America, America... this is YOU !
Can you hear your workers now?
"I learned to drive driving in the Rocky Mountains out West. I've been up the Alaska Highway. I've never seen anything like this or anything mishandled like this. There's no reason the main roads can't be opened and the Peace Bridge can't be opened...
This is complete failure.
And I'm glad I'm this close... -- I didn't think I'd ever want to retire... This has just pushed it even that I want to go sooner."
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Learning that the Southwest Airlines meltdown is due to an antiquated crew scheduling system that assumes where a crew member is instead of working off live flight data. They’ve lost track of almost every crew member and the only way to solve it is…
for each one to individually call scheduling to tell them where they are. Their phone lines are swamped and I’ve seen screenshots of crew on hold for 23+ hours trying to get through to scheduling. Because scheduling can’t keep track of where crew are, crew can’t get a hotel room for themselves in order to start their FAA mandated rest period. Lots of stories of crew members booking their own hotel rooms with the hopes it’ll be reimbursed at some point...
Apparently the system has a crew member on a trip, and it moves them like a chess piece as the schedule moves forward. If a trip or flight is cancelled, delayed or rerouted then manual input is required to adjust it. It happened so much that it’s now just snowballed.
You think Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg is working this holiday week, and we'll hear from him at all? Doubtful. I bet he has penciled in his time off with the twins and Christian to enjoy at home together. They'll address this when Washington comes back to work again in January, maybe?
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ADDED:
Southwest spokesperson Chris Perry told NPR the airline's disruptions are a result of the winter storm's lingering effects, adding that it hopes to "stabilize and improve its operation" with more favorable weather conditions.
Other issues that have exacerbated the airline's struggle to accommodate the holiday rush include problems with "connecting flight crews to their schedules," Perry said. That issue has made it difficult for employees to access crew scheduling services and get reassignments.
Kyle Potter, executive editor of Thrifty Traveler, called it an incredibly complex task for an airline with a network as vast as Southwest's to coordinate staffing and scheduling, particularly after weather delays. But with many areas seeing clear skies on Monday, the airline would seem to have few obvious reasons to cancel so many flights.
Sad thing is how this contributes to the ongoing loss of social trust in America, and the increasing economic division. (= "I don't fly cheap airlines like Southwest" or "I don't live out East and plan to get caught driving in winter snowstorms. Why care if this doesn't directly affect me?")
The societal "snowball" effect, I think they call it...
(Now imagine what's going on inside our hospitals and prisons that we're not affected by -- now -- and we're not seeing...)
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Not sure that "news reporting" stories like these are where we should be putting reporter resources right now. Why focus on the past at the expense of WHAT IS HAPPENING IN THE PRESENT?
(sorry to raise my voice, but news in news-papers is about what is happening NOW. Get the heck out there and report the facts already... ask some hard questions too of the people in power in charge of policy and planning and performance who are taking the BigMoney to allegedly do these jobs?)
Yes. You. Can.!
(that wasn't just an empty political slogan, was it??)
(I mean -- I'm all for diversity and justice and uplift too, but America is circling the drain on a lot of these bread-and-butter issues of late. We gotta fix things soon... and quit breaking shit!)
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