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Back in 2022 when Andrew Watterson moved from Chief Commercial Officer at Southwest to Chief Operating Officer, he took the network planning team with him. I haven’t heard of this happening before, not that it couldn’t have been done elsewhere. Network planning has long been the geeky heart of the commercial team.
So, what gives?
I had the chance to sit with Adam Decaire to talk about this. Adam was on top of the network planning group, but he now has one foot on that side and one foot in the ops world over the airline’s NOC (aka SOC, OCC), the operational hub of any airline. We talked a little about the rationale behind it and how things have gone so far.
You can find the episode on all the regular podcast providers, or you can just listen here:
5 comments on “The Cranky Flier Interview with Southwest SVP Network Planning and Network Operations Control Adam Decaire”
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It’s truly amazing to see that after the largest meltdown in Southwest’s history, one in which Network Planning was directly responsible for due to tight scheduling and lack of operational recovery viability in said schedule, that both Adam and Andrew were given promotions. They should have been the ones who were immediately let go and the department re-tooled. The reason Andrew took Network Planning with him is because he wants to be the next head of Southwest and if you have Network under you, you’re a shoe-in. I feel sorry for the folks at Southwest who have to deal with disaster of leadership. Hopefully the other airlines pick up their talented folks and treat them better!
The meltdown was caused by poor weather and understaffing and prolonged due to their outdated rescheduling system.
Interesting he mentions using ETOPS planes over the Gulf and WATRS territory to the Caribbean. Several pilots told me they only do ETOPS routes to Hawaii. So even if WATRS and the Gulf equivalent are open, they still take the coastal routes staying within 50 miles of land.
I understand the need for ads, but can they be timed to be between answers? Getting an ad mid-answer is quite abrupt.