EFFORTPOST [Effortpost] Southwest Airlines is having a complete fricking meltdown

If you haven't heard, winter storm Elliot fricked all the airlines, but because of the way Southwest is run they got extra gigafricked and accounted for the vast majority of flight cancellations. Here's an overview article.

The tldr is that Southwest has cancelled most of their flights and stranded people all over the country with no communication, telling people they can't even rebook flights until the 31st. They're melting down so much harder than the other airlines due to a couple factors, the biggest of which are:

1. Using a different model where flights hop directly from airport to airport with no central "hub" like most airlines use. This allows a failure at one airport to cascade across the rest of their system instead of remaining isolated.

2. Using super antiquated inefficient software to handle this different model, making it onerous to make changes. The software has to be updated manually, and this level of need for rescheduling has very quickly overwhelmed their staffing.

Everyone is sneeding. Twitter, Reddit, Congress, your mom. Here's a few samples of choice drama, but you can find way, way more. The sneed is infinite.

Reddit shit:

Southwest called the cops before announcing no hotel vouchers

I had a flight yesterday from TPA, when I went to print my boarding pass at the Southwest kiosk it said my flight was cancelled. There was a huge line waiting to speak to Southwest reps, I got in the line. After about an hour of waiting a bunch of cops show up. Someone from Southwest comes out and starts yelling that flights are cancelled, there is no point waiting in line they can’t get us anywhere for days and they are offering no hotel vouchers. Yelling this at their customers who up until this point have been doing nothing but waiting in line. Guy in front of me is upset, he is stranded for 5 days, no hotel voucher. He is talking to his friend on the phone and is rightfully upset, one of the cops threatened to arrest him for swearing. THREATENED TO ARREST HIM FOR SWEARING (On the phone). The cops mad dogged this man the rest of the time he was in line, and just stood around all of us in line. Southwest called the cops on their own customers before announcing no hotel vouchers, what in the heck is happening. They put me on a flight going home Saturday. The Southwest employees helping people at the desks had no idea what was going on, they were very kind.

Plenty of back-and-forth in the comments over whether the upset passengers or the exhausted southwest staff are more deserving of empathy.

Denver International Airport, Southwest Baggage Claim

Not a lot of sneeding in this one yet, I just find these images hilarious.

A Frontier plane taxis in DIA, with a grounded Southwest fleet in the background. Not my pic

Again minimal sneed, pic just makes me laff

Southwest threatens to fire staff who attempt to escape the nightmare | /r/latestagecapitalism

Out of touch commie sneed

/r/darnthatsinteresting responding to yet another picture of a mass of unattended luggage

Lots of discussion in this one, lots of BUILD MORE TRAINS BRO

Loads more here: https://old.reddit.com/r/all/search?q=SOUTHWEST&include_over_18=on

Twitter stuff!

Delta enjoyers dab on Southwest fans

Literally just amusing smugposting

southwest can catch these hands. waited for hours at the sacramento airport while they kept delaying our flights. all flights were then cancelled, and they made us look for our own luggage- which was left out in the open, for anyone to grab. no apologies. no comp. just madness.

Videos, sneed

#SOUTHWEST NIGHTMARE: All flights leaving San Diego tonight are canceled, announcement just now over the intercom says the airline is “frozen and not able to assist with rebooking.” People are told find their bags in these piles. Several are in tears.

I asked an employee how they verify who takes what bag and was told “we don’t, we’ll randomly ask for baggage claim proof.” She told be bags will stay out all night, monitored by employees. People don’t know when or how they’ll make it home.

More videos + sneed

#Southwest says it's not subject to Department of Transportation when cancelling. Here's how they did it in Denver. No vouchers, no flights for three days at least. No compensation. They knew they didn't have staff days ago.

Video of Southwest employee being short with people who are stranded. Sneed.

USDOT is concerned by Southwest’s unacceptable rate of cancellations and delays & reports of lack of prompt customer service. The Department will examine whether cancellations were controllable and if Southwest is complying with its customer service plan.

All the sneedplies to the DOT tweeting about investigating Southwest. Lots of good stuff there.

Plenty more where that came from: https://x.com/search?q=southwest&src=typed_query