Southwest Adds 'Mechanical Difficulties' To Act Of God List

War, earthquakes, and broken washers are all unavoidable events for which a carrier should not be liable if travel is delayed according to Southwest Airlines. Southwest quietly updated their act of God list a few weeks ago to include mechanical problems with the other horrors of an angry travel god. From the article: "Robert Mann, an airline industry analyst based in Port Washington, NY, called it 'surprising' that Southwest, which has a reputation for stellar customer service, would make a change that puts passengers at a legal disadvantage if an aircraft breakdown delays their travel. Keeping a fleet mechanically sound 'is certainly within the control of any airline,' Mann said. 'Putting mechanical issues in the same category as an act of God — I don't think that's what God intended.'"

This story is false

[longacre]

The story has already been debunked as the result of the deadly combination of a poorly worded contract, lazy reporting, and/or a confused Southwest spokesperson who commented on the initial report.

"Mechanical difficulties" refers those occurring at an airport or in the air traffic control system: For example, if a control tower has an outage which forces the closure of an airport; or if the fuel delivery system at an airport breaks down.

See: Truthsquadding the Southwest Airlines “Act of God” controversy: “Ultimately this is a reporting error run amok” [elliott.org]

RTFA much?

[zorg50]

Despite the FA headline, 'mechanical difficulties' is in fact NOT in an acts of God list. Rather, they added it to their list of 'Force Majeure' events, along with 'acts of God.' From their Contract of Carriage [southwest.com]:

Force Majeure Event means any event outside of Carrier’s control, including, without limitation, acts of God, meteorological events, such as storms, rain, wind, fire, fog, flooding, earthquakes, haze, volcanic eruption or any other event, including, without limitation, government action, disturbances or potentially volatile international conditions, civil commotions, riots, embargoes, wars, or hostilities, whether actual, threatened, or reported, strikes, work stoppage, slowdown, lockout or any other labor related dispute involving or affecting Carrier’s service, mechanical difficulties, Air Traffic Control, the inability to obtain fuel, labor or landing facilities for the flight in question or any fact not reasonably foreseen, anticipated or predicted by Carrier.

Likewise, the body of the FA correctly states that both mechanical difficulties and acts of God are in the same list. Of course, that doesn't make for such an eye-grabbing headline...

Re:It only makes sense

[russ1337]

... once you start babbling about the effect of capricious supernatural sky fairies on mass transportation. What's the difference between a transistor burning out in a VOR receiver, versus a sudden hailstorm that shuts down the whole airport? Only a matter of scale.

None actually.

CFR 14, Part 25, Rule 25.1309.

(a) The equipment, systems, and installations whose functioning is required by this subchapter, must be designed to ensure that they perform their intended functions under any foreseeable operating condition. (1) The occurrence of any failure condition which would prevent the continued safe flight and landing of the airplane is extremely improbable, and [(2) The occurrence of any other failure condition which would reduce the capability of the airplane or the ability of the crew to cope with adverse operating conditions is improbable. [snip] (g) In showing compliance with paragraphs (a) and (b) of this section with regard to the electrical system and equipment design and installation, critical environmental conditions must be considered.

http://rgl.faa.gov/Regulatory_and_Guidance_Library/rgFAR.nsf/0/EF544B3CFE11DB2B85256673004D3EC4?OpenDocument [faa.gov]

I have to say...

[N0Man74]

I've never been a fan of deus ex machina.

Re:Some bean counter ...

[Virtucon]

Gary Kelly is a Bean Counter. He was CFO prior to being named to his current position and it's just a way that they don't have to book you on another airline or pay for overnight accommodations if they have a mechanical problem. From a marketing perspective this is an incentive to buy "Travel Insurance." Bah...

http://www.southwest.com/swamedia/bios/gary_kelly.html [southwest.com]

Nothing to see here, move along.

[horatio]

This is lazy reporting, nothing more. If the AZ Star et al. had bothered to talk to Southwest [elliott.org] about it, they might have gotten a clue. It is a sensationalist headline to draw eyeballs and gin up controversy where there is none.

In our latest update, we offered our definition, which states that “Force Majeure Event means any event outside of Carrier’s control” and so the “mechanical difficulties” we are referring to as Force Majeure events would be those outside of our control, such as airport mechanical difficulties (e.g., the airport de-icing system breaks) or Air Traffic Control issues (e.g., airport or regional tower goes down).

We are not referring to our own aircraft mechanical difficulties, which would clearly be under our control. Our policies and practices confirm this interpretation.

None of our procedures have changed — we still accommodate customers exactly the same as we did previously in the event of our own aircraft mechanical issues occur.

Re:Check their payroll

[jmrives]

Yeah, I am sure they have someone named Jesus working there.

Re:Parts break

[totally bogus dude]

Hmm, you're also assuming they will have "spare" pilots in the hub cities ready-to-go at a moment's notice. And that the spare aircraft will always be ready-to-go at short notice, too. I'm sure there's significant costs associated with both of these. Even an idle airframe needs inspection before you can be sure it's safe to fly (and all the avionics, etc.). Then there's parking fees at airports, which are going to be pretty significant. So there's more costs involved than merely purchasing an extra couple of planes.

Fares may be in the hundreds of dollars, but flying a jet costs a lot more than running a bus.

Additionally, we're talking $50 million dollars plus to buy a 737, which is apparently most or all of Southwest's fleet (unusual for an airline - most would also have to grapple with the logistics of having multiple types of spare plane). And even assuming every ticket costs $500 and ALL of that goes to the airline as profit, you need to make 729 flights before you've paid off the initial investment. Assuming that there's no maintenance and staff and fuel costs, and that you bought the cheapest version of the plane. Clearly, the actual profit is nowhere near 100%.

Assuming a 10% profit margin on that $500 ticket (which seems awfully expensive and way more than your average one-way ticket is going to cost) - that's 1,000,000 tickets to pay for that $50 million plane, which works out to 7,299 fully-booked flights. At 7 flights per day, an aircraft will take 1,042 days to pay for itself. Assuming it's actually carrying full-fare paying passengers, and not sitting in a hangar somewhere.

So, I agree with your assessment that this would have to be mandated by the government. But I don't think most people would be willing to pay more for a ticket just for reducing the chance of a delayed/canceled flight. Because if they were, airlines would already be offering this to give themselves a competitive advantage.

Btw, your $5 extra per ticket, assuming it goes entirely to paying for the $50 million spare plane, would require nearly 73,000 fully-booked flights in order to pay off a single spare plane. If a plane makes 7 flights per day, they can recoup the costs for a single "spare" plane in a mere 28 plane-years!

Re:Check their payroll

[lxs]

A fully metricated person would indeed have no scruples [wiktionary.org] at all.