GIVE TIL IT HURTS

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RuiNation

Anybody who has ever worked for a medium-to-large-sized corporation in America has experienced this same sort of thing. Even working for a small, strictly-local B-drayage hauler in the air-freight business for many years, I most certainly have.

What happened to Southwest Airlines?

I’ve been a pilot for Southwest Airlines for over 35 years. I’ve given my heart and soul to Southwest Airlines during those years. And quite honestly Southwest Airlines has given its heart and soul to me and my family.

Many of you have asked what caused this epic meltdown. Unfortunately, the frontline employees have been watching this meltdown coming like a slow-motion train wreck for sometime. And we’ve been begging our leadership to make much needed changes in order to avoid it. What happened yesterday started two decades ago.

Herb Kelleher was the brilliant CEO of SWA until 2004. He was a very operationally oriented leader. Herb spent lots of time on the front line. He always had his pulse on the day-to-day operation and the people who ran it. That philosophy flowed down through the ranks of leadership to the front-line managers. We were a tight operation from top to bottom. We had tools, leadership and employee buy-in. Everything that was needed to run a first-class operation. When Herb retired in 2004 Gary Kelly became the new CEO.

Gary was an accountant by education and his style leading Southwest Airlines became more focused on finances and less on operations. He did not spend much time on the front lines. He didn’t engage front line employees much. When the CEO doesn’t get out in the trenches then neither do the lower levels of leadership.

Gary named another accountant to be Chief Operating Officer (the person responsible for day-to-day operations). The new COO had little or no operational background. This trickled down through the lower levels of leadership, as well.

They all disengaged the operation, disengaged the employees and focused more on Return on Investment, stock buybacks and Wall Street. This approach worked for Gary’s first 8 years because we were still riding the strong wave that Herb had built.

But as time went on the operation began to deteriorate. There was little investment in upgrading technology (after all, how do you measure the return on investing in infrastructure?) or the tools we needed to operate efficiently and consistently. As the frontline employees began to see the deterioration in our operation we began to warn our leadership. We educated them, we informed them and we made suggestions to them. But to no avail. The focus was on finances not operations. As we saw more and more deterioration in our operation our asks turned to pleas. Our pleas turned to dire warnings. But they went unheeded. After all, the stock price was up so what could be wrong?

We were a motivated, willing and proud employee group wanting to serve our customers and uphold the tradition of our beloved airline, the airline we built and the airline that the traveling public grew to cheer for and luv. But we were watching in frustration and disbelief as our once amazing airline was becoming a house of cards.

A half dozen small scale meltdowns occurred during the mid to late 2010’s. With each mini meltdown Leadership continued to ignore the pleas and warnings of the employees in the trenches. We were still operating with 1990’s technology. We didn’t have the tools we needed on the line to operate the sophisticated and large airline we had become. We could see that the wheels were about ready to fall off the bus. But no one in leadership would heed our pleas.
When COVID happened SWA scaled back considerably (as did all of the airlines) for about two years. This helped conceal the serious problems in technology, infrastructure and staffing that were occurring and being ignored. But as we ramped back up the lack of attention to the operation was waiting to show its ugly head.

Gary Kelly retired as CEO in early 2022. Bob Jordan was named CEO. He was a more operationally oriented leader. He replaced our Chief Operating Officer with a very smart man and they announced their priority would be to upgrade our airline’s technology and provide the frontline employees the operational tools we needed to care for our customers and employees. Finally, someone acknowledged the elephant in the room.

But two decades of neglect takes several years to overcome. And, unfortunately to our horror, our house of cards came tumbling down this week as a routine winter storm broke our 1990’s operating system.

The frontline employees were ready and on station. We were properly staffed. We were at the airports. Hell, we were ON the airplanes. But our antiquated software systems failed coupled with a decades old system of having to manage 20,000 frontline employees by phone calls. No automation had been developed to run this sophisticated machine.

We had a routine winter storm across the Midwest last Thursday. A larger than normal number flights were cancelled as a result. But what should have been one minor inconvenient day of travel turned into this nightmare. After all, American, United, Delta and the other airlines operated with only minor flight disruptions.

