2 ms·

Airlines generally treat all flights as part of a matched pair: Home-out and back again. Even with a non-hub-and-spoke flight system like Southwest, this is sti

by dhosek 4y ago

Airlines generally treat all flights as part of a matched pair: Home-out and back again. Even with a non-hub-and-spoke flight system like Southwest, this is still the case. Crews and (to a lesser extent planes) don’t wander the earth like Cain, they go out and come back (perhaps with a stop or two along the way). Southwest should be more resilient in some ways in that all of their flights are done with the same type of plane, so they can always swap in a different plane for the task, and within the limits of employment contracts/government regulations, they can also easily swap crews around, as long as they keep that out-and-back scheduling.

toast0 4y ago
> Southwest should be more resilient in some ways in that all of their flights are done with the same type of plane, so they can always swap in a different plane for the task That's not that unusual for their size airline. But, some of their planes have more seats than others, so on fully booked routes, swapping in a smaller capacity plane is still a problem. Certainly, a smaller problem than if they swapped in a plane the current crew couldn't fly. I don't know where other airlines keep contingency planes, but I'd imagine they might keep them at their larger hubs, which would give you a decent chance of having a contingency plane at the right location; with Southwest's model, I think any contingency planes are going to have to first deadhead to the route, adding more confusion and delay. :/ At least they fixed this one quickly; once the backlog got too big last time, it was very difficult to fix.
- dhosek 4y ago
  Using a lower-capacity plane is still less of an issue for SWA than other airlines since they also don’t do assigned seating so they can bump a portion of the booked tickets rather than all of them. Although are you sure about the fewer seats on some planes things? I remember having identical planes for all flights being a central part of their business plan last time I had read about this. I can’t imagine them getting any benefit out of having 737s with different seating capacities.
  - mjcl 4y ago
    SeatGuru shows their 737-700 is 143 seats and their 737-800 and 737 MAX 8 are both 175 seats.
  - toast0 4y ago
    > Using a lower-capacity plane is still less of an issue for SWA than other airlines since they also don’t do assigned seating so they can bump a portion of the booked tickets rather than all of them. Other airlines can do similar. Assigned seats don't prevent an airline from bumping you; it's been a while, but I've had my seat changed without my involvement as well as had to figure out what to so when someone else had a boarding pass with the same seat as mine. I've had pleasant surprises too; booked towards the front of the cabin for a plane without an extra leg room section, but the plane that was used had extra leg room for that row, so bonus. > I can’t imagine them getting any benefit out of having 737s with different seating capacities. It's probably a mix of things; one being they bought many 737-700s before larger models were available, but it looks like they've got 192 737-MAX7s on order, so it seems that they'll have three sizes for a while and probably have two sizes once the 737-700s age out. Some routes probably don't provide enough customers to fill the larger planes, and using a smaller plane reduces operating costs. Two sizes isn't that many. Alaska operates more sizes and has fewer aircraft.

by dhosek 4y ago

toast0 4y ago

> Southwest should be more resilient in some ways in that all of their flights are done with the same type of plane, so they can always swap in a different plane for the task That's not that unusual for their size airline. But, some of their planes have more seats than others, so on fully booked routes, swapping in a smaller capacity plane is still a problem. Certainly, a smaller problem than if they swapped in a plane the current crew couldn't fly. I don't know where other airlines keep contingency planes, but I'd imagine they might keep them at their larger hubs, which would give you a decent chance of having a contingency plane at the right location; with Southwest's model, I think any contingency planes are going to have to first deadhead to the route, adding more confusion and delay. :/ At least they fixed this one quickly; once the backlog got too big last time, it was very difficult to fix.

dhosek 4y ago
Using a lower-capacity plane is still less of an issue for SWA than other airlines since they also don’t do assigned seating so they can bump a portion of the booked tickets rather than all of them. Although are you sure about the fewer seats on some planes things? I remember having identical planes for all flights being a central part of their business plan last time I had read about this. I can’t imagine them getting any benefit out of having 737s with different seating capacities.
- mjcl 4y ago
  SeatGuru shows their 737-700 is 143 seats and their 737-800 and 737 MAX 8 are both 175 seats.
- toast0 4y ago
  > Using a lower-capacity plane is still less of an issue for SWA than other airlines since they also don’t do assigned seating so they can bump a portion of the booked tickets rather than all of them. Other airlines can do similar. Assigned seats don't prevent an airline from bumping you; it's been a while, but I've had my seat changed without my involvement as well as had to figure out what to so when someone else had a boarding pass with the same seat as mine. I've had pleasant surprises too; booked towards the front of the cabin for a plane without an extra leg room section, but the plane that was used had extra leg room for that row, so bonus. > I can’t imagine them getting any benefit out of having 737s with different seating capacities. It's probably a mix of things; one being they bought many 737-700s before larger models were available, but it looks like they've got 192 737-MAX7s on order, so it seems that they'll have three sizes for a while and probably have two sizes once the 737-700s age out. Some routes probably don't provide enough customers to fill the larger planes, and using a smaller plane reduces operating costs. Two sizes isn't that many. Alaska operates more sizes and has fewer aircraft.