comment: >
  
  The same thing happened this time, their scheduling software broke again. The weather obviously made it worse, but from what I hear the software was the original cause of the worst of the issues.
context: Southwest's computer system hasn't been updated since the early 90s. Start there. >
  
  This is an issue with a LOT of companies. I used to work for a Fortune 50 company that had incredibly dated internal software and didn’t seem interested at all in changing things no matter how much IT pressed it. We’re talking hundreds of billions in valuation with a decades old system where you can’t even change basic settings without risking the whole thing crashing. But hey the boss got an 8 figure bonus every year 😬 >
  
  I know a guy who wanted to be an IT guy at his country's national bank. He was obsessed with getting the latest certs, anticipating that they may be running on cutting edge tech that he is not familiar. He got the job aaaand same thing as you said, hundreds of billions runs through there...on 25 year old systems. >
  
  The cost to upgrade these IBM iSeries/zSeries AS400 machines is in the hundreds of millions of US dollars.
  They have decades worth of code changes on them and would take 3+ years to swap out with endless teething issues. >
  
  
  3+ years to swap
  
  I've been in the software industry for 20 years. 3+ years is painfully optimistic. >
  
  I was literally thinking the same thing. Realistically is more around the 5 year ball park. >
  
  At the 5 year mark everyone will agree it is just best to start over. >
  
  Southwest had another meltdown like this last year. There was some planning hiccup where they didn’t have enough pilots at the right airports, and their scheduling software just froze. I got stranded in Denver airport for most of a day while all the other airlines were operating normally. These scheduling meltdowns have mostly made me stop flying Southwest.