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Why are so many Southwest flights cancelled?


Airehead

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1 hour ago, Tizeye said:

I suspect it was the lack of internet in the instant "information" age as limited to the local newspaper and 3 TV networks.

It is interesting that the more "open" a process is, the less "trusted" it is, as seemingly, that openness leaves it open for all sorts of armchair Einsteins to poke holes in the process.  Back when folks were kept in the dark, the "trusted" government.  Ignorance is bliss.

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29 minutes ago, Razors Edge said:

It is interesting that the more "open" a process is, the less "trusted" it is, as seemingly, that openness leaves it open for all sorts of armchair Einsteins to poke holes in the process.  Back when folks were kept in the dark, the "trusted" government.  Ignorance is bliss.

A longer pipe in the septic system filters shit better.

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12 hours ago, denniS said:

Let's be honest about this. The majority of unvaccinated people are not following science, the CDC, or the advice of their own family doctor.

I'm not sure how anyone would determine that, as I don't know how it might be possible to survey or measure 'not following the science'. 

I suppose one might conduct a survey with the first question 'Are you unvaccinated?".  And if the answer were 'No', would the next question be "Are you not vaccinated because you're ignoring the science, the CDC, or your doctor?".  I can't see anybody answering 'Yes' to that question, much less a majority of unvaccinated people.

The surveyor might listen to the reasons for refusing vaccination and apply judgment.  That judgement will vary, unfortunately, from person to person according to the beliefs held.  And so, the results would be inconsistent.

Now, I will grant that such a conclusion regarding the motivations of unvaccinated might be supported one's own casual observations but then we need to recognize that we begin to drift into the realm of opinion.  Nothing wrong with that as long as we carefully discern between opinions and data in trying to sort through all the information.

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29 minutes ago, Thaddeus Kosciuszko said:

as long as we carefully discern between opinions and data in trying to sort through all the information.

We have already proven that we can't do that here and it's obvious from the guidance, redirected guidance, re-guidance, new guidance.... from our national health agency heads, they can't either.

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Let's start with the fact that both the union AND the airline say this is absolutely NOT related to vax mandates, and there has been no job action, strike, sick out, whatever.

Then consider that there other possibilities why an airline could have problems flying.  Like, maybe, computer issues that had been reported PRIOR to this slowdown.  And staffing issues, like EVERY occupation has right now.  Since Southwest already didn't have the best reputation for how they treat employees, just maybe their people took open jobs elsewhere?  US employee quit rate is currently at historic highs as employees right now have the upper hand.

But there's so much more traction to be gained by making up a grass roots pushback against those awful life saving vaccine mandates!

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9 minutes ago, Kzoo said:

We have already proven that we can't do that here and it's obvious from the guidance, redirected guidance, re-guidance, new guidance.... from our national health agency heads, they can't either.

Yup, science never changes as they learn things.  Good thing leeches are still so good and curing what ails ya.

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34 minutes ago, 12string said:

Let's start with the fact that both the union AND the airline say this is absolutely NOT related to vax mandates, and there has been no job action, strike, sick out, whatever.

Then consider that there other possibilities why an airline could have problems flying.  Like, maybe, computer issues that had been reported PRIOR to this slowdown.  And staffing issues, like EVERY occupation has right now.  Since Southwest already didn't have the best reputation for how they treat employees, just maybe their people took open jobs elsewhere?  US employee quit rate is currently at historic highs as employees right now have the upper hand.

But there's so much more traction to be gained by making up a grass roots pushback against those awful life saving vaccine mandates!

You really have zero understanding or knowledge on this. 

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The pilots union has been trying to bring attention to staffing concerns all summer long, before vaccine mandates were initiated. 

And airline crews are subject to federal rules on how long they can be on the clock. Not having a crew may not impact just one flight — it could put a plane out of position for subsequent flights as well. 

