The Monthly details how Southwest Airlines got to the holidays snafu point. It says that part of the problem is an anti-tech bias within corporate management culture. The piece also explains why Southwest doesn't assign seats — its software is so old that it can't. (That one, I didn't know.) But, Southworst has turned that into a marketing point. Buying AirTran forced some tech upgrades. The piece ends by saying that Congressional hearings may wind up causing fallout for all airlines.
Good! Oh, in part per Carter financial advisor Stu Eizenstat's memo of his White House years, Carter-era deregulation, though it contributed to reduced fares, was by no means the sole factor.
Sidebar: contra neoliberal noobs defending Mayo Pete on this issue, Southworst does NOT run a point-to-point system. It runs a hybrid of that with the hub-and-spoke. You can fly directly, but rarely as a nonstop, and usually with a plane transfer — at a larger airport. At the same time, non-Southworst legacy airlines (you've been around 50 years, you're a legacy) don't run a true hub system, especially after all the mergers. A Delta or United or American have 7 or 8 airports they list as "hubs." Per that link, COVID pushed a resurgence in hub-and-spoke operations, but who knows if it will last?
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