Guest Post by Skinny
Southwest was back in the news again today when it announced its fourth quarter results this morning. Anyone who did not partake in the annual holiday suicide ritual knows about the disastrous Christmas week suffered by Southwest when it was forced to cancel over 16,000 flights as the result of a scheduling meltdown. The company reported a loss of 38 cents a share or just over 4 times the 9 cents a share forecasted by the experts who are supposed to study these things. The company said the “operational disruption” hit their earnings to the tune of $800 million. Now that’s some disruption. Just like the stranded travelers last month, the investing public was not amused handing the stock a 5% beating as of 11 am this morning.
Despite these atrocious results, those hapless travelers stranded in hundreds of airports could take comfort from the fact that Southwest does have a Vice President of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion and they produce a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Report. Its 47 pages of Power Point blather that can only come from the Human Resources department of a woke corporate culture. Although I would seriously advise against it, you can read it here:
The report acknowledges every diverse history month on the calendar but is silent about what any of this has to do with getting airplanes to airports on time.
After reviewing the 47-page DEI report the stranded passengers would still have plenty of time to move onto the even more voluminous 117 page One Report that sets out the company’s woke initiatives in even more boring detail. CEO Robert Jordan leads off the report ensuring all who are forced to listen that the company strives to be a good global corporate citizen with lofty ESG credentials and a commitment to be carbon neutral by 2050. It’s fitting that Smilin’ Bob is standing in an empty plane. The plane is empty because it is at the wrong airport at the wrong time. The next time you are stranded at the airport waiting for a Southwest flight you can peruse Smilin’ Bob’s statement along with all the other fascinating 117 pages of woke doctrine here:
2021_Southwest_One_Report_2022-04-22.pdf
It’s also fitting that our hero joined the company lo those many years ago as a programmer in its Technology Department since it was technology, or the lack thereof, that caused the meltdown in the first place. Southwest utilizes an archaic home-grown crew scheduling system called SkySolver. The December storms caused an unusually high number of crew changes and old reliable SkySolver, which may have been designed by Smilin’ Bob himself, folded like a cheap suit. You’re probably thinking, this is just a one off and Southwest has it all fixed by now. Not so fast. SkySolver collapsed in identical fashion in October, 2021. In fact, as early as 2018 then CEO Gary Kelly told analysts that the airline “starved” technology upgrades “over the last decade” because its “focus was more on the commercial side.”
Since Southwest is not spending its money on technology, what it is spending its money on? How about $10 million to the Yale University’s Center for Natural Carbon Capture, (YCNCC or YicNic). Other than shake down large corporations for obscene amounts of money its not entirely clear what YicNic does but it does have this cool picture on its website. One can picture enthusiastic YicNic scientists rushing about high fiving the outstretched rubber gloves after discovering a carbon capture breakthrough.
Outstretched rubber gloves await the arrival of the next carbon capture initiative at YicNic’s Hazari lab.
In classic understatement, the company admits that SkySolver is nearing the end of its useful life. Of course they haven’t announced what will replace it or how much it will cost. Who needs competent I.T. when you have a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Department? To paraphrase Thomas Jefferson, “Millions for climate, not a tuppence for I.T.”
Since Southwest stock is tanking as we speak, maybe all those woke initiatives aren’t what the traveling and investing public are seeking in an airline. Unfortunately, there is nothing they can do about since every other airline is also off chasing woke bona fides. None of this will get us from point A to point B any faster, but we can look forward to the day that carbon neutral planes start falling from the sky.
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I spent over 25 years as an IT professional, mostly in software development but a bit here and there as a network admin or DBA. There is a good and bad side to my experience in the industry. A well-run IT department is practically invisible, you really don’t even know they exist unless something goes wrong. And hopefully nothing goes wrong. That’s the good side. The bad side is that because you’re invisible, executives forget about you, which includes funding, upgrades to technology, replacing old systems, etc. Apparently SW is suffering from those years of neglect.
Hopefully for their sake, some slick huckster IT consulting firm doesn’t come along blowing smoke up their ass about how they can fix or replace their system with some flashy new toy. I’ve seen that movie a couple of times in my career, and towards the end of my own useful life as a programmer, I knew enough to run, not walk, as soon as that huckster walked in the door.
Now you only need to teach Southwest how well-run IT can make up for a lack of pilots.
So, it wasn’t because pilots are dropping dead all over the skies? Who’da thunk that?
Truth!
I think the downvotes are from a couple of those slick hucksters.
As another IT guy with 20+ years of experience, you’re spot on. A couple of examples of just how inept some IT operations are. From my last job (in utilities):
Example 1:
The Director of Applications was bragging to a new BoD member that we’re “cutting edge” because we do ETL. From Wikipedia: “The ETL process became a popular concept in the 1970s…”
Example 2:
A fellow IT guy was having to convince his manager and two senior developers that we need to stop using GOTOs and start using functions. From Wikipedia: “The 1970s and 1980s saw a decline in the use of GOTO statements in favor of the structured programming paradigm.”
