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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.
But He has been known to loosen a nut from time to time.
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.
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.
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.
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!