Over the Christmas weekend, Southwest Airlines officials unceremoniously canceled approximately 15,700 flights that had been scheduled for the week of Dec. 22-29. Weather was a big factor, of course, thanks to Winter Storm Elliott, but the same conditions affected every airliner. Yet the other major carriers managed to get through the weekend without doing their best impression of Donald Trump tumbling headfirst down a Macy’s escalator while chasing a glazed Christmas ham.
And Southwest is still dominating the cancelation game. According to CNN, out of 2,790 cancelations logged on Wednesday, 2,508 were Southwest flights. That’s not good.
So the question is “why?” Why did Southwest acquit itself so poorly, especially when compared to other major airliners? Well, it’s a story older than the berm of coagulated fry grease wedged in in a certain disgraced president’s aorta: human greed. Turns out the airliner had more interest in delivering value to its shareholders than bringing travelers to their destinations.
RELATED STORY: Southwest Airlines cancels thousands more flights; Buttigieg says Transportation is watching closely
According to Accountable.US, a nonpartisan watchdog that works to expose corporate excess and greed, Southwest has had numerous chances to strengthen its operations in anticipation of a snowmageddon weekend like we just experienced, but it opted instead to make the rich richer.
Common Dreams:
The corporate watchdog also noted that Southwest is poised to report higher earnings for the fourth quarter as a result of “sky-high fares.”
Kyle Herrig, president of Accountable.US, argued that Southwest essentially gambled away its customers’ holiday vacations, assuming it could get by on a shoestring without oafishly tripping on it and falling headlong into a puddle of briny Christmas tears.
”Southwest Airlines made a risky gamble that mass layoffs and spending billions of dollars on handouts to investors rather than fixing infrastructure would pay off with record profits,” stated Herrig. “The airline lost that bet badly, and now their customers are left paying the price, including the thousands stranded in the middle of holiday season travel. Southwest’s well-compensated executives could have prioritized its workers and customers by preparing for the worst, but greed trumped all as they put a small group of wealthy investors first. Consumers shouldn’t be the ones stuck holding the bag for Southwest’s greedy management decisions, but here we are. This is where the Transportation Department should start investigating why this happened.”
According to Capt. Mike Santoro, the vice president of the Southwest Airlines Pilots Association, the extreme winter weather was only a “catalyst” for the travel bottleneck. The biggest problem, he says, was the company’s outdated software.
Business Insider:
Southwest flight attendants, via a Dec. 26 statement from their union, note not just the same problems, but also don’t hold back when describing their impact.
From the statement:
Meanwhile, in an episode that was roughly the equivalent of Exxon executives traveling to Valdez, Alaska, to scream feckless obscenities at oil-covered ducks, Southwest travelers were threatened with arrest for standing around without “valid” tickets (the tickets weren’t valid because the flights on them were canceled).
And, of course, Southwest customers’ luggage was backed up as well. You simply won’t believe this beleaguered customer’s FUBAR story. Be sure to watch until the end.
Of course, while it may be human nature to want to scream at the person delivering bad news—and implementing bad policy—it should go without saying that Southwest ticket agents and other workers are not the villains here. It’s the men and women in the C-suite who deserve to be raked over the coals for these sorts of outcomes—but they rarely are.
In this revealing Substack column, journalist Adam Johnson notes that corporate practices, including deliberate understaffing, inevitably pit customers against customer service reps. In effect, it’s like shaking up a jar full of bugs and lying back with a cognac and cigar while they fight.
For decades, worker wages have stagnated while the already obscenely wealthy have siphoned more and more wealth out of the economy. Corporations like love it this way. Occasionally they get caught with their pants down, but people tend to quickly forget. And so the government needs to have a longer memory when ordinary citizens don’t. Will the feds hold Southwest to account for literally ruining Christmas for thousands of Americans?
That remains to be seen, Politico notes.
Of course, if you actually want corporations to be more responsive to their customers, it helps to elect progressive leaders instead of still more corporate-beholden greedheads who have shown time and again that they’re perfectly okay with the status quo.
Check out Aldous J. Pennyfarthing’s four-volume Trump-trashing compendium, including the finale, Goodbye, Asshat: 101 Farewell Letters to Donald Trump, at this link. Or, if you prefer a test drive, you can download the epilogue to Goodbye, Asshat for the low, low price of FREE.