I kid you not. This, in the 21st century. Get ready to see a lot more meltdowns.
You mean ETL came into existence before relational databases?
You funny.
(And the Shitipedia “reference” actually contains no such claim.)
Reading is hard so I’ll help you out; third paragraph, first sentence.
And because Shitipedia says so, makes it true?
Understanding and validating is even harder, so I’ll help you out:
The Shitipedia reference (that small “2” in square brackets) -supposedly supporting their claim- links to this document which never claims anything about when ETL was introduced or became popular.
Gave up flying after TSA groped me all over because I have so much metal in my body.
Good old Uncle Sam.
TSA is 100% unconstitutional.
After 20 years, still waiting for a mentally defective big-failure socialist government brain-dead to show me where the TSA and its power is in the Constitution.
Did you have a cigarette after the TSA grope that made you say Never Again,
Toady?
I’m guessing not.
Least they could have done was kiss you while they were fondling you.
That whole TSA thing is just one more example of
-Create a fear with a false flag (terrorist smuggling a pipe bomb on)
-Implement a mandatory new policy that invades privacy and causes flow through gridlock;
-In classic “follow the money” fashion, implement a mandated purchase of
fancy new machines in airports across the land to x-ray the masses;
-Have a closer look and cop a feel on Gramps & Grannies with Six Million Dollar Man titanium parts;
-Have another deadbeat .gov employee who is too stupid to get a job in the real world escort you out of line, for a pat down that goes dangerously close to the nether regions of an old timer’s rickety old frame; then
-after the delay, be sure and put your shoes back on, cuz, hey we once had a guy shove some C4 into his boots, so now they have check everybody’s hooves to make flying safe.
God, are we the Home of the Slave and Land of the Fee, eh?
Muh terrorism.
Those that would sacrifice Liberty for the illusion of safety deserve neither.
The Founding Fathers are rolling over in their graves.
As for Southwest, hey. Go woke, Go broke bitches.
I’ll catch an Uber down to Florida this winter.
‘sides, if all them pilots have been forced to get vaxxed,
for everyone’s safety they insisted, not sure if I trust a potential
sudden death instance where my jet would have a two-fer during the
auto-pilot mode at 30,000 feet, and we hit a little turbulence.
Hopefully they’ve trained the senior members of the stewardess set to take over, and land the aluminum sardine tube that’s packed to the gills, throttling through the skies at 500 mph.
What a world.
May we live in interesting times.
Riiiiiight. Gotcha.
Everything’s fine. Nothing to worry about.
Buh-bye.
Bye.
Thank you for flying Southwest.
Enjoy your stay at the morgue.
I flew SW once for work. I paid my own way on Delta for the return trip. That SW flight was the worst flight I have ever been on.
Too busy suckling at the government teat for COVID relief funds.
I should have pointed out they got 7 billion on covid funds. That should fund the Diversity department for a few more years.
Fly the Greyhound bus of the skies and find out lol.
Great expose. Soon our entire corporate world and nation will awaken to the fact that wokism is an unaffordable, parasitic, religion having nothing to do with core business models. By necessity, it will be sloughed off like a sticky snakeskin. Hard times ahead when the wokeforce must rejoin the workforce.
The current financial situation they face is fitting retribution for their treatment of passengers over the previous two years.
Great essay.More woke sarcasm please
Methinks that one’s going viral Skinny. As it should. The schadenfreude. It’s delicious. Even as the proverbial cut-off nose spites the face.
If it goes viral I hope you don’t catch it.
One thing about the safety chamber picture. Shouldn’t the gloves be sucked in? Would it not be wise to have the safety chamber under negative pressure?
sshhhhh… its a woke university. If a few pathogens/ radioisotopes/ etc escape, they will absorb them fine.
and you know, by pointing out the gloves its obvious you are a raaaaacist, colonial massagist bigoted anti lgbtqndrsxpz’r+ white scum corporatist oppressor of normal nonbinary sometimes individuals.
You have a point. The gloves are black. Probably remnants of colonialism
That’s beyond my pay grade, but if the suck the gloves inward, it would make it difficult for the excited climateers to get their high fives.
In contra-distinction, one word: Spirit. YIKES!
Trailing P/E of approx 28 and a forward P/E of approx 11.
And having lost .26 cents per share in the 4th quarter the analysts are naturally calling this a Buy- Strong Buy.
Pfft.
Herb Kelleher is turning over in his grave. Used to love flying SW, unless if I got a seat facing backwards.
I believe they will make their goal of carbon neutrality before 2050. In fact I expect them to disappear long before 2050. You can’t get more carbon neutral than that.
our lizard overlords just don’t want the peons moving about
at all, by any means