comment: >
  
  Southwest has done this since their inception. It’s not new. In some ways it makes sense as it means there isn’t a heavy cart in the aisle so people can still get up and go to the bathroom during drink service.
context: This is insane. I hear Southwest’s having phone issues nationwide. What gives? >
  
  Same thing that always happens a corporation put profits over people.
  Southwest has been running a lean operation on the personnel side for over a decade and lately very aggressive scheduling of their pilots. This was pretty much inevitable, because it is not if a weather event like this would happen but when.
  Because of delays at the effected airports pilots were timing out on their hours causing problems at unaffected airports. Particularly Las Vegas. >
  
  But we should deregulate because muh free markets >
  
  I don’t disagree with regulation, but in theory, the free market would work here. Southwest gets extremely bad press and pisses of tens of thousands of their own proven customers, those people stop flying SW, forcing them to improve their systems to be competitive again. >
  
  This is equivalent to saying: "if enough babies die of tainted formula, parents will stop buying it!" 
  That may be true, but maybe it would be nice to not have to live through a mountain of totally preventable suffering just to generate a market signal? >
  
  C'mon now, the argument is literally that "planes are not medicine"!
  I do however think it is absurd to suggest that Southwest killing itself by stranding everybody is the economy working well, there is surely a way to discourage that sort of idiocy with regulation. >
  
  It's hyperbolic to be sure, but it's a difference of scale, not of kind. >
  
  It’s the same at LaGuardia. 
  Source: My family and I were scheduled to fly out of LGA on Southwest today. After our flight was cancelled, we ended up bailing on Southwest altogether and just booking a United flight out of Newark for Friday. It was that our taking the first available Southwest flight on New Year’s. Woof. >
  
  Are you going elsewhere or trying to get home? >
  
  Anywhere is better than LaGuardia. >
  
  I had the worst bagel of my life there. >
  
  Southwest was telling people in Bozeman airport yesterday their flight to Denver was cancelled and next available flight was the 30th. 2/3 SW flights to Denver yesterday afternoon was cancelled. Desk was telling passengers to call or use the app. Both were down. Passengers were waiting in a couple hour line to get answers/help. >
  
  When a company makes that much money and doesn't invest in its own systems, that tells me the leadership doesn't give a single solitary fuck about anything except the short term profit. >
  
  Funny how cannibalizing yourself doesn't lead to infinite growth. >
  
  I noticed they removed all the drink carts and make the attendants carry all the drink on small plastic serving dishes. It takes twice as long to get a drink now. Probably just to save a couple cents on fuel a flight