2022 Oklahoma City Aviation Thread

[gopokes88]

This absolutely bonkers. Their system is totally paralyzed.

The Dallas-based carrier’s cuts amounted to 60% of its schedule and nearly 90% of overall cancellations in the U.S. on Wednesday, marking another day of disruptions even as weather conditions and operations at other airlines improved.

Close to 60% of Southwest flights were already canceled for Thursday. It scrubbed less than 1% of the schedule for Friday, but the carrier still has to accommodate the thousands of travelers left stranded by its meltdown.

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/12/28/sout...ed-flyers.html

[catch22]

Another snowstorm to hit Denver tonight and tomorrow morning just as Southwest is trying to get the ball rolling again.

I won’t post the pictures I took here, but Southwest has 4 gates completely blocked off and lined up with full baggage carts of missed/lost bags in Denver. I estimate 40-50 bags per cart and around 200+ carts. Do the math.

[Jersey Boss]

This is an airline that held off on international routes for so long because their reservation system could not accept passport information, foreign currency, positive bag match, and some of the other unique demands of international.
This is an airline that would cancel any flights that were delayed so they would not be airborne at 2am CDT (As they call it Herb time) in order to fully power down their dispatch and operations center to reboot it as it could not process a date change overnight while airplanes were airborne. Someone from IT had to flip a switch every night to reset the airline for the day before operations could commence.
This is an airline that held off on the "baggage fee" craze of the mid-2000's not because they love their customers so much, but the fact that their reservation system was unable to automatically attach payments for miscellaneous fees onto an existing reservation, as well as their system not having any functionality to automatically attach a baggage tag number to an itinerary automatically. The manual process to attach these would slow check-in times too much and cause too much of a manpower drain. So "Bags Fly Free" was born. This lack of investment, while turned out good for customers, has cost them billions in lost ancillary revenue the other airlines have been eating up for 10-15 years.

Southwest Airlines runs 3,500 flights a day with 800 airplanes on the IT infrastructure and operational competency of an airline that has 20 airplanes. The house of cards was doomed to collapse at some point. Their stubbornness in not upgrading IT networks and software over the past 40 years has finally come to a head. Their brazen messaging of being the simple, small carrier has finally caught up to them now that they are in a mess they cannot dig themselves out of. They don't know where their crews are, they don't know where their airplanes are, and this is no longer to be blamed on the weather -- that excuse ended days ago. They fly through the same skies all of the rest of us do, and all the other airlines are back up and running taking care of their passengers who they have all but abandoned.

Reinstating investor dividends before the other airlines, pilots working for 2 years without a contract, billions for shareholdsr gifts while running an obsolete IT and phone system all add up to incompetance that adds to your professional takes.

Southwest Airlines Spent $5.6 Billion on Shareholder Gifts in Years Ahead of Mass Cancellation Crisis
https://www.commondreams.org/news/so...reholder-gifts

[ksearls]

I know no one has a crystal ball, but do you think they will be up and running a regular schedule by mid January? Asking for a friend!

[Bellaboo]

I know no one has a crystal ball, but do you think they will be up and running a regular schedule by mid January? Asking for a friend!

SWA says January 1st partial schedule. Hopefully it will resume quickly after that.

[Edmond Hausfrau]

Another snowstorm to hit Denver tonight and tomorrow morning just as Southwest is trying to get the ball rolling again.

I won’t post the pictures I took here, but Southwest has 4 gates completely blocked off and lined up with full baggage carts of missed/lost bags in Denver. I estimate 40-50 bags per cart and around 200+ carts. Do the math.

AirTags really were the perfect holiday gift for 2022

[brianinok]

Flying to Denver on Saturday. Thankfully on United.

[Richard at Remax]

Anyone know why AS is running this direct this morning? I assume the plane was down here for maintenance https://flightaware.com/live/flight/...636Z/KOKC/KSEA

[chssooner]

Anyone know why AS is running this direct this morning? I assume the plane was down here for maintenance https://flightaware.com/live/flight/...636Z/KOKC/KSEA

OKC has a direct flight to Seattle on Alaska.

[Richard at Remax]

OKC has a direct flight to Seattle on Alaska.

Yes I know. It's the one that leaves around 4:35 daily

[gopokes88]

It's doing extremely well too. Hopefully we see some AS service expansion at some point.

[PaddyShack]

Anyone know why AS is running this direct this morning? I assume the plane was down here for maintenance https://flightaware.com/live/flight/...636Z/KOKC/KSEA

And it got diverted back to OKC...

[catch22]

That is a maintenance ferry. They don’t operate it live, never have.

[BG918]

Southwest, in addition to offering full refunds, should provide reimbursement for any expenses travelers had (rental cars, hotels, other flights, etc) and at least $100 per ticket in vouchers for use on future flights. That’s the only way they can make this right and win back their customers.

[Richard at Remax]

It's doing extremely well too. Hopefully we see some AS service expansion at some point.

It'd be awesome if they captured the SFO route back from United. Maybe PDX but as a casual observer I don't think that would be as desired as the SEA route. Esp since it won't really open any new doors as far as the OneWorld alliance is concerned. At least with SFO you get Cathay and JAL to get to Asia and Qantas to get to Australia.

[Ward]

Was a 747 at Will Rogers today? And if so, why? That's awfully unusual.

[Jersey Boss]

Probably an ATLAS Air charter for OU return from Orlando

[BG918]

I remember flying on a United 747 from OKC to LAX and back to OKC when OU was in the Rose Bowl in 2002.

[HangryHippo]

Was a 747 at Will Rogers today? And if so, why? That's awfully unusual.

JerseyBoss is right. It’s the OU football team charter (based on Twitter).