[theYipster]

lol, but then why didn't SW run into this huge mess years ago, or decades ago?

It's because while IT and automation matters, it's not the only thing that matters. The most important thing a CEO can do, especially in this industry, is set culture. That's their greatest role. Culture is far more important than IT.

Herb's positive legacy in this industry is well deserved. This is because Herb set the culture at Southwest, and it's well known that Southwest's employee culture has been--under Herb's leadership--its greatest asset. Herb set it in past crises, such as when they had to sell their fourth airplane to keep the airline afloat, and Herb got the employees to band together to create the 10 minute turn, which allowed them to effectively fly a four plane route network with three planes.

This "band together" culture has saved Southwest's skin countless times. It's what has let them run a highly complex route network of mid-market point to points (vs. hub and spoke) with inferior technology, and yet with good service and competitive reliability.

The problem this time around is that Southwest suffers from the same labor shortage as all other airlines in the industry, and it's this labor shortage that led to their other deficiencies from biting them in the ass. Unfortunately, culture can't solve a crisis when there simply aren't enough people to "band together."

Southwest's IT issues are very well known in the industry, and reports are the current CEO and COO understand and aim to address. This week emphasizes the need, and we can expect SW to embark on a modernization plan. Just remember though, IT modernization takes an enormous amount of time. While we wait the better part of a decade for better scheduling and reservation systems (SW's maintenance system modernization is years and years in and is still ongoing,) SW's current CEO can best spend his time in the trenches of the operation preserving and strengthening culture.

[bsuvc]

> Culture is far more important than IT

Is it though?

I'm not saying culture is unimportant, but IT seems pretty damn important to them right now, given the situation, which culture didn't prevent and won't fix.

[dsfyu404ed]

>Is it though?

Would you rather deal with an organization that's 90th percentile in culture and 10th in IT or the other way around?

Obviously being terrible at either will handicap you but a dearth of good culture will probably cause problems long before a dearth of good IT will. IT has less capability to cover for bad culture and process than good culture and process has to cover for bad IT.

[bsuvc]

Agreed culture is important, but no amount of culture can make up for a lack of IT investment.

Is it possible for a company to be too culture-focused though, where they are so enamored with how great their culture is that they neglect other important aspects of their business?

I also wonder how often a company has a "good" culture overall, but it doesn't extend to IT. With outsourcing, I think you can see that happening, and the rest of the non-IT workers can be oblivious to it.

[inferiorhuman]

  lol, but then why didn't SW run into this huge mess years ago, or decades ago?

They have, like clockwork.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/southwest-airlines-computer-out...

https://www.globaldatavault.com/blog/southwest-airlines-avoi...

  Southwest Airlines flights across the country were held up Wednesday while the airline
  worked to fix technology problems. … Last October, an outage caused about 800 Southwest flights
  to be delayed and forced employees to issue tickets and boarding passes by hand. 

  Southwest is blaming a faulty router, which it says prompted a widespread network system
  failure; a technology crash pegged as the worst in the airline’s history. The reservation
  system was knocked offline, planes were grounded across the nation, and the outage took four
  full days to resolve.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/flights/2019/02/22/sou...

  Southwest Airlines suffered a computer outage early Friday
  that temporarily grounded flights across the country, adding
  to a string of recent flight woes at the airline..

https://www.wlrn.org/news/2021-06-15/southwest-airlines-resu...

  A nationwide weather data outage disrupted Southwest
  Airlines flights Monday night, causing long delays for
  some passengers across the country. The company blamed the
  problem on issues with Southwest's third-party weather data
  provider.

As for the 2022 meltdown:

  The problem this time around is that Southwest suffers from
  the same labor shortage as all other airlines in the industry,
  and it's this labor shortage that led to their other
  deficiencies from biting them in the ass. Unfortunately,
  culture can't solve a crisis when there simply aren't
  enough people to "band together."

Nonsense. Arguably Southwest needs more staff because its operations are so archaic, however Southwest had plenty of ramp rats and crew. The problem was Southwest had no idea where its crew actually were or what they were doing. The CEO can't charm their way out of that nor can they simply throw bodies at the problem.

Speaking of culture, the rugged individualism is absolutely a problem but that's still a Herb thing. Up north Sunwing is having massive operational problems but they were willing to charter planes to aid in recovery.

[signatoremo]

All of your examples are after 2016, none of them refutes the GP’s point —- Herb Kelleher’s time as CEO ended in 2001. He resigned from the board in 2009. Blaming him for SW’s recent issues is stretching it.

Recall when Satya Nadella was hailed as Microsoft’s savior only a couple years after becoming CEO? That is how quickly a new leader can have an impact. SW’s network has expanded significantly since Herb Kelleher’s time, it’s hardly his fault its IT can’t keep up.