I’m back from exile, and man am I glad nothing big happened while I was gone. Oh wait, that massive Southwest opreational failure? I suppose we should talk about that.

Granted, I was watching more from a distance during my break, but most of the media coverage I saw of this was pretty awful. There were a lot of potentially false assumptions and tying of things together that had no business being mentioned in the same article — like the cancellations due to the FAA computer failure in Florida somehow being tied back to Southwest’s troubles. Please. Today I’m not going to look backwards too much, though I do hope to do that in a future post. Instead, let’s talk about why this is a good thing.

I know, I know, the headline seems clickbait-y, but I really do mean it sincerely. I expect a whole lot of good to come out of this, but then again that could just be wishful thinking. Now that we have a little time behind this mess, hopefully we can put away the pitch forks and actually look at this rationally.

Southwest Blew It

Yes, this was bad. I have no need to rehash what happened in great detail, because you’ve read that part everywhere. While much of what you’ve read may not have been entirely accurate, I don’t have enough first-hand knowledge gathered at this point to do better. And when that happens, I’d rather just not write. What a novel concept. But try to throw aside union hot takes and narratives from freaked-out travelers…