So when a small delay happens, it can snowball. The same domino effect happened to Spirit Airlines and American Airlines over the summer. 

Southwest issued an apology on Monday afternoon stating as much. Unlike American and airlines that operate a hub-and-spoke system where aircraft fly into and out of hub airports, Southwest operates a point-to-point system. 

"On Friday evening, the airline ended the day with numerous cancellations, primarily created by weather and other external constraints, which left aircraft and crews out of pre-planned positions to operate our schedule on Saturday. Unfortunately, the out-of-place aircraft and continued strain on our crew resources created additional cancellations across our point-to-point network that cascaded throughout the weekend and into Monday," Southwest posted on its website. 

The airline said it is looking to hire 5,000 employees across its network by the end of 2021. In Phoenix, Southwest is hiring for ground operations, tech operations and customer service roles.

The airline also stated that the cascade of canceled flights wasn't due to any labor action.

"Southwest teams have been working diligently to restore stability to the network, and we are experiencing less disruptions on Monday. We hope to restore our full schedule as soon as possible. As a note, the operational challenges were not a result of Southwest employee demonstrations," the release posted Monday said. 

The Federal Aviation Administration and the Southwest Airlines Pilots Association also denied there were any walkouts, sick-outs or strikes over the weekend. 

A historical note of reference: If air traffic controllers had walked off the job en masse as Facebook and Twitter posts suggested, it would have been monumental news given what happened to air traffic controllers who went on strike during the Reagan administration and were subsequently fired.

The disruption of air traffic controllers walking off the job also would have been felt by other airlines, not just Southwest. When the 1981 strike happened, more than 7,000 flights were affected. And there were far fewer passengers traveling back then.

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2 hours ago, 12string said:

The pilots union has been trying to bring attention to staffing concerns all summer long, before vaccine mandates were initiated. 

And airline crews are subject to federal rules on how long they can be on the clock. Not having a crew may not impact just one flight — it could put a plane out of position for subsequent flights as well. 

So when a small delay happens, it can snowball. The same domino effect happened to Spirit Airlines and American Airlines over the summer. 

Southwest issued an apology on Monday afternoon stating as much. Unlike American and airlines that operate a hub-and-spoke system where aircraft fly into and out of hub airports, Southwest operates a point-to-point system. 

"On Friday evening, the airline ended the day with numerous cancellations, primarily created by weather and other external constraints, which left aircraft and crews out of pre-planned positions to operate our schedule on Saturday. Unfortunately, the out-of-place aircraft and continued strain on our crew resources created additional cancellations across our point-to-point network that cascaded throughout the weekend and into Monday," Southwest posted on its website. 

The airline said it is looking to hire 5,000 employees across its network by the end of 2021. In Phoenix, Southwest is hiring for ground operations, tech operations and customer service roles.

The airline also stated that the cascade of canceled flights wasn't due to any labor action.

"Southwest teams have been working diligently to restore stability to the network, and we are experiencing less disruptions on Monday. We hope to restore our full schedule as soon as possible. As a note, the operational challenges were not a result of Southwest employee demonstrations," the release posted Monday said. 

The Federal Aviation Administration and the Southwest Airlines Pilots Association also denied there were any walkouts, sick-outs or strikes over the weekend. 

A historical note of reference: If air traffic controllers had walked off the job en masse as Facebook and Twitter posts suggested, it would have been monumental news given what happened to air traffic controllers who went on strike during the Reagan administration and were subsequently fired.

The disruption of air traffic controllers walking off the job also would have been felt by other airlines, not just Southwest. When the 1981 strike happened, more than 7,000 flights were affected. And there were far fewer passengers traveling back then.

I have multiple industry sources including friends at Southwest that also laugh at this.  Sorry dude, don’t believe everything you read. 

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Then I wonder, why would Southwest take the blame for having a poor system of moving planes and not enough employees when they could easily blame the pilots for not coming to work?  And how could that many crews skip work and no one but industry insiders noticed?  Why is no one but the anti vax mandate crowd publicly pushing the walkout story?

