing in proactive tools. https://www.slickor.com/ https://www.slickor.com/
    - makestuff 4y ago
      Yeah delta will do this as well. The app will let you pick any flight that day for free if you do not like the one it auto rebooked you on. I usually just take the one it gives me, but if it tries to route me through DTW or MSP with bad weather in the winter I will try to find one that goes through ATL instead.
    - iudqnolq 4y ago
      Delta offers you a buggy website to rebook for no fee. I changed to a flight that was about $1,000 more expensive a few days ago. (note that the significant price change is an edge case caused by travelling on Christmas being particularly undesirable)
- thaumasiotes 4y ago
  > It must really help all the employees with routine and consistency even if it’s not optimal. The Box ( https://www.amazon.com/Box-Shipping-Container-Smaller-Economy/dp/0691170819/ https://www.amazon.com/Box-Shipping-Container-Smaller-Econom... ) has some interesting things to say about this. In that book, the ordinary logistical setup is that ships tend to cover individual transit routes, which means that a delay affecting one ship doesn't spread through the system. Malcom McLean tries to set up a system of ships that always sail east instead, and it fails very badly, because delays on each individual leg of the (infinitely long!) route accumulate instead of happening and then fading away.
maxerickson 4y ago
I wonder if this event will end up being a demonstration that they aren't sophisticated enough to use their operational model. I would think planning decisions would at least try to account for disruptions and recovery time. I see lots of people who are at least quite a bit less likely to use them in the future (and they are still in the middle of trying to fix it).
- loeg 4y ago
  It also might be fine if they only have to deal with this kind of event once every few years but it lowers their costs substantially the rest of the time. I wouldn't love it as a customer, but who knows.
- spookthesunset 4y ago
  > I see lots of people who are at least quite a bit less likely to use them in the future (and they are still in the middle of trying to fix it). Meh, everybody always says that. In six months when this is a distant memory… it will be business as usual.
  - hrunt 4y ago
    Both can be true. Some people will swear them off. Some won't. Some SWA will win back with steep discounting. For me (I am affected), this is actually another in a series of recent events that are making me reconsider my preference for SWA. They are no longer a "cheap" airline, routinely more expensive than the other major carriers. Their planes are not nice anymore. I've flown on a few other airlines over the past few years and found their planes to be nicer with more features (like chargers and phone/tablet holders). And now this. The cancellations are one thing, but they totally botched the communication of it, and their practice of delaying flights throughout the day only to cancel half of them after several hours left people stranded. Will I stop using them? We'll see how they respond, but they may not be my first choice anymore.
    - le-mark 4y ago
      I’ll be driving 18 hours rather than risk a flight rescheduled 5 days (soonest available) after the original flight being cancelled, being cancelled again. Stuff sucks man. $2200 to rent a minivan for two days one way.
chasd00 4y ago
> but rather serial flights one city to the next i would imagine that's especially vulnerable to disruption as any delay/issue is magnified throughout the rest of the flights.
pookha 4y ago
They've operated without the hub-and-spoke model years but they haven't had to operate with over 8% of their staff leaving. They're understaffed. It was a major issue with Southwest all throughout 2022 and it got brought up on their earnings call with investors. They're a budget airline and they can't afford to take that kind of staffing hit.
- spacemadness 4y ago
  Not having staff didn’t seem to stop them overselling what they can handle, however. They took a risk on stretching as far as they could go in an ideal environment and here we are.
  - kulahan 4y ago
    This is probably tied to how deeply ingrained the overselling habit is in the airline industry in general. They're legally protected when doing this, and it's why that doctor got dragged off that flight.
    - dotancohen 4y ago
      > They're legally protected when doing this, and it's why that > doctor got dragged off that flight. To be clear, it was United that dragged a doctor off a plane. Not Southwest.
    - givemeethekeys 4y ago
      Are you referring to that time that United dragged a doctor off a Toronto bound flight? God, I will never forget that.
      - dotancohen 4y ago
        That was a United flight, not Southwest. Southwest and Delta are the only two good US based airlines left.
    - billh 4y ago
duxup 4y ago
Yeah that model is likely why when I schedule direct flights months in advance I get my flight rescheduled for multi stop flights, often with absurdly short layovers of 15 minutes (who is going to mark that flight?). It was a pain so much I stopped flying them. I’d buy a ticket and have to babysit it so that a flight from noon to 6pm didn’t morph over several changes into a multi stop marathon from 8am to 9pm…..
nunez 4y ago
point to point was how every airline operated before gas prices and decreasing ticket prices caused airlines to focus on concentrating pax loads. it's not quirky; it's just not cost effective. SWA can do this bc they operate a single aircraft type (737), have lower opex (they operate closer to spirit than delta internally and they do things like not allowing full GDS access to force leisure travelers to book through their website), and they keep their aircraft around a while. they also have a smaller network than the bigger airlines do, which further lowers opex. However, SWA isn't truly point to point seeing as how a lot of their traffic flows through Chicago (MDW), Dallas (DAL) and Houston (HOU) and they have huge hangars and service ops out of these locations. hubs aren't immune to huge cancellation numbers like this. American and United were heavily impacted during the 2021 Winter storm. Had the storm happened during the busiest peak travel season of the year like it did this year, they would have had record cancellations as well.

