Southwest Meltdown Shows Airlines Need Tighter Software Integration
Summary
Southwest relies on crew-assignment software called SkySolver, an off-the-shelf application that it has customized and updated, but that is nearing the end of its life, according to the airline. 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. Much of the complexity behind airline-operations technology stems from the many real-time data points and constraints a single system must take into account, including federal regulations, weather, crew status and location, and aircraft maintenance and routing, said Jahan Alamzad, an airline analyst at consulting firm CA Advisors. In Southwest’s case, SkySolver works well during more typical disruptions, but didn’t during the “extreme circumstances” of the past week’s storm, Lauren Woods, the airline’s vice president of technology platforms and incoming chief information officer, said Thursday. Airlines generally have done a better job of maintenance and repair operations, but are much further behind in “the human aspect” of matching up crews, equipment, and passengers, said R “Ray” Wang, founder and principal analyst at IT consulting firm Constellation Research Inc. Updating technology systems is particularly challenging for air carriers because of the business and operations risk of taking down a system, which can include grounded planes or stranded passengers, Mr. Crawford said.