while the paperwork is insane that's not what's slowing everything down. It's the waiting till exactly 30 prior to then walk down and see if FAs are ready then walking up, making 5 min of announcements that everyone has already heard 10 times and will another 37 once onboard. Not to mention the 12 wheelchairs, one aisle chair, 3 dogs, 2 POS and an old lady. Then with 10 min left till push they board the rest of the pax and berate them to find a seat. Then they have 7 bags to check because ops agent let people down with 5 bags each.
then they forget the wx packet. Go back up to get it and tell 3 pax and one JS who are standing there flight is closed. Shuts the door and hides out for 15 min for ramp to get bags under the jet. Hopefully, the pax and JS has given up. Go back and send numbers.
also I've seen once on a delay because of whatever the computer will calculate a new boarding time based off of new proposed departure and the ops will wait till that new 30 prior to start boarding even though we've been ready for 20 min because they dont want to get in trouble for boarding early a flight that's already 3 hrs late

 

It's all speculation right now. Nothing official has been put out about slowing pilot hiring.

Anyways, all you can do is put your application in and see. If there is a slow down, even more reason to get your app in ASAP, along with anywhere else you'd like to work.

 

Yuuuup! That sums up the operation.

 

I see this quite frequently. The new late time is now considered the new (ON TIME) departure time. They do not even consider trying to get the flight out on the real ( on time departure)

Yet the idiots in DAL are watching every EMO and have a powwow for hours every morning . You can not fix stupid.

 

this is the most accurate description of the operation that I have heard.

 

The ops agent would be obsolete if we went paperless. They could combine ops/csa, cut down on staffing, and be way more efficient if we were all electronic.

The agents could handle boarding/deplaning and customers and we could handle the airplane, and everything we need support-wise is automated.

PS. I wonder if part of the delay in going electronic has to do with basically making a significant group of SWA employees (ops agents) obsolete?

 

I might be wrong but I thought I read in the quarterly financial results that the C suite gets bonuses for on time EMOs.
That could explain it all.

 

When I was a business traveler and flew a couple times per week for my engineering job, this is what I would never fly Southwest. Even with priority and a good boarding group, there would inevitably be a dozen wheelchairs and pre boards that would all get on before me and take the good seats at the front so I could get off of the airplane quickly. Then, when we landed, those same pre boards would clog up the aisle and take forever to get off as well.

Even if it was more inconvenient, I would much rather fly on Delta or AA and take my first class seat.

As a routine passenger, Southwest is awful. As someone who flys once a year to see a man in a mouse costume with my screaming kids, I would consider it. But not every week.

Don't get me wrong...the crew's are awesome. Some of the best pilots and FAs in the business. But the whole "system" is terrible as a passenger.

 

Totally, TOTALLY agree. It’s a $h!t product.

 

We live in an AA base and zed or buy tickets on them first, and use SWA as a backup. We bought tickets on SWA in January and by the time we got home I was disgusted with how we were treated. We weren’t singled out, but included in the general mistreatment of passengers. People are so amused at our quirkiness that they don’t realize how poorly they are really being treated, from the condescending attitudes to the endless juvenile PAs.