The two decades of neglect by SWA leadership caused the airline to lose track of all its crews. ALL of us. We were there. With our customers. At the jet. Ready to go. But there was no way to assign us. To confirm us. To release us to fly the flight. And we watched as our customers got stranded without their luggage missing their Christmas holiday.

I believe that our new CEO Bob Jordan inherited a MESS. This meltdown was not his failure but the failure of those before him. I believe he has the right priorities. But it will take time to right this ship. A few years at a minimum. Old leaders need to be replaced. Operationally oriented managers need to be brought in. I hope and pray Bob can execute on his promises to fix our once proud airline. Time will tell.

It’s been a punch in the gut for us frontline employees. We care for the traveling public. We have spent our entire careers serving you. Safely. Efficiently. With luv and pride. We are horrified. We are sorry. We are sorry for the chaos, inconvenience and frustration our airline caused you. We are angry. We are embarrassed. We are sad. Like you, the traveling public, we have been let down by our own leaders.

Herb once said the biggest threat to Southwest Airlines will come from within. Not from other airlines. What a visionary he was. I miss Herb now more than ever.

Whether they know of him specifically or not, many people do. Or almost certainly will, as time grinds on.

The American economic juggernaut was built on the idea that people would start at the bottom of any given enterprise and work their way up based on experience, talent, and knowledge of the business from soup to nuts. Alas for us all, the advent of the MBA replaced that excellent system with nebbish dweebs coming in from outside to “manage” the business without ever having set Foot One on a loading dock, factory floor, or assembly line in their entire lives, which has all but done away with any concept of making it on merit. Those overcredentialed-but-undereducated, shiny-loafered, smug college-boy types have been nothing but sand in the gears of what was once the mightiest wealth-producing engine in all of history.

1

2 thoughts on “RuiNation

  1. What?
    Over-billed college kids with zero real-life experience, getting the keys and crashing the family car into a tree, then setting the entire forest on fire for good measure?
    This has been Corporatism 101 since about 1960.

    Total number of corporations successfully run by the people teaching MBA programs, since ever: zero. The reason they’re teaching there is because they couldn’t hack it in the real world.
    QED

    Anyone applying with an MBA should be assigned to minimum-wage entry-level jobs for at least five years, and then allowed to work their way up from the bottom for not less than another 15 years, and not allowed off the front lines of the business and into the management suites until they hit the 20-year mark. If they show some aptitude.

    The only businesses who make it work the other way are Ponzi schemes and vaporware outfits, nearly every single time.

  2. Sigh…
    Yep. The corporate mindset that MBA’s and accountants can run anything leads to running anything –
    Into the ground.

    When I finished school and went to work for my dad, he told me to forget the office, “you’ll need at least five years in the field” before you have a clue about manufacturing machinery and electronic design.

    When I first started going into manufacturing facilities (Mid 70’s) the old guard was still in charge. Almost every plant manager, no matter the level of education, had started out on the factory floor, sometimes as nothing more than a sweeper (yes, with a broom). I watched as they retired and were replaced, not by those experienced like them, but with the new class, the MBA’s and accountants. For a while that works, because the old guard did such a fine job of building those factories and operations. Eventually it starts falling apart, just as it appears it did for SWA.

    The young men I have been associated with, children of friends and youngsters going through Boy Scouts all got the same counsel from me – If you want to be an engineer, study engineering then get an MBA. If you want to be a business man, study engineering, then get an MBA. There’s nothing wrong with the MBA/business degree, but you need to be able to understand what and how things get manufactured, or that education is worthless for a manufacturing career.

    If you wish to run an airline, you better know how to fly, and you better fly on your planes as a passenger, unknown to the crew. It would be best if you were familiar with the function and maintenance of an aircraft.

    If you’re the CEO of McDonalds you should go the drive through occasionally, and walk in occasionally, so you’ll have some clue what is going on.

    Oh, and if your the CEO of Coca Cola, perhaps you should just shut the fuck up.

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