4 ms·

I've told this story a few times, but maybe 10 years ago I had a cross-country JetBlue flight that was delayed perhaps 6 hours hours. It was a few days after a

I've told this story a few times, but maybe 10 years ago I had a cross-country JetBlue flight that was delayed perhaps 6 hours hours. It was a few days after a major storm. Like Southwest here, JetBlue didn't have much flex capacity and relied on the daisy chain to keep on chaining. Our plane had gotten stuck somewhere, so they had to find a different one at some far-away airport and fly it in, which took hours. But the kicker was that when the plane finally landed, the crew already onboard couldn't man the flight because that would exceed their duty limits. The airline didn't realize this ahead of time, so they had to gather a new crew (like literally call them in), which added a couple of hours to the delay. Naively, I'd assumed these kinds of things were handled in some sort of mission-control center with warnings from rule engines blinking on some big screen and a team of crack operators mapping out what needed done. But clearly that wasn't so: they were just making things up as they went along. Sounds like Southwest is in a similar spot, but this time on a much bigger scale.

bombcar 4y ago
I’ve seen it happen and it’s always strange that they seem to not realize the crew will be unusable until they arrive … I assume they had been trying to get another crew at the same time.
- nradov 4y ago
  Sometimes the dispatchers expect that the crew will still be legal, but then the incoming flight gets delayed just enough to push them over the limit.
- ipqk 4y ago
  There are several time limits, but I believe that one of them stops when pulling back from the gate. i.e. once the the plane is moving, they're granted several X more hours, but if they haven't left yet, then they've timed out. So the arriving crew may plausibly be usable upon arrival, but a few minutes late may be all it takes to time them out. I've been on a delayed plane where one of the pilots timed out while sitting at the gate, so we had another second delay finding another pilot.
- mrandish 4y ago
  There's also the fun wrinkle that not all crews or crew members are current on ratings (ie training courses) to operate all types/versions of planes the airline as in service. You also need sufficient open gates of the right type in the right place during the right time window or you idle a plane (which can then idle a crew). It's pretty easy to imagine how such a system which may work at a certain level of load can be tipped into a runaway scenario. As a systems person I'd be an interested reader if Southwest were to someday release an incident analysis and post-mortem of the type that good IT organizations do.
  - bombcar 4y ago
    The first is why Southwest (and others) only fly one type of plane.
walrus01 4y ago
Once you realize how many people in critical industries (power grid, telecom, global cargo/logistics) are in fact making things up as they go along, and there aren't really any highly organized and responsible people running the show, you start to worry.
- ghaff 4y ago
  Or you realize a lot of things involving real world physical systems are hard and customers aren't fine with paying "whatever."
- isiahl 4y ago
  Reminds me of this Onion headline: "Smart, Qualified People Behind The Scenes Keeping America Safe: ‘We Don't Exist’" https://www.theonion.com/smart-qualified-people-behind-the-scenes-keeping-ameri-1819571706 https://www.theonion.com/smart-qualified-people-behind-the-s...
- Beltalowda 4y ago
  What is the alternative? Extensive playbooks for every possible scenario that may or may not make sense in the actual scenario because a few critical details are different? A "mission-control center" is really no different: it's just people making stuff up on the spot. In the end, there is no substitute for human judgement in the situation itself.
  - clintonb 4y ago
    > What is the alternative? Extensive playbooks for every possible scenario that may or may not make sense in the actual scenario because a few critical details are different? Yes? I suspect they have playbooks and/or run gameday exercises for other aspects of disaster preparedness and business continuity. Why not do the same for these sorts of issues that affect the travel network? The network of airports, planes, and crews is a graph (or multiple graphs). What happens when a node disappears? That may be a hard question to answer, but it seems cheaper to answer, and plan around, it before the situation occurs rather than after.
seandoe 4y ago
> clearly that wasn't so: they were just making things up as they went along. Where did you get your information? I have experience in the industry and scheduling logistics is clearly not how you describe it. The issue is that to optimize for profit you sacrifice the ability to maintain service through catastrophic events and can end up in a bit of a dominoes situation.
- icambron 4y ago
  Which information? That they belated realized they'd run out of duty hours and had to call in new crew, after the plane with the soon-to-expire crew had landed? They told us that while we waited at the gate, including updates about the expected time that the newly-called-in crew would arrive. They were quite transparent about everything. Or are you asking why I think they're making it up as they go along? That is my conclusion, to be sure. It's one thing for dominoes to fall, but if you are in a situation where the dominoes are falling and you are not able to predict which dominoes will fall next and respond accordingly, you are making things up as you go along. I'd have expected that almost any decision they could even hypothetically make would run through a system that checked it for violations of constraints, which would have told them way ahead of time that they needed a fresh crew, and they'd have had the entire flight of the replacement plane to get one in (IIRC it flew Miami->Boston just to get us the plane).
  - seandoe 4y ago
    Regarding your first paragraph, rarely are the gate agents telling the public the entire story. The truth is typically more complex and basically not of concern to the average passenger. As for your conclusion, it's just not accurate. Systems _are_ used for scheduling and allocation of equipment and crew resources. You just have to realize that getting you, as an individual, to your destination on time on any given day isn't the number one priority of the company. There are a lot more concerns they are considering. If the airline industry is really as dysfunctional as you think, with such shortcomings in areas as important as equipment and crew scheduling and allocation, you should drop whatever you're doing and start an airline. You'll soon be filthy rich and do the world a great service.

