comment: >
  
  Most of the major airlines have been modernizing in the cloud for years now, it’s just a very lengthy process.
context: I was affected by SW.  Never made it to my final destination.  Flight was canceled twice and never received a rebook.  At that point, I bought a ticket with another airline to return to the original location.  Don't know when I will receive my luggage. >
  
  I travel a significant amount for work, like almost every week and I would always fly southwest. At the start of 22’ we expanded my teams operational area to quite a few places southwest didn’t fly to, so I switched to American. I really thought I’d miss southwest but genuinely haven’t looked back. While sometimes they have cheaper fares-you lose a lot in exchange for it. >
  
  Yeah. I always flew United or Delta, sometimes JetBlue. They got them TV's in the back of the seat. >
  
  Delta was great, live tv, usb ports, and games all built into the seats is great! >
  
  Yeah I’ve always needed to connect thru ATL (due to where I live) so I often fly Delta; I use their Amex card for the points. I genuinely don’t understand all the hate that company gets. Like, air travel sorta blows regardless of which airline you fly… but their app is great, their employees are unfailingly chipper at ass o’clock in the morning, and one time I arrived way early for a connection and I just walked up to the gate agent for an earlier flight and I was like, “uh is there room on this plane?” And the gate agent was like “I gotchu fam” and changed me to that flight on the spot, didn’t send me back to the line at the main customer service desk. Never lost a bag, never bumped me, and definitely never stranded me overnight. And, as you say, the lil TVs!!! >
  
  And customer service like that will have you not blink an eye if it’s a little more. Loved to hear the good experience, we don’t get to fly delta enough but experience is always good. >
  
  Yup the older I get, the more I’m willing to pay to avoid hassle. Let those whippersnappers take the red eye in those horrible Frontier seats! Mama wants a free checked bag and comfort plus!!! >
  
  I have a Sothwest flight on Saturday... yikes >
  
  Dude me too. Southwest was the untouchable airline in America until… I still don’t know wtf happened?  A software glitch?  Sql query gone wrong?   Wtf. >
  
  Southwest had two things going for it - first they had one type of aircraft (Boeing 737s), which kept maintenance costs down by not having to stock a dozen different model parts. 
  Second, and most importantly, they had VERY well done fuel options that allowed them to have significantly lower fuel costs than the others.  However, those contracts expired so they are now buying fuel at the same rate as the other airlines.
  If you compare flights now they are basically the same cost as the other airlines, depending on where you originate.   However, their cattle car boarding policy (and other low cost tendencies) kind of turned people off, especially now that the savings were not there.
  Same cost, more hassle. >
  
  I actually prefer their boarding system to any other airline. There is no anxiety of if you will get on early enough to get an overhead spot. You can tell by your position. Also, it seems like there are fewer people trying to get overhead space because it’s free to check bags. Combine that with the ability to cancel flights for credit and it’s my favorite airline. >
  
  You wouldn’t happen to be an occasional traveler who doesn’t do much international or work travel? >
  
  I travel monthly for work and fly internationally several times a year.  With other airlines if you don’t have status then you have to worry. >
  
  Blown away. The lack of complementary upgrades, meaningful international program, destinations, etc. make it a cattle car experience for me. I usually fly United and funnel points from chase into southwest when UA flights are too expensive. 🤷🏽‍♂️ >
  
  I used to regularly fly internationally for work, had gold status on Singapore, which at the time put me in the United  and Lufthansa gold status as well.
  I would routinely use my points to upgrade in all three for business.
  Coach, on either of those two airlines was better than business on United for international travel.  
  I got cut off after two beers in two hours on a 10 hr flight with United.  They suck. >
  
  Flying is all about choosing the least worst airline. >
  
  I wish they'd be as good domestic as international. If you ever flew Qantas or Qatar Airlines or Emirates...holy shit 
  IMO JEt Blue is pretty solid domestically. I don't mind watching TV in the air. >
  
  I used to fly jetblue pretty much every time I flew for quite a while. They were great until they weren't. I'd never had canceled or even many delayed flights with them, but suddenly every flight I was on with them was delayed or canceled. Then I'd get rerouted to all kinds of places way outta the way to make my destination, and it happened over and over with them. The last straw was them losing my luggage for not only the duration of my trip, but well after I got back to Boston. They gave me some vouchers for a free flight, and when I used them, that flight got delayed over and over again and eventually canceled. So I use Delta now, and i havent had many issues. Probably helps that I fly to Atlanta a lot though, cuz that's where they're based. >
  
  Delta and United are pretty solid. Growing up we almost always flew United. These days it's largely Jet Blue or United or Delta. Don't think I've ever flown southwest >
  
  They blame a technology gap. They did billions in stock buybacks over the past decade. Maybe they should have invested in the fucking company instead of giving investors a quick pay out. >
  
  They obviously should have invested in technology, but stock buybacks aren’t done to pay out investors. It’s like sticking cash in a savings account. 
  Next time they need to raise capital, they can do a share issuance without further dilution. >
  
  Lol using stock buybacks as a savings account is the stupidest possible way to deal with having capital available for a rainy day >
  
  Except in most cases if you have an emergency and you need capital fast, you are probably trying to do it at a lower share price than you did the buy back at >
  
  points at Southwests current situation, the topic of this conversation >
  
  That lady’s face says it all >
  
  Southwest Airlines, especially with its current corporate leadership is nothing like the airline that it was originally known as back in the 1980's and 1990's when the planes were brown.
  They are sabotaging what little is left of their corporate image as fast as possible. >
  
  I have a flight with them in 2 weeks. Hopefully it will.go OK. But either way, it's my last one with them for the foreseeable future. >
  
  You might want to check out the post from an swa employee stating the current issues will take a long time to sort out. I’d make alternate arrangements if I were you. >
  
  what post? >
  
  r/southwestairlines has a lot of stories on this fiasco from insiders. >
  
  
  CEO Robert Jordan said "...but clearly we need to double down” on upgrading systems to avoid a repeat of this week."
  The Dallas airline was undone by a combination of factors [that] helped cause a similar failure by Southwest in October 2021.
  
  a bit of too little too late but still...profits were made >
  
  ... A year ago the same shit happened. 
  "We need to fix it"
  Obviously they dont. >
  
  We needed to fix this last year.  We still need to but we needed to also. >
  
  Software procurement and rollout is a multi year process for most airlines in the best of conditions.
  Just down the street from Southwest, American is trying to replace parts of their backend and software suites. They’re about 5-6 years into rolling out their new flight planning software, which has been plagued by setbacks. It was supposed to be done by late 2020, but likely won’t see full adoption until late 2023/early 2024. >
  
  Adding to this, in the software industry the airlines and the government are used as poster children for legacy (old) software. It's a combination of (1) it being expensive to replace, (2) extremely low fault/vulnerability tolerance, and (3) decades of poor codebase maintenance leading to a nightmare of spaghetti code.
  Not that the airlines are faultless - they can and should have started on modernizing ages ago - but I wouldn't expect to see meaningful updates any time soon if Southwest's just now starting to fix this.