WN bag numbers not great

[Dont call me Shirley]

http://online.wsj.com/article/the_middle_seat.html

Southwest Airlines, the only major airline that doesn't charge fees to check two pieces of luggage, had the second-worst rate of mishandled bags, better than only American. Bags fly free, but they don't always get there. Excluding AirTran Airways, which Southwest acquired in May, Southwest would have been the industry's worst at baggage handling.

Rare bad press for LUV. :blink:

 

[num1bearsfan]

http://online.wsj.com/article/the_middle_seat.html

Southwest Airlines, the only major airline that doesn't charge fees to check two pieces of luggage, had the second-worst rate of mishandled bags, better than only American. Bags fly free, but they don't always get there. Excluding AirTran Airways, which Southwest acquired in May, Southwest would have been the industry's worst at baggage handling.

Rare bad press for LUV. :blink:

I'm so tired of beating this dead horse,.. to death.

First of all, I've seen the rankings and AirTran is listed separately.

Second of all, as "the airline with free bags" you can imagine that our checked baggage volume is notably higher. This statistic rates instances of mishandled bags per 1,000 passengers. 1,000 passengers on Southwest airlines check many more bags than 1,000 passengers on United. That's many more opportunities for failure. This statistic is fundamentally flawed. If you could view the statistic of bags mishandled per 1,000 bags, you'd probably find that Southwest does an exceptional job of keeping track of it's bags. Even with the statistic the way it is now, Southwest still manages to keep it's mishandled rate within a percentage point of everyone else. That tells me that if we were looking at the real numbers, Southwest might far and away be the best at baggage handling..

Signed a Southwest Airlines baggage handler.

 

[metopower]

I'm so tired of beating this dead horse,.. to death.

First of all, I've seen the rankings and AirTran is listed separately.

Second of all, as "the airline with free bags" you can imagine that our checked baggage volume is notably higher. This statistic rates instances of mishandled bags per 1,000 passengers. 1,000 passengers on Southwest airlines check many more bags than 1,000 passengers on United. That's many more opportunities for failure. This statistic is fundamentally flawed. If you could view the statistic of bags mishandled per 1,000 bags, you'd probably find that Southwest does an exceptional job of keeping track of it's bags. Even with the statistic the way it is now, Southwest still manages to keep it's mishandled rate within a percentage point of everyone else. That tells me that if we were looking at the real numbers, Southwest might far and away be the best at baggage handling..

Signed a Southwest Airlines baggage handler.

Please... WN doesn't even interline bags. You get what you pay for. One of WN 's vertues is you get what they advertise .Transportation from point A to point B. They never said the bag would get there just that it was free

 

[gizmo_sc]

Southwest has yet to start scanning bags. I hear it has been under test at many stations over the past year and possibly could be ready for roll out in 2012. I can say this about scanning it is much easier standing in the baggage service office telling a passenger where his/hers last bag was scanned and how soon it can arrive than to tell them that you have no idea where their bag might be located. I personally think many passengers start a trip and if something happens and they have to be rerouted somehow the bag does not follow on the new routing. Perhaps when and if it does start it will be easier to move bags. One problem I see is that many SWA stations do not have a cut off time for checking in , but the ticket counter does tag those bags as late checkin. Many times those bags will make the flight and the passenger does not due to problems with getting thru security. I personally think ticket counters of most stations need a 30 or 45 cutoff time. If anyone has knowledge of the SWA scanning system please post.

 

[AvTech04]

SWA being the "superior" airline that it is, as stated numerous times on this forum, they sure are lacking when it come to the IT side of running an airline... Inferior baggage system. Inferior Maint system, inferior reservation system... This list can go on for a while. Hell, I even heard that some systems are running pre-windows 98, damn near DOS! lol (Wizard) this AirTran merger is probably the best thing SWA has ever done as a company. They are reaping numerous benefits in a all-in-one package deal.

And, from my understanding, the stats were per every 1000 bags, or so I read on an online news article... It, of course does not directly interpret the hard work the bag smashers do day in and day out, because they do get hit with a harder load per flight with the bags fly free advertisement.

 

[num1bearsfan]

Blah blah,.. Nobody wants to listen to logic or reason... Free shots at Southwest, everyone pounce..

 

[num1bearsfan]

SWA being the "superior" airline that it is, as stated numerous times on this forum, they sure are lacking when it come to the IT side of running an airline... Inferior baggage system. Inferior Maint system, inferior reservation system... This list can go on for a while. Hell, I even heard that some systems are running pre-windows 98, damn near DOS! lol (Wizard) this AirTran merger is probably the best thing SWA has ever done as a company. They are reaping numerous benefits in a all-in-one package deal.

And, from my understanding, the stats were per every 1000 bags, or so I read on an online news article... It, of course does not directly interpret the hard work the bag smashers do day in and day out, because they do get hit with a harder load per flight with the bags fly free advertisement.

All these things that "you've heard" and that "you understand" are false.. The stat is by 1,000 passengers. And your windows 98 statement is just not true. Every work station I've ever encountered at Southwest runs a business variant of XP and a whole suite of very high functioning systems and software. I would bet you that the average Southwest employee has far more tools and informational access via our company workstations than the average AirTran employee does. It's a misnomer that Southwest is in some sort of technological stone age. It's true that the reservation system at it's core was something developed for Braniff in the 60's but it's been modified and tweeked for Southwest's needs many times over the years and it's just reaching the point of needing to be redone completely. Aside from that, Southwest has all sorts of very well developed systems. I can tell you one thing for certain, if your employee backend is any indication AirTran's technological prowess, your IT "superiority" is a great degree over rated.. Your nonrev listing system is a piece of crap . I'm looking forward to the day that thing is dumped in favor of Southwest's system.