bombcar 4y ago

I’ve seen it happen and it’s always strange that they seem to not realize the crew will be unusable until they arrive … I assume they had been trying to get another crew at the same time.

nradov 4y ago
Sometimes the dispatchers expect that the crew will still be legal, but then the incoming flight gets delayed just enough to push them over the limit.
ipqk 4y ago
There are several time limits, but I believe that one of them stops when pulling back from the gate. i.e. once the the plane is moving, they're granted several X more hours, but if they haven't left yet, then they've timed out. So the arriving crew may plausibly be usable upon arrival, but a few minutes late may be all it takes to time them out. I've been on a delayed plane where one of the pilots timed out while sitting at the gate, so we had another second delay finding another pilot.
mrandish 4y ago
There's also the fun wrinkle that not all crews or crew members are current on ratings (ie training courses) to operate all types/versions of planes the airline as in service. You also need sufficient open gates of the right type in the right place during the right time window or you idle a plane (which can then idle a crew). It's pretty easy to imagine how such a system which may work at a certain level of load can be tipped into a runaway scenario. As a systems person I'd be an interested reader if Southwest were to someday release an incident analysis and post-mortem of the type that good IT organizations do.
- bombcar 4y ago
  The first is why Southwest (and others) only fly one type of plane.

walrus01 4y ago

Once you realize how many people in critical industries (power grid, telecom, global cargo/logistics) are in fact making things up as they go along, and there aren't really any highly organized and responsible people running the show, you start to worry.

ghaff 4y ago
Or you realize a lot of things involving real world physical systems are hard and customers aren't fine with paying "whatever."
isiahl 4y ago
Reminds me of this Onion headline: "Smart, Qualified People Behind The Scenes Keeping America Safe: ‘We Don't Exist’" https://www.theonion.com/smart-qualified-people-behind-the-scenes-keeping-ameri-1819571706 https://www.theonion.com/smart-qualified-people-behind-the-s...
Beltalowda 4y ago
What is the alternative? Extensive playbooks for every possible scenario that may or may not make sense in the actual scenario because a few critical details are different? A "mission-control center" is really no different: it's just people making stuff up on the spot. In the end, there is no substitute for human judgement in the situation itself.
- clintonb 4y ago
  > What is the alternative? Extensive playbooks for every possible scenario that may or may not make sense in the actual scenario because a few critical details are different? Yes? I suspect they have playbooks and/or run gameday exercises for other aspects of disaster preparedness and business continuity. Why not do the same for these sorts of issues that affect the travel network? The network of airports, planes, and crews is a graph (or multiple graphs). What happens when a node disappears? That may be a hard question to answer, but it seems cheaper to answer, and plan around, it before the situation occurs rather than after.

seandoe 4y ago

> clearly that wasn't so: they were just making things up as they went along. Where did you get your information? I have experience in the industry and scheduling logistics is clearly not how you describe it. The issue is that to optimize for profit you sacrifice the ability to maintain service through catastrophic events and can end up in a bit of a dominoes situation.

icambron 4y ago
Which information? That they belated realized they'd run out of duty hours and had to call in new crew, after the plane with the soon-to-expire crew had landed? They told us that while we waited at the gate, including updates about the expected time that the newly-called-in crew would arrive. They were quite transparent about everything. Or are you asking why I think they're making it up as they go along? That is my conclusion, to be sure. It's one thing for dominoes to fall, but if you are in a situation where the dominoes are falling and you are not able to predict which dominoes will fall next and respond accordingly, you are making things up as you go along. I'd have expected that almost any decision they could even hypothetically make would run through a system that checked it for violations of constraints, which would have told them way ahead of time that they needed a fresh crew, and they'd have had the entire flight of the replacement plane to get one in (IIRC it flew Miami->Boston just to get us the plane).
- seandoe 4y ago
  Regarding your first paragraph, rarely are the gate agents telling the public the entire story. The truth is typically more complex and basically not of concern to the average passenger. As for your conclusion, it's just not accurate. Systems _are_ used for scheduling and allocation of equipment and crew resources. You just have to realize that getting you, as an individual, to your destination on time on any given day isn't the number one priority of the company. There are a lot more concerns they are considering. If the airline industry is really as dysfunctional as you think, with such shortcomings in areas as important as equipment and crew scheduling and allocation, you should drop whatever you're doing and start an airline. You'll soon be filthy rich and do the world a great service.