Waterluvian 4y ago

I don’t fly much but I noticed things like “the same flight number takes off at the same time each day and is always the same plane as a different flight number coming the other direction.” It must really help all the employees with routine and consistency even if it’s not optimal.

Bonooru 4y ago
Optimal isn't the right way to think about it. It's a tradeoff. Hub-and-spoke is usually better at getting you to your destination in less absolute time given the same number of total flights since you can have more frequent "shuttle flights" that travel to the hub, exchange goods/passengers, and shuttle back. Point-to-point on the other hand, is better for minimizing travel time since you go directly to the destination.
- thrashh 4y ago
  I heard it’s optimal for staffing though because you can just have people on standby living near your spokes, which would be important if you’re dealing with cancellations, which can severely cascade with point to point
marcosdumay 4y ago
Pilots don't get into work on the morning, stay there for an entire cycle, and get back home in the night. The planes are scheduled that way, but the people won't stay for the entire plane's cycle.
dehrmann 4y ago
Most airlines have schedules that are consistent day-to-day. It's the efficiency vs. resiliency tradeoff that's interesting. I'd probably summarize it as "don't fly Southwest in the winter." That said, I flew Southwest from SJC to LAS for CES one year, connecting in SAN. Weather wasn't great, and they'd put you on the next available flight with an empty seat. They were even able to shuffle people without going up to the podium. Legacy carriers would have drug their feet, there'd be a line, and they'd charge for the privilege of changing flights.
- chrisbolt 4y ago
  United proactively rebooks you on a new flight if you will misconnect, gives you options in the app, and issues waivers that let you avoid weather by rebooking your own flight (often waiving fare differences as well). Haven't flown Delta or American as much, but at least United's tech is a bit more modern.
  - DoingSomeThings 4y ago
    Someone below linked this company as an example of resiliency tools used in airfare. Interestingly, there's a testimonial from United on one of the front page videos. Maybe not 1:1 for what you're describing, but it solution/reason, but does seem like a possible sign that they're investing in proactive tools. https://www.slickor.com/ https://www.slickor.com/
  - makestuff 4y ago
    Yeah delta will do this as well. The app will let you pick any flight that day for free if you do not like the one it auto rebooked you on. I usually just take the one it gives me, but if it tries to route me through DTW or MSP with bad weather in the winter I will try to find one that goes through ATL instead.
  - iudqnolq 4y ago
    Delta offers you a buggy website to rebook for no fee. I changed to a flight that was about $1,000 more expensive a few days ago. (note that the significant price change is an edge case caused by travelling on Christmas being particularly undesirable)
thaumasiotes 4y ago
> It must really help all the employees with routine and consistency even if it’s not optimal. The Box ( https://www.amazon.com/Box-Shipping-Container-Smaller-Economy/dp/0691170819/ https://www.amazon.com/Box-Shipping-Container-Smaller-Econom... ) has some interesting things to say about this. In that book, the ordinary logistical setup is that ships tend to cover individual transit routes, which means that a delay affecting one ship doesn't spread through the system. Malcom McLean tries to set up a system of ships that always sail east instead, and it fails very badly, because delays on each individual leg of the (infinitely long!) route accumulate instead of happening and then fading away.

