Airline executives are saying it's because of the extreme weather the US is experiencing, but I just heard an interview with a leader of the airline employees union and he said it's way more because of mismanagement and staff shortages.

Southwest is having an issue due to their point to point system for flights. Basically there are two ways airlines can set up their flight schedules:

Spoke and Hub - They have a big airport as a hub, and to get to or from a smaller airport you connect through the hub. This is what most airlines uses.

Point to point -This is what Southwest is using. Basically, they have a series of planes and crews doing loops all across the US. So one crew might be based out of St. Louis, and in a day they might be scheduled to fly from St. Louis to Omaha, Omaha to Oklahoma City, then Oklahoma City back to St. Louis.

The issues is best described using an example.

So let’s say I want to go to Fargo, North Dakota from Oklahoma City.

On Delta with the spoke and hub method, I would likely first fly to one of their hubs in Atlanta, then I would get on a flight with people from all over to go to Fargo from there. So if my flight from OKC to Atlanta gets cancelled, I am SOL, but that only affects maybe one other flight (usually a return flight from Atlanta to OKC).

Under Southwest’s model, I might have the same route (OKC to ATL to Fargo), but my OKC to Atlanta flight being cancelled causes issues elsewhere, because that crew and flight isn’t available for their next flight. Jeff, who was supposed to be the pilot for my plane from OKC to Atlanta, he’s stuck in Oklahoma City. So now Southwest doesn’t have a pilot for his flights from Atlanta to Charlotte or from Charlotte to OKC either.

So even though OKC is the only city with bad weather, Southwest has to cancel his flights from Atlanta to Charlotte and Charlotte back to OKC later that day.

Somebody please link that Fox video explaining it below. It’s really good at ELI5 this actually.

I think this is what you’re looking for

Yes this is it! OP, just watch this 2 minute video. He explains why Southwest (who is having most of the issues right now) is cancelling so many flights.

[deleted]

After waiting 30+ minutes on a late crew member from another flight in Albuquerque we had to wait over an hour to take off because Denver had too many planes on the ground.

Once in Denver the Southwest Pilot was trying to convince people that they were having difficulty getting fuel into the planes... as though it were freezing. It was single digit temperatures and well above what jet fuel freezes at.

Had to wait 3hrs in line for a gate to park the plane at and then another 45min or so for maintenance crew to fix jetway that wouldn't extend out to the plane.

Finally took 2 trains to get to St Louis because Southwest dropped the ball, kicked it off a cliff, and watched this Christmas go sailing off into the distance.

It's both. It's mismanagement to extract maximum profits from minimal crews, colliding with bad weather. It's easier to work around problems when you have the staff and planes to do so.

Your submission has been removed for the following reason(s):

ELI5 is not for information about a specific narrow issue (personal problems, private experiences, legal questions, medical inquiries, how-to, relationship advice, etc.)

ELI5 is not for information about current events.

If you would like this removal reviewed, please read the detailed rules first. If you believe this was removed erroneously, please use this form and we will review your submission.