COVID-19

[Pappy13]

I agree you probably can do your job just as well from home.  But your industry needs people to reject that idea and have the attitude of this commercial (from your competitor) that you can’t work without face to face interactions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mU2rpcAABbA

Even if I completely agreed with that commercial which I don't (it's outdated for a global company and by the way SWA is KILLING American Airlines, they are going broke....again) even if I did agree with it that would only be from an outside the company "customer" perspective. I don't have face to face with any of my customers because they are all internal to SWA. My only contact with them when I'm in the office is e-mail, chat and DASH (which is our ticketing system). Now occasionally I do meet with customers if a problem of a serious nature comes up but even then typically it's a phone call or teleconference bridge because they don't typically work in the same building or perhaps even in the same city as I do. It's not practical for me to meet face to face with these people and that's the way I do business regardless of whether I'm in the office or not and that's true of almost ALL of IT. Now Managers might not have that approach, but in the next 2 or 3 weeks, I think we can survive if managers reach out to their employees by phone, e-mail or chat. If they absolutely HAVE to have a meeting, go ahead but that's still not a good reason for everyone to be in the office for 8 hours a day. Hoodie you have the same view as SWA upper management does and frankly it's outdated. You have no idea what my job is like or how I do it. You're out of touch with reality of the IT business from a global company. Google, Amazon and others mandated that all their employees work from home last week and these are the top IT companies in the world. Now for that to be true for you, not a big deal, but for SWA management to be out of touch like that, disappointing to say the least, scary is a better word for it.

[Fau Teixeira]

SWA is killing american airlines because American airlines took years of profits in the 5-7 billion dollar range and instead of investing in the future of the company, updating aircraft, paying their workers and rolling out products that make happy customers, they instead ran through a massive bout of stock buybacks to allow the people in charge to squeeze as much out of them as possible. Now they're about 30 billion in debt due to fleet purchases, refits and maintenance costs. So now they're practically begging for a government bailout.

[MyGodWearsAHoodie]

I agree you going in is unnecessary.

Headline on CNN...... “Major Arline tells all employees who can work from home to stay home and not travel.  Encourages all people to avoid travel and face to face meeting unless absolutely necessary.  Encourages virtual meetings and conference calls over live meetings”.

Responsible thing to do?  Yes.

Consistent with overall marketing strategy?  No 

[Pappy13]

I agree you going in is unnecessary.

Headline on CNN...... “Major Arline tells all employees who can work from home to stay home and not travel.  Encourages all people to avoid travel and face to face meeting unless absolutely necessary.  Encourages virtual meetings and conference calls over live meetings”.

Responsible thing to do?  Yes.

Consistent with overall marketing strategy?  No 

Ok, that makes a bit of sense, but then come out and tell your employees that's the reason why and don't make up some BS about having to consider those employees that can't work from home.

[Phishfan]

In some universe there is a Pappy going off about how his company made a business decision potentially affecting worker's health based on marketing strategies.

I just don't think you would be happy with either reason they gave.

[Pappy13]

Here's the latest from SWA.

COVID-19 Flight Schedule Revision: April 14-June 5, 2020
Tuesday, March 17, 2020
EmployeeNews

As we continue to navigate our way through this unprecedented and unchartered
environment due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we have seen an alarming drop in
bookings and sales. We do not have a clear line of sight of when we will see our
business return to normal trends, and it is very difficult to determine the duration and
severity of the impact. Yesterday, we filed a form 8-K with an update on the impact to
our business, which you can read HERE.

Here are a few notable items in the filing:

“The Company has experienced more dramatic declines in passenger bookings in
March and second quarter 2020, as well as an unprecedented increase in close-in trip
cancellations. The Company has recently experienced several days of net negative
bookings, primarily in March and April 2020, where trip cancellations outpaced new
passenger bookings. The Company's month-to-date load factor through March 15,
2020, was approximately 67 percent, with recent days trending toward 50 percent. As
the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic grows, and based on current booking and
cancellation trends, we expect revenue trends for the remainder of March and second
quarter 2020 to deteriorate further.

Given the continued uncertainty of revenue trends attributable to the COVID-19
pandemic, the Company has taken several actions to help manage the near-term
financial impacts. The Company will soon reduce its published flight schedules, which
will reduce available seat miles (ASMs, or capacity) by at least 20 percent for the time
period April 14, 2020 through June 5, 2020. These flight schedule reductions are in
addition to the Company's existing capacity impact due to the Boeing 737 MAX
groundings. The Company continues to evaluate further flight schedule reductions.”

We will begin making these revisions later this week, so we do not have specific routes
or market information to share just yet. Some decisions are still being made. We’ll
share more details as these decisions are made and finalized. The revisions will vary by
day of week and region—some airports and regions will be more impacted than others.
Customers who have already booked their travel and will be impacted by our amended
schedule will be notified of their re-accommodated travel according to our flexible
accommodation procedures.

