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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.'"
Is God part of their fleet maintenance engineering crew?
... probably figured that this might overcome their bags fly free policy while still remaining competitive. Marketing won't like it if this story gets any bigger, kudos to the Arizona Daily Star for breaking it.
A libertarian shat on my carpet once. Claimed the free market would sort it out. -Ford Prefect(8777)
So if my car breaks and crashes into a state trooper, killing him, I can claim that my shoddy repairs were an act of god? AWESOME! *goes for a drive*
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
...to the acts of God list, you better add 'my angry fist to your prone crotch', you cheap assholes. Typical Southwest bullshit.
You know those belts don't indicate actual martial arts skill, right?
-mkb
How many passengers sit down in those oh-so-comfy airplane seats, buckle in and quietly say, "Oh god, PLEASE don't let this airplane fall apart!"
If god chooses not to listen, should SWA be held liable?
I need trepanation like I need a hole in the head.
By this logic my insurance company should be liable for when my car breaks down. Woohoo!
But He has been known to loosen a nut from time to time.
. Until this is better defined I cannot see it holding any legal power in any court.
"Maybe this world is another planet's hell"
Aldous Huxley
You don't think an angry sky wizard could burn out a transistor?
Maybe the pilot and copilot are gay lovers, or maybe they had shrimp for lunch, or failed to say the correct prayers at the correct times, it seems from the relevant documentation anything pisses off those types.
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”
Airplane Photos, Airline News, Planespotting Guides
>> Statistics should be considered an "Act of God".
So should arriving on time with all you luggage intact.
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:
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...
None actually.
CFR 14, Part 25, Rule 25.1309.
http://rgl.faa.gov/Regulatory_and_Guidance_Library/rgFAR.nsf/0/EF544B3CFE11DB2B85256673004D3EC4?OpenDocument
intelligent maintenance.
Nullius in verba
I've never been a fan of deus ex machina.
This wasn't "lazy reporting" or a "reporting error", the plain wording of the contract was quite clear. If they meant "mechanical difficulties with things we don't own or operate", then they should have said so.
SirWired
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.
There is very little future in being right when your boss is wrong.
Exceptions for acts of god makes sense. After all, should an airline be held responsible for the unknowable, infallible actions of our omnipotent creator?
Of course, they want notarized proof if your sick and need to change planes. I want Southwest to get a note from God that He authorized the act. Also, a xeroxed copy of His driver's license or passport proving His identity. And His signature, which must match the signature card from a local bank.
Also, I want to know why He keeps making the Yankees win.
The ______ Agenda
You said it, man. Nobody fucks with the Jesus.
I should go after southwest if they do not refund the tickets or provide accommodations over this, they can seek relief from the airport. They sold me the ticket, not the airport.
Do they? Last time I flew Southwest (July 2009) they:
- Got me where I was going on time,
- Offered me two (2) packages of peanuts as a snack, and two packages of cookies as well.
- Had room for my bags in both directions.
The last time I flew Delta (July 2010) they:
- Would not let me change seats online.
- Would not tell me my seat assignment on the commuter segments until after boarding, so that 'passengers with special needs could be accomodated'. They seated three standby passengers before me on one flight, despite my having a confirmed ticket. I enjoyed oen of only four seats that did not recline. The passenger in front of me enjoyed reclining HIS seat, very much thank you. I can still smell it.
- Delayed me at EVERY stop to and from my destination.
- Gave me precisely one (1) package of peanuts, OR one (1) package of cookies, on each segment.
- Had no room in the bins for my bag on the first segment of my flight, and had to check them at the gate.
- On my return flight, delayed me at the destination gate for 20 minutes while they found a crew to offload our gate-checked baggage.
- On the connecting flight, delayed it 20 minutes due to a problem getting the incoming plane to the gate.
- On this connecting flight, delayed us 40 minutes to load on catering (food).
- On this connecting flight, waited 2 hours into a 5 hour flight to begin serving drinks and snacks to Coach (us).
MY wife flew back a few days later, and
- Was delayed an hour on the initial segment.
- Was that hour late for her connecting flight.
- Cancelled the connecting flight after a 90 minute delay, due to 'mechanical problems'.
- Flew in a replacement plane FROM THE INTENDED DESTINATION to replace the failed plane.
- Gave her a $6 food voucher for a meal. The least expensive sandwich she saw was $8.
- Eventually got her onboard and on her way to the destination, 6 hours late.
- Gave her a $25 travel voucher for her inconvenience. This is equal to the baggage allowance for one bag.
So Delta may have valued my wife's troubles at $4.16/hr, but she did not. We will not be using the travel voucher. 6 years ago, flying out of Portland, Maine, we took an early flight to Baltimore and then on to Orlando in January. We were delayed 4 hours as one of the engines would not start on an below-freezing day. It had been a long time since I sat on a cold Maine apron and got told the engine would not start. Southwest is beating Delta maintenance hands down in my experience.
ps- It is the height of inefficiency to permit maintenance to cause groundings and lost flights. Planes don't make any money on the ground; they make money in the air. And accidents are entirely inefficient. Now, claiming maintenance troubles for a lightly-loaded flight used to happen to me a fair amount in the 80s, and it was blatant. Sitting at a gate lounge with 6 other people for a flight from Boston to Bangor at 1900 on a Friday night, I got cancelled 50% of the time. Go up the next morning, we had maybe 10 people on board usually. And in Bangor, they had maybe 12 people waiting to go to Boston, 6 of them from last night. I'm not fooled by that.
Very little advantage to Southwest to add mechanical trouble to the 'act of God' list, but it belongs on 'force Majeure'. Even CF-18s fail and they get even better maintenance than 737s. No machine is perfect.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
"Acts of God" is a legal term encompassing chance events, sudden natural disasters, and other unforeseeable and uncontrollable happenings. Forest fires, lightning, earthquakes, meteor strikes, volcanic eruptions, sudden sinkholes, etc.
The lawyers and judges understand what it means. It's a standard part of contracts and has nothing to do with any deity or religious belief whatsoever.
A part failing is outside of human control. Whether or not you have spare parts on hand, however, is well within human control. Similarly, whether or not you have a spare plane to use while the first one is being repaired is also well within human control. The question of whether force majeure or equivalent contract clauses should apply is not one of whether a failure could have been prevented, but rather whether the failed flight could reasonably have been prevented by having plans in place to handle equipment failures gracefully.
Failures are a part of doing business. The term "acts of God" is intended to protect only against failures that either cannot reasonably be foreseen (overthrow of a government, for example) or are so catastrophic that they cannot be dealt with when they do occur (a hurricane, for example). It is not intended to allow a company to not take responsibility for normal day-to-day failures. A competent, responsible company is expected to have contingency plans in place to deal with a reasonable number of normal day-to-day failures. If a company does not, it is inept and should be allowed to go bankrupt as quickly as possible so that more competent companies can take its place.
Remember that any delay caused by aircraft equipment failure could have been prevented with a single spare plane in the right location.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Also, I want to know why He keeps making the Yankees win.
Pretty sure that was the other guy.
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!