Ask HN: Southwest Airlines delays caused by software?

[marcosfelt]

Southwest Airlines experienced massive delays over the holidays. Some government officials have said this was because of "outdated scheduling technology."[1]

I'm curious about 1) what software is generally used for airline scheduling and 2) why the software might be so outdated.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/dec/30/southwest-airlines-ceo-bob-jordan-apologize

[gotorazor]

There has been multiple articles written in many major newspapers about the issue.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/31/opinion/southwest-airline...

From what I have read so far, it seems like SWA uses a homegrown scheduling system for their plane, employees, and flights. The suggestion is that it is about a generation older than other American airlines. Their competitors uses a third-party software system. When this is combined with SWA's point-to-point business model, a large, disruptive event -- like a big snow storm in the Eastern Seabord -- it ripples through their entire system.

They have already admitted that the software system has failed and they have resorted to manually re-scheduling flights. Employees trying to update the company on where they are being put on hold for 9-10 hours (1 employee has a screenshot of waiting for 17 hours.)

[tmpburning]

> why the software might be so outdated.

Why fix what "worked"?

For the record, I don't think that Airline software works since about 20% of flights are always late. I avoid airplanes at all cost for this reason, mainly. I once had a plane trip taking more then 24 hours when it could have taken 6h and there was no major problems like today (I ended up spending new year at the airport)... no thanks. Traveling by car would have taken about the same amount of time.

[gotorazor]

This is not a helpful comment to the OP's question.