Not saying it couldn't turn out differently, but for now, my logic says believe the pilot's union, Southwest, and the FAA.  I don't doubt there were a few who didn't show, but ISTM the other reasons have more impact.

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4 hours ago, 12string said:

Yup, science never changes as they learn things.  Good thing leeches are still so good and curing what ails ya.

I think one problem was the decision to have nightly live hour-long updates early on in the American phase of the pandemic. The evidence-based content was used up within the first 15 minutes or, the rest was conjecture at best, misinformation at worst.  Less frequent updates would have improved the quality of the information. IMO.

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6 hours ago, Thaddeus Kosciuszko said:

I'm not sure how anyone would determine that, as I don't know how it might be possible to survey or measure 'not following the science'. 

I suppose one might conduct a survey with the first question 'Are you unvaccinated?".  And if the answer were 'No', would the next question be "Are you not vaccinated because you're ignoring the science, the CDC, or your doctor?".  I can't see anybody answering 'Yes' to that question, much less a majority of unvaccinated people.

The surveyor might listen to the reasons for refusing vaccination and apply judgment.  That judgement will vary, unfortunately, from person to person according to the beliefs held.  And so, the results would be inconsistent.

Now, I will grant that such a conclusion regarding the motivations of unvaccinated might be supported one's own casual observations but then we need to recognize that we begin to drift into the realm of opinion.  Nothing wrong with that as long as we carefully discern between opinions and data in trying to sort through all the information.

https://mediaschool.indiana.edu/news-events/news/item.html?n=vaccine-resistance-rooted-in-ideology-new-survey-shows

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2 hours ago, denniS said:

I had suggested: "And if the answer were 'No', would the next question be "Are you not vaccinated because you're ignoring the science, the CDC, or your doctor?".  I can't see anybody answering 'Yes' to that question, much less a majority of unvaccinated people."

 

The link you posted was a survey of just under 600 people, conducted over a two week period at the end of last July, and the data set says they asked these questions:

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So, while the survey you linked to did ask the question whether people were vaccinated, it did not ask them if they were refusing to do so because they were 'ignoring the science, the CDC, or your doctor'.

The link provides no data that supports the premise that the majority unvaccinated people are ignoring the science, the CDC, or their doctors since those taking the survey never asked why the respondents answered the first question or third question the way they did.

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9 hours ago, Thaddeus Kosciuszko said:

The link provides no data that supports the premise that the majority unvaccinated people are ignoring the science, the CDC, or their doctors since those taking the survey never asked why the respondents answered the first question or third question the way they did.

I think there remains a broad swath of COVID vaccine non-access, hesitancy, resistance, and/or animosity, so it would be sort of tough to just "blame" one reason like anti-science.  What is clear is that there is definitely a group of folks who ARE anti-COVID-vax for ideological reasons rather than simply rational reasons.  How big a group is that? No idea. But it is a group and it is a frustrating group for the rest of us to deal with :(

Honestly, most folks have a hope for a "just  get back to a semblance of normal" world, and a crappy impediment is folks actively resisting probably the single best tool for reaching that goal.

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14 hours ago, Thaddeus Kosciuszko said:

The link provides no data that supports the premise that the majority unvaccinated people are ignoring the science

Correct.  It only seeks to link vaccination acceptance and ideology.  It doesn't take the second step of linking certain ideologies with accepting/ignoring science.  For that, you need to overlay vaccination rate maps with red/blue voting maps.

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1 minute ago, 12string said:

Correct.  It only seeks to link vaccination acceptance and ideology.  It doesn't take the second step of linking certain ideologies with accepting/ignoring science.  For that, you need to overlay vaccination rate maps with red/blue voting maps.

https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2021/10/01/for-covid-19-vaccinations-party-affiliation-matters-more-than-race-and-ethnicity/

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