We're working closely with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the
World Health Organization (WHO), and government officials and agencies to stay
apprised of the latest prevention and containment protocols. Additionally, we’ve created
a host of resources for our Employees and Customers with information, updates, and
FAQs, which you can find right here on SWALife.

We fully realize this has been an enormously trying time for our Southwest Family, our
Customers, and our communities. Our hearts go out to all of those who have been
impacted by this pandemic. Of course, we regret the inconvenience to our Customers
impacted by this change, and we thank them for their patience, trust, and understanding.

[Pappy13]

In some universe there is a Pappy going off about how his company made a business decision potentially affecting worker's health based on marketing strategies.

I just don't think you would be happy with either reason they gave.

You're absolutely right I would not be happy about it but at least in that scenario I wouldn't think SWA management was inept when it comes to me being able to do my job remotely.

The biggest takeaway that I got out of the e-mail from SWA was the load factor being around 67% trending toward 50% lately. SWA typically runs about 95% load factor meaning that we are about at 95% of our maximum flight capacity. Most Flights are booked to max typically. I don't think our marketing strategy has much of anything to do with it and not really sure that it would go up If they asked me to continue to work in the office.

[MyGodWearsAHoodie]

In some universe there is a Pappy going off about how his company made a business decision potentially affecting worker's health based on marketing strategies.

I just don't think you would be happy with either reason they gave.

I am not suggesting he be happy with it.  It is just I can’t think of a single industry that would be more resistant to the idea people should stay home.  Also I doubt Pappy’s office is as densely populated as coach.  So if it is unsafe for Pappy to sit in. cube adjacent to his coworkers, it is certainly unsafe for me to sit in the middle seat of an airplane.

[Fau Teixeira]

i'm surprised there's still 65% capacity on flights right now

[MyGodWearsAHoodie]

The biggest takeaway that I got out of the e-mail from SWA was the load factor being around 67% trending toward 50% lately. SWA typically runs about 95% load factor meaning that we are about at 95% of our maximum flight capacity. Most Flights are booked to max typically. I don't think our marketing strategy has much of anything to do with it and not really sure that it would go up If they asked me to continue to work in the office.

If an airline was smart they might use that to their advantage.....

“From now until April 15 we will not be booking passengers on the middle seat.  While the CDC is not requiring this we think it is only prudent to space passengers away from other passengers.  Exceptions can be made in cases of three people who book their flight together and book an entire row, in which case we will be offering buy 2 get the third seat 50% off.”

[MyGodWearsAHoodie]

i'm surprised there's still 65% capacity on flights right now

Much of that could be people getting home.  Willing to bet 75 to 90% of travel today and yesterday was people on the return leg, with only a tiny portion outbound.

[Pappy13]

I am not suggesting he be happy with it.  It is just I can’t think of a single industry that would be more resistant to the idea people should stay home.  Also I doubt Pappy’s office is as densely populated as coach.  So if it is unsafe for Pappy to sit in. cube adjacent to his coworkers, it is certainly unsafe for me to sit in the middle seat of an airplane.

Does SWA come and wipe down the entire area of my workspace every night with industrial strength cleaners? They do that for all of our a/c. Hoodie you're being totally ridiculous at this point. It's safer at this point to fly in our aircraft then it is for me to be in my office for a week I can guarantee you that. I'd worry more about the airport hub if I were you.

[Pappy13]

If an airline was smart they might use that to their advantage.....

“From now until April 15 we will not be booking passengers on the middle seat.  While the CDC is not requiring this we think it is only prudent to space passengers away from other passengers.  Exceptions can be made in cases of three people who book their flight together and book an entire row, in which case we will be offering buy 2 get the third seat 50% off.”

Except that SWA doesn't have assigned seating but essentially that's true. Probably you can get the whole row to yourself right now.

[Pappy13]

Much of that could be people getting home.  Willing to bet 75 to 90% of travel today and yesterday was people on the return leg, with only a tiny portion outbound.

International that might be true but SWA is still mostly domestic. That's not even close to being true for SWA.

[MyGodWearsAHoodie]

You ride in an airplane 40 hours a week? You do that because you can or because you have to?

# of hours is kinda irrelevant.  If you sit next to the same people everyday those are the people who can infect you.  If you take two flights per week it doesn’t matter if the flight is 30 mins or 13 hours you are at risk from the other passengers.  

But I am not defending the airline, just saying the optics of saying it is unsafe for you to sit in a cube 10 feet from a coworker undercuts the message flying is safe.  So they have a consistent message, “If you are sick stay home and don’t spread the disease, if you are not sick come to work and fly”