How Southwest Airlines Melted Down
Airline executives and labor leaders point to inadequate technology systems as one reason why a brutal winter storm turned into a debacle. One main culprit: Skysolver, a crew scheduling tool, which was overwhelmed by the task.
Hasnain says:
Very timely article after the thing I recently shared re: technology bugs causing revenue loss. This situation has been nuts.
“But the scale of this past week’s storm, coupled with a network that still hasn’t been fully restored in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, gummed things up. Even as it tried to solve one set of problems, new ones would emerge.
Crews and planes were out of place. Phone lines jammed up, and Southwest pilots and flight attendants trying to get assignments couldn’t get through to the scheduling department. Some shared screenshots on social media that showed hold times of eight hours or more—which meant they could wait a full workday for instructions while flights were stuck for the lack of a crew. The airline was scrambling just to figure out where its crew members were located, union leaders said.”
Posted on 2022-12-28T21:48:11+0000