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Per comments on /r/southwestairlines for 20 years the C-suite were Wall Street boys and set that as management culture, as long as shares were up things were fi
by masklinn 4y ago
Per comments on /r/southwestairlines for 20 years the C-suite were Wall Street boys and set that as management culture, as long as shares were up things were fine.
Frontlines have been emitting concerns and warnings for years but management didn’t care until an ops CEO (Bob Jordan) got in recently (as in 2022), but now there’s 20 years of ops neglect to deal with, and less than a year is nowhere near enough to start enacting real changes.
- Sakos 4y agoOn that note, I think it's interesting how glowingly people talk about Herb Kelleher. Wouldn't he be responsible for allowing that tech debt to build until it finally caused the system to fail catastrophically?
- masklinn 4y agoKeller stepped down in 2004, so not really. In 2004, replacing 10 years old systems starts becoming a consideration but it's not an active need. Kelly was CEO from 2004 to 2022. And is now chairman of the board. Bob Jordan is the new CEO, since February 2022.
- Sakos 4y agoApparently Keller was on the board until 2008 and remained an FTE until 2013. I suspect he still had plenty of influence over Southwest's direction.