maxerickson 4y ago

I wonder if this event will end up being a demonstration that they aren't sophisticated enough to use their operational model. I would think planning decisions would at least try to account for disruptions and recovery time. I see lots of people who are at least quite a bit less likely to use them in the future (and they are still in the middle of trying to fix it).

loeg 4y ago
It also might be fine if they only have to deal with this kind of event once every few years but it lowers their costs substantially the rest of the time. I wouldn't love it as a customer, but who knows.
spookthesunset 4y ago
> I see lots of people who are at least quite a bit less likely to use them in the future (and they are still in the middle of trying to fix it). Meh, everybody always says that. In six months when this is a distant memory… it will be business as usual.
- hrunt 4y ago
  Both can be true. Some people will swear them off. Some won't. Some SWA will win back with steep discounting. For me (I am affected), this is actually another in a series of recent events that are making me reconsider my preference for SWA. They are no longer a "cheap" airline, routinely more expensive than the other major carriers. Their planes are not nice anymore. I've flown on a few other airlines over the past few years and found their planes to be nicer with more features (like chargers and phone/tablet holders). And now this. The cancellations are one thing, but they totally botched the communication of it, and their practice of delaying flights throughout the day only to cancel half of them after several hours left people stranded. Will I stop using them? We'll see how they respond, but they may not be my first choice anymore.
  - le-mark 4y ago
    I’ll be driving 18 hours rather than risk a flight rescheduled 5 days (soonest available) after the original flight being cancelled, being cancelled again. Stuff sucks man. $2200 to rent a minivan for two days one way.

chasd00 4y ago

> but rather serial flights one city to the next i would imagine that's especially vulnerable to disruption as any delay/issue is magnified throughout the rest of the flights.

pookha 4y ago

They've operated without the hub-and-spoke model years but they haven't had to operate with over 8% of their staff leaving. They're understaffed. It was a major issue with Southwest all throughout 2022 and it got brought up on their earnings call with investors. They're a budget airline and they can't afford to take that kind of staffing hit.

spacemadness 4y ago
Not having staff didn’t seem to stop them overselling what they can handle, however. They took a risk on stretching as far as they could go in an ideal environment and here we are.
- kulahan 4y ago
  This is probably tied to how deeply ingrained the overselling habit is in the airline industry in general. They're legally protected when doing this, and it's why that doctor got dragged off that flight.
  - dotancohen 4y ago
    > They're legally protected when doing this, and it's why that > doctor got dragged off that flight. To be clear, it was United that dragged a doctor off a plane. Not Southwest.
  - givemeethekeys 4y ago
    Are you referring to that time that United dragged a doctor off a Toronto bound flight? God, I will never forget that.
    - dotancohen 4y ago
      That was a United flight, not Southwest. Southwest and Delta are the only two good US based airlines left.
  - billh 4y ago

duxup 4y ago

Yeah that model is likely why when I schedule direct flights months in advance I get my flight rescheduled for multi stop flights, often with absurdly short layovers of 15 minutes (who is going to mark that flight?). It was a pain so much I stopped flying them. I’d buy a ticket and have to babysit it so that a flight from noon to 6pm didn’t morph over several changes into a multi stop marathon from 8am to 9pm…..

nunez 4y ago

point to point was how every airline operated before gas prices and decreasing ticket prices caused airlines to focus on concentrating pax loads. it's not quirky; it's just not cost effective. SWA can do this bc they operate a single aircraft type (737), have lower opex (they operate closer to spirit than delta internally and they do things like not allowing full GDS access to force leisure travelers to book through their website), and they keep their aircraft around a while. they also have a smaller network than the bigger airlines do, which further lowers opex. However, SWA isn't truly point to point seeing as how a lot of their traffic flows through Chicago (MDW), Dallas (DAL) and Houston (HOU) and they have huge hangars and service ops out of these locations. hubs aren't immune to huge cancellation numbers like this. American and United were heavily impacted during the 2021 Winter storm. Had the storm happened during the busiest peak travel season of the year like it did this year, they would have had record cancellations as well.