***Official Political Discussion Thread***

[mplsdunk]

It wasn’t even the de icing here. We rarely have a line to get de iced. We have contractors, delta, sun country and I believe southwest de icers.

It was just the weather, I remember that day. I do field maintenance at msp in the winter. People were sleeping anywhere and everywhere.

 

[Brownstone]

Props to the OG Warren Buffet, my finance bros clowned him at the time, but he sold out of all his airline positions after COVID hit, at a loss. He was playing chess turns out.

I suspect he saw even more regulation coming after the massive bailouts.

 

[dragicon]

It wasn’t even the de icing here. We rarely have a line to get de iced. We have contractors, delta, sun country and I believe southwest de icers.

It was just the weather, I remember that day. I do field maintenance at msp in the winter. People were sleeping anywhere and everywhere.

It wasn’t just weather though, it was the weather compounded by their archaic software which melted down and their method of route flying. The software meltdown didn’t know where crews were, and they weren’t notified in time to catch their connections (sometimes hours behind) to a different aircraft. Southwest’s route flying doesn’t always originate from a hub either. Their aircraft have many flights a day that might not ever get back to a major hub in a single day…. Which is where all the support and reserve piloting is staffed. That leaves crews stranded in outposts, and inadequate staff to get to the stranded crews and planes.

I was also trying to get home that day, I had just flown to Seattle during that ice storm, and was trying to get home for Christmas. I was booked on southwest, United, American Airlines, and Alaska, and the only flight that didn’t cancel was my American Airlines flight.

 

[dragicon]

Props to the OG Warren Buffet, my finance bros clowned him at the time, but he sold out of all his airline positions after COVID hit, at a loss. He was playing chess turns out.

I suspect he saw even more regulation coming after the massive bailouts.

He still owns netjets though, which coincidentally is probably going to strike in the near future.

 

[storm2006]

Props to the OG Warren Buffet, my finance bros clowned him at the time, but he sold out of all his airline positions after COVID hit, at a loss. He was playing chess turns out.

I suspect he saw even more regulation coming after the massive bailouts.

Ehhhh well air travel was poised to have steady growth prior to the pandemic but I think it was logical to sell after COVID hit. Three years later and we still haven’t reached pre-pandemic levels but we are will are poised to reach it around years end (it is currently like 80%). The big thing is the squeeze on the revenues for these three years. Also they were suffering from deferrals in Airbus and Boeing aircraft which is also prohibitive to growth. I am sure he knew all of that so it was a clear play for folks familiar with the industry.

The big thing to look out for in civil aviation the next 5-25 years whoever is the the first major players in the Advanced Air Mobility (air taxis) market. Now THAT is going to be bigly

 

[storm2006]

It wasn’t just weather though, it was the weather compounded by their archaic software which melted down and their method of route flying. The software meltdown didn’t know where crews were, and they weren’t notified in time to catch their connections (sometimes hours behind) to a different aircraft. Southwest’s route flying doesn’t always originate from a hub either. Their aircraft have many flights a day that might not ever get back to a major hub in a single day…. Which is where all the support and reserve piloting is staffed. That leaves crews stranded in outposts, and inadequate staff to get to the stranded crews and planes.

I was also trying to get home that day, I had just flown to Seattle during that ice storm, and was trying to get home for Christmas. I was booked on southwest, United, American Airlines, and Alaska, and the only flight that didn’t cancel was my American Airlines flight.

Yeah I echoed the sentiment from your first paragraph on the last page. As for the second paragraph, American Airlines is my preferred because they are legit and they fly direct to a lot of places I go. AAdvantage Executive Platinum I actually went on some miles runs to get it

 

[TooOlfForThisIsh]

Southwest’s failure was a classic example of a company not understanding the limits of their business model as they take on massive growth.

As a regional player serving smaller metros in the southwestern US, the point to point strategy made a lot of sense. Weather isn’t really as much of a factor when you’re flying between Laredo and San Antonio and so their network never really experienced the number of cancelled flights they see today or the knock on network effects.

My beef with them is two-fold. First, they’ve had adequate warning in prior events that their technology wasn’t sufficient and they chose to not invest. Second, they, like every other airline, have continued to thin out their back office and service staff in order to reduce costs. This meant that when the computers failed, they had no one to deal with callers.

I got pretty unlucky. We were flying BWI to ELP by way of DFW. Like many people, we woke up the first day of the chaos to see our flight was cancelled. At around 4:30 am I called to see what they could do. I was still on hold at 8:30 when we pulled up to Dulles for the flight we were able to find on AA.

The most irritating part is that I hadn’t booked SWA for many years, but my parents had a great experience getting from Texas to DC so we decided to give them a shot. I loved flying them in the 90’s and 00’s when I still lived in Texas, but they just didn’t seem right for cross country travel.