 

[num1bearsfan]

Southwest has yet to start scanning bags. I hear it has been under test at many stations over the past year and possibly could be ready for roll out in 2012. I can say this about scanning it is much easier standing in the baggage service office telling a passenger where his/hers last bag was scanned and how soon it can arrive than to tell them that you have no idea where their bag might be located. I personally think many passengers start a trip and if something happens and they have to be rerouted somehow the bag does not follow on the new routing. Perhaps when and if it does start it will be easier to move bags. One problem I see is that many SWA stations do not have a cut off time for checking in , but the ticket counter does tag those bags as late checkin. Many times those bags will make the flight and the passenger does not due to problems with getting thru security. I personally think ticket counters of most stations need a 30 or 45 cutoff time. If anyone has knowledge of the SWA scanning system please post.

The scanning idea has been something that has been tossed around for years, but it essentially boils down to this. It's debatable if scanning bags would serve any real benefit to our baggage handling efficiency. Because, while it would create an accountability system where by a customer service agent would have an answer for a customer wanting to know where their bag is and when it can be expected, that's more or less the extent of the purpose it would serve. The fact would remain that the bag was mishandled and that it would get there as soon as it can get there. So is it practical to roll out this expensive system system-wide, and adding a whole new "layer" of complexity and having to actually have everyone stop and scan each bag every time it moves (which would slow everyone down) for the sole purpose of being able to have a definitive answer for a customer? It's mine and many of my peers feeling that it isn't. When a bag is mishandled it's usually made well aware of by the workers and is accommodated asap on the very next flight possible. There is a VERY low instance of bags just vanishing and needing to rely on some sort of tracing system to "find" a bag.. When a bag is loaded on an incorrect flight, that bag sticks out like a sore thumb on the ensuing offload and is quickly relocated to the correct place.. Bags more or less ALWAYS turn up.. There's no bag monster running around eating bags never to be seen from again.

^^ It's my opinion that things like this issue in particular are what sets Southwest and other carriers apart. Southwest hasn't been willing to dive head first into unnecessary systems like this resulting cumulatively in a big bloated operation that slowly drains away at efficiency and a streamlined operation.. It's my position that there IS no issue with Southwest's bag numbers and that this whole topic is as a result of flawed statistic keeping. Southwest kicks a$$ at how they operate, baggage handling included. Supporting evidence would be the fact that while our baggage ratio number is higher, our customers remain happy as indicated by our consistently low complaint ratio.. So those are two conflicting things.. So do our customers simply not mind having their baggage lost, or are there in fact LESS occurrences of mishandled bags per 1,000 bags?

 

[BoeingBoy]

Southwest kicks a$$ at how they operate, baggage handling included. Supporting evidence would be the fact that while our baggage ratio number is higher, our customers remain happy as indicated by our consistently low complaint ratio.. So those are two conflicting things.. So do our customers simply not mind having their baggage lost, or are there in fact LESS occurrences of mishandled bags per 1,000 bags?

You're free to believe whatever you want - personally I think WN has a successful business model but no airline is perfect. I'd just point out that your management is working to reduce the number of mishandled bags, as mentioned in the article. But what do they know, right?

When you get down to it, except for on-time performance all the numbers for all the airlines are so small that it's no surprise that WN can have problems with baggage and still have very few complaints to the DOT (they're the only one's that count). An average passenger would have to check bags on over 250 flights to encounter a mishandled bag. That same average passenger would have to fly over 14,000 flights before being involuntarily bumped. He/she would have to fly 345,000 flights to have a complaint worth contacting the DOT about. The other airlines are roughly the same magnitude.

The reason that your management thinks it's important is because the media has started reporting on such things over the last few years - reference the article the OP posted. Anything that reflects badly on WN is something that your management wants to correct. Among a lot of the traveling public, perception is everything and media reports can alter perception. If Jane Q public keeps seeing that WN is among the worst for baggage, on-time, whatever, Jane's perception of WN can start changing for the worse.

Jim

 

[AvTech04]

All these things that "you've heard" and that "you understand" are false.. The stat is by 1,000 passengers. And your windows 98 statement is just not true. Every work station I've ever encountered at Southwest runs a business variant of XP and a whole suite of very high functioning systems and software. I would bet you that the average Southwest employee has far more tools and informational access via our company workstations than the average AirTran employee does. It's a misnomer that Southwest is in some sort of technological stone age. It's true that the reservation system at it's core was something developed for Braniff in the 60's but it's been modified and tweeked for Southwest's needs many times over the years and it's just reaching the point of needing to be redone completely. Aside from that, Southwest has all sorts of very well developed systems. I can tell you one thing for certain, if your employee backend is any indication AirTran's technological prowess, your IT "superiority" is a great degree over rated.. Your nonrev listing system is a piece of crap . I'm looking forward to the day that thing is dumped in favor of Southwest's system.

Oh I'll agree to the non rev system that Airtran has, it looks like some sort of windows remote management system that was cleverly tweaked to be disguised as an airline function. Not that I'm so impressed with SWA non rev booking system, but I would prefer it over what AirTran has. Now, Delta has a good employee communication portal and non rev listing system! Swalife is mimicking Deltanet slightly in some aspects, but has its own feel to it. It's funny, because every other SWA employee I encounter, other than you of course, has nothing but great expectations with the adoption of the AirTran IT systems.. You seem a bit apprehensive about it though.. Oh well, to each his own .