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Search resuls for: "Andrew Watt"


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REUTERS/Alyssa Pointer/File PhotoWASHINGTON, Feb 3 (Reuters) - Southwest Airlines (LUV.N) Chief Operating Officer Andrew Watterson will testify on Feb. 9 before the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee after a holiday meltdown forced the budget carrier to cancel thousands of flights. The hearing titled "Strengthening Airline Operations and Consumer Protections" will also include Southwest Airlines Pilots Association President Captain Casey Murray, Sharon Pinkerton, a senior official with Airlines for America, an industry group, and Paul Hudson, who heads Flyers' Rights, a passenger advocacy organization. The hearing will review causes and impacts of recent air travel disruptions including the Southwest December holiday operational woes that resulted in more than 16,000 flight cancellations. Southwest Chief Executive Bob Jordan has repeatedly apologized for the mass cancellations and said the carrier is looking at all options to prevent a repeat. The U.S. Transportation Department (USDOT) is investigating whether Southwest engaged in "unrealistic scheduling of flights" in December.
Washington CNN —Southwest Airlines said it is testing software fixes that the company developed after its Christmas travel meltdown, as the airline faces multiple federal investigations. The software fixes are an “upgrade,” rather than a replacement of the crew scheduling system, Southwest executives said on a conference call with reporters Thursday. The company decided to keep the underlying software system because it “generally worked as designed” even during the meltdown, CEO Bob Jordan said. “We haven’t even talked cost, so I don’t know if it’s going to cost us anything or not,” said Southwest Chief Operations Officer Andrew Watterson. That external report should be delivered in the coming weeks and “we will attack it with a sense of urgency,” Jordan said.
Southwest’s software wasn’t designed to solve problems of that scale, Chief Operating Officer Andrew Watterson said Thursday, forcing the airline to revert to manual scheduling. Unlike some large rivals with hub-and-spoke networks, Southwest planes hopscotch from city to city, which may have been another complicating factor. Mr. Alamzad said the most serious IT challenge airlines face stems from the applications developed in silos by vendors or the airlines themselves. Southwest recently completed an upgrade of its new reservation system and had been working through multiyear upgrades to systems used in its operations. Other carriers have given priority to upgrading customer-facing reservations platforms and flier loyalty programs over operations systems, Mr. Alamzad said.
Iggy Pop Isn’t About to Whitewash His Past
  + stars: | 2023-01-02 | by ( David Marchese | ) www.nytimes.com   time to read: +18 min
Mamadi Doumbouya for The New York Times Talk Iggy Pop Isn’t About to Whitewash His PastIggy Pop’s life and work constitute one of music’s most remarkable survival stories. Iggy and the Stooges around 1969 — from left, Scott Asheton, Ron Asheton, Dave Alexander and Iggy Pop. But if you quietly say it to some sepulchral music, that’s a different thing, because you’re facing darkness once you hit 50. I don’t think that I was really thinking about anything. My doctor tells me I have a strong immune system, but I don’t think that’ll do it for you.
Why Southwest is still melting down
  + stars: | 2022-12-29 | by ( David Goldman | ) edition.cnn.com   time to read: +6 min
Still, Southwest canceled another 2,300 flights today, long after its rivals had resumed normal service. Here’s why is Southwest taking so long to get its operations back on track: Southwest got unlucky with the location of the storm and its timing. And outdated scheduling technology left Southwest scrambling to match crew with planes. Bad luckThe storm hit Chicago and Denver hard, where Southwest has two of its biggest hubs – Chicago Midway airport and Denver International airport. Although Southwest says it was fully staffed for the holiday weekend, illness makes adjusting to increased system stress difficult.
The S&P 500 is down nearly 20% and with two trading days left in the year, investors’ hopes of a miraculous recovery have been dashed. The energy sector has so far returned more than 60% this year, significantly outperforming every other S&P 500 sector. Occidental Petroleum has been the biggest gainer of the year in the S&P 500, up 122% year-to-date. The energy sector reported the highest year-over-year earnings growth of all 11 sectors, at 137.3%. Elon Musk’s Tesla (TSLA) is also down about 70%, making the auto tech company the third worst performer this year.
Southwest Airlines received more than $7 billion from that program. However, analysts say, Southwest’s service meltdown is unrelated to the taxpayer assistance the airline received in 2020. Cancelled Southwest Airlines flights are seen on the flight schedules at LaGuardia Airport, Tuesday, Dec. 27, 2022, in New York. In April 2020, airline passenger traffic plummeted 96% and stayed 60% below 2019 levels in 2020, according to the US Government Accountability Office. “The problems at Southwest Airlines over the last several days go beyond weather,” she said in a statement.
Flight cancellations eased further on Monday but disruptions from severe winter weather across the U.S. lingered at the tail end of Christmas weekend. From Wednesday through Saturday, about a quarter of Southwest’s flights were canceled, and two-thirds were delayed, according to FlightAware data. On Monday, more than 1,700 flights were canceled and 2,200 more were delayed, down from nearly 3,200 canceled flights and 7,700 delayed U.S. flights on Sunday. Delta Air Lines, American Airlines, United Airlines, JetBlue Airways and Alaska Airlines were among the other carriers affected by the weather. More than half of U.S.-based airlines’ flights arrived late from Thursday through Saturday, with delays averaging 81 minutes, according to FlightAware.
Flight cancellations eased further on Monday but disruptions from severe winter weather across the U.S. lingered at the tail end of Christmas weekend. Carriers are likely to detail the costs of the disruptions when they report results next month, if not earlier. Southwest had been canceling many flights proactively in an effort to stabilize its operation, COO Andrew Watterson said. From Wednesday through Saturday, about a quarter of Southwest's flights were canceled, and two-thirds were delayed, according to FlightAware data. Airlines often cancel flights proactively during bad weather to avoid having planes, crews and customers out of place, problems that can make recovery from a storm more difficult.
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