And Southwest is still dominating the cancelation game. According to CNN, out of 2,790 cancelations logged on Wednesday, 2,508 were Southwest flights. That’s not good.
So the question is “why?” Why did Southwest acquit itself so poorly, especially when compared to other major airliners? Well, it’s a story older than the berm of coagulated fry grease wedged in in a certain disgraced president’s aorta: human greed. Turns out the airliner had more interest in delivering value to its shareholders than bringing travelers to their destinations.
RELATED STORY: Southwest Airlines cancels thousands more flights; Buttigieg says Transportation is watching closely
According to Accountable.US, a nonpartisan watchdog that works to expose corporate excess and greed, Southwest has had numerous chances to strengthen its operations in anticipation of a snowmageddon weekend like we just experienced, but it opted instead to make the rich richer.
Common Dreams:
The corporate watchdog also noted that Southwest is poised to report higher earnings for the fourth quarter as a result of “sky-high fares.”
Kyle Herrig, president of Accountable.US, argued that Southwest essentially gambled away its customers’ holiday vacations, assuming it could get by on a shoestring without oafishly tripping on it and falling headlong into a puddle of briny Christmas tears.
”Southwest Airlines made a risky gamble that mass layoffs and spending billions of dollars on handouts to investors rather than fixing infrastructure would pay off with record profits,” stated Herrig. “The airline lost that bet badly, and now their customers are left paying the price, including the thousands stranded in the middle of holiday season travel. Southwest’s well-compensated executives could have prioritized its workers and customers by preparing for the worst, but greed trumped all as they put a small group of wealthy investors first. Consumers shouldn’t be the ones stuck holding the bag for Southwest’s greedy management decisions, but here we are. This is where the Transportation Department should start investigating why this happened.”
According to Capt. Mike Santoro, the vice president of the Southwest Airlines Pilots Association, the extreme winter weather was only a “catalyst” for the travel bottleneck. The biggest problem, he says, was the company’s outdated software.
Business Insider:
Southwest flight attendants, via a Dec. 26 statement from their union, note not just the same problems, but also don’t hold back when describing their impact.
From the statement:
Meanwhile, in an episode that was roughly the equivalent of Exxon executives traveling to Valdez, Alaska, to scream feckless obscenities at oil-covered ducks, Southwest travelers were threatened with arrest for standing around without “valid” tickets (the tickets weren’t valid because the flights on them were canceled).
A lawyer asks the cop to cite the law he was threatening to arrest them under. He cannot. (2/2) pic.twitter.com/unNHgzxYKl
— Brad Batt for TN State Sanity?
And, of course, Southwest customers’ luggage was backed up as well. You simply won’t believe this beleaguered customer’s FUBAR story. Be sure to watch until the end.
Of course, while it may be human nature to want to scream at the person delivering bad news—and implementing bad policy—it should go without saying that Southwest ticket agents and other workers are not the villains here. It’s the men and women in the C-suite who deserve to be raked over the coals for these sorts of outcomes—but they rarely are.
In this revealing Substack column, journalist Adam Johnson notes that corporate practices, including deliberate understaffing, inevitably pit customers against customer service reps. In effect, it’s like shaking up a jar full of bugs and lying back with a cognac and cigar while they fight.
For decades, worker wages have stagnated while the already obscenely wealthy have siphoned more and more wealth out of the economy. Corporations like love it this way. Occasionally they get caught with their pants down, but people tend to quickly forget. And so the government needs to have a longer memory when ordinary citizens don’t. Will the feds hold Southwest to account for literally ruining Christmas for thousands of Americans?
That remains to be seen, Politico notes.
Of course, if you actually want corporations to be more responsive to their customers, it helps to elect progressive leaders instead of still more corporate-beholden greedheads who have shown time and again that they’re perfectly okay with the status quo.
Check out Aldous J. Pennyfarthing’s four-volume Trump-trashing compendium, including the finale, Goodbye, Asshat: 101 Farewell Letters to Donald Trump, at this link. Or, if you prefer a test drive, you can download the epilogue to Goodbye, Asshat for the low, low price of FREE.