 

[TooOlfForThisIsh]

I should add, they did work hard to make me whole. They paid for the rebooked AA flights, the Uber to get from BWI to DUL so we could retrieve our car when we got home, and a ton of additional credits. Ironically, I’ve always associated them with great service on the ground and in the air. They just haven’t gotten the support from corporate in terms of investment.

 

[mplsdunk]

I avoid the budget airlines, it’s always some ****ery with them.

I used to use sun country but they are pretty bad now. I just use delta for the most part.

 

[DLF]

SW flying between CA cities is so clutch. Super cheap. Free bags check in. Simple. No fuss. Rarely delayed.

Haven’t flown it longer than 1-1.5 hour flight though

 

[debso]

The meeting was scheduled for an hour and a half. But we ended it 30 mins in.

**** went left so quickly

Like 3-4 dudes had a list of issues with our department's diversity and inclusion efforts. Which included nonsense like:

-They disapprove of the department making a list of minority-owned businesses so we can keep them in mind when we have an event catered. How is that fair to "other groups that own restaurants"
-They disapprove of us changing our recruiting efforts at colleges. We partnered with minority lead student groups to get more people interested in applying for internships and entry-level positions at our company. Your internship classes turned from being lily white to have some diversity, and somehow that is again unfair
-One of the summer interns has dreadlocks, and one person questioned if standards were being lowered for grooming to accommodate him.
-They feel they can no longer speak freely at work regarding current levels

There were others but I started tuning them out after a while. Elite level **** show

When they started talking about recruiting minorities and more women might lead to a less competent workforce the meeting fell apart. Folk just started leaving or unmuting their mics to take issue.

So we are gonna run it back tomorrow in person. Probably with much fewer people in the meeting. Just managers addressing the issues directly instead of a department-wide thing

I need to get hired just to attend this meeting.
Lol they would fire me on the spot after I went in on them haha.

 

[had pants]

 

[Fozz]

Folks fascination over free food at work always puzzles me. I ran a weekly campus wide training session for my functional area and had a budget to get pizzas. These white folks had the audacity to complain saying “It would be nice if we switched it up every once in awhile” and “it would be nice if got more variety in toppings”. I would just look at them like

It’s free food and a luxury. If you don’t like it buy your own lunch or bring it from like you do the other 4 days of the week and did before I started the program. The audacity and nerve

It's because that is the only time they'll try other foods. You know those dudes can't cook and don't want to spend their own money on a dish they may or may not like lol

 

[storm2006]

It's because that is the only time they'll try other foods. You know those dudes can't cook and don't want to spend their own money on a dish they may or may not like lol

Well it was usually either pizza or deli hoagies for these larger meetings so it's not even exotic I'll have two other events a month though and I make sure to ask the group beforehand so there's no beef. Oh yeah and employees will comment on surveys about events and specifically call out the food. Absurd

 

[maq25060]

Yeah, its definitely the old heads at my job that complain about the food. Usually complaining about how great things used to be.

Whatevs.

 

[WASHED KING]

The meeting was scheduled for an hour and a half. But we ended it 30 mins in.

**** went left so quickly

Like 3-4 dudes had a list of issues with our department's diversity and inclusion efforts. Which included nonsense like:

-They disapprove of the department making a list of minority-owned businesses so we can keep them in mind when we have an event catered. How is that fair to "other groups that own restaurants"
-They disapprove of us changing our recruiting efforts at colleges. We partnered with minority lead student groups to get more people interested in applying for internships and entry-level positions at our company. Your internship classes turned from being lily white to have some diversity, and somehow that is again unfair
-One of the summer interns has dreadlocks, and one person questioned if standards were being lowered for grooming to accommodate him.
-They feel they can no longer speak freely at work regarding current levels

There were others but I started tuning them out after a while. Elite level **** show

When they started talking about recruiting minorities and more women might lead to a less competent workforce the meeting fell apart. Folk just started leaving or unmuting their mics to take issue.

So we are gonna run it back tomorrow in person. Probably with much fewer people in the meeting. Just managers addressing the issues directly instead of a department-wide thing

This is nuts not gunna lie.

Even worse than I imagined.

 

[noskey]

So we are gonna run it back tomorrow in person.

Update?

 

[RustyShackleford]

Update?

It is this afternoon, I'm on Pacific time

So I got a couple hours to prepare for the buffoonery

 

[noskey]

It is this afternoon, I'm on Pacific time

So I got a couple hours to prepare for the buffoonery

And a couple hours for the buffoonery to marinate in the deplorables minds Wish we could hear all the hot alt-right lines live and in HD.

 

[fargin]

 

[Public Enemy]

They aint convictin him of jack based on what info was given for the wrap-up. But maybe NYC is different.

 

[Public Enemy]

NYC is different, he's been convicted of sexually abusing her and they awarded 2 million. And convicted of 3 other charges also.

His ****ty behavior is finally starting to catch up to him.

 

[noskey]

His ****ty behavior is finally starting to catch up to him.

Yes but now let's do this for criminal charges too.

 

[Public Enemy]

 

[IATT]