Any idea when Southwest would start red-eyes? Sounds like the technology is almost ready.

delta777er wrote:

Any idea when Southwest would start red-eyes? Sounds like the technology is almost ready.

What are you hearing I heard WN might talk about there updating of technology at the December 8th event they are having

Red eyes can readily be done, I've been on far too many. Possibly WN has figured out that the crew and passengers don't really like them so compose their schedules accordingly.

delta777er wrote:

Any idea when Southwest would start red-eyes? Sounds like the technology is almost ready.

There are two issues.
1) the WN ops software requires all planes be on the ground at approximately 4am Eastern when the system resets. Any airplanes in the air must be manually managed without using the Ops dispatch software which is such a pain they avoid it.
2) because WN basically couldn’t do redeyes they gave in to the pilots on bonus pay for redeyes knowing it didn’t matter.

I don’t see it changing.

TerminalD wrote:

delta777er wrote:

Any idea when Southwest would start red-eyes? Sounds like the technology is almost ready.

There are two issues.
1) the WN ops software requires all planes be on the ground at approximately 4am Eastern when the system resets. Any airplanes in the air must be manually managed without using the Ops dispatch software which is such a pain they avoid it.
2) because WN basically couldn’t do redeyes they gave in to the pilots on bonus pay for redeyes knowing it didn’t matter.

I don’t see it changing.

Two points,

What a bizarre system that requires all planes on the ground at a set time.

Why would anyone want red eyes?

interesting how people assume nobody wants red eyes. There are a whole group of crew that love them because they're able to juggle personal/home responsibilities with work. While passengers probably don't love them, they're often extremely convenient for people going west to east.

ASFlyer wrote:

interesting how people assume nobody wants red eyes. There are a whole group of crew that love them because they're able to juggle personal/home responsibilities with work. While passengers probably don't love them, they're often extremely convenient for people going west to east.

When I was traveling on business from LAX to ATL, I would take the redeye: it allowed me to work all day Friday and enjoy my full weekend. Like this, neither my employer nor I were shorted of hours.

GalaxyFlyer wrote:

TerminalD wrote:

delta777er wrote:

Any idea when Southwest would start red-eyes? Sounds like the technology is almost ready.

There are two issues.
1) the WN ops software requires all planes be on the ground at approximately 4am Eastern when the system resets. Any airplanes in the air must be manually managed without using the Ops dispatch software which is such a pain they avoid it.
2) because WN basically couldn’t do redeyes they gave in to the pilots on bonus pay for redeyes knowing it didn’t matter.

I don’t see it changing.

Two points,

What a bizarre system that requires all planes on the ground at a set time.

Why would anyone want red eyes?

The whole industry used to have software like that. Software in general used to only be made to run one day at a time. Of course, that changed in the 1970s for most airlines, but not for WN.

The main advantage to redeyes, in my opinion, are that you can still have the whole day on the west coast to do whatever you want. I remember flying back LAX-BWI in 2017 on AS, we used the entire last day to tour Warner Brothers, see the BUR flight museum, and have a nice lunch. Didn't have to be at the airport until 7.

The downside is, you pretty much have to punt on the next day. I got home in Baltimore around 6am and passed out until about 2pm. Redeyes do give you two full days, but you fast-forward through a night of sleep. It's like Daylight Savings Time on steroids.

From the airline's perspective, it would add some fleet utilization, although if I remember correctly WN already has one of the most efficiently-utilized fleets in the US with its shorter turnaround times. But I certainly think there would be a market for routes like SAN/LAX/SJC/OAK/PHX/LAS-BWI/ATL/TPA to name a few.

It would probably also provide a very cheap fare option. F9 and NK offer some brutally-timed redeyes for a nice discount. I can't find it now on FlightAware but I swear I remember seeing a DEN-DFW redeye operating recently.

WayexTDI wrote:

ASFlyer wrote:

interesting how people assume nobody wants red eyes. There are a whole group of crew that love them because they're able to juggle personal/home responsibilities with work. While passengers probably don't love them, they're often extremely convenient for people going west to east.

When I was traveling on business from LAX to ATL, I would take the redeye: it allowed me to work all day Friday and enjoy my full weekend. Like this, neither my employer nor I were shorted of hours.

If you could actually function at any level on the weekend after taking a Friday night redeye, you're a better man than I am. I couldn't do it when I was 20 years younger and it would be out of the question today. I did take the occasional redeye, mostly because my then employer wanted to save the extra hotel night, but I sure hated it.

I've done the following redeye on Thursday nights . . . LAX-DET-MCI. Got back to KC around 10:30am and was able to do a full days work. The advantages is that I could get a full day's work in on Thursday, then pack at my leisure and check out of the hotel around 9pm. The downside? T2 at LAX at 11:00pm is freakin' zoo. I'm a pretty relaxed guy, but even I felt a bit stressed out after waiting to board along with hundreds of other passengers in over-cramped gates. Once DL restarted the non-stop LAX-MCI I ditched that plan.

However now that I am commuting to SAN-MCI I may go back to the red-eyes. I'm not 100% on Fridays but at least that's on company time.

I'm surprised we haven't seen it with the Hawaii flights. The whole network opens up if people can fly overnight from Hawaii and get on morning flights to the rest of the country from OAK, SJC, SAN, PHX, etc

No thanks.
I love Southwest's onboard service and everything. But their seats are not comfortable enough to sit in overnight. I'll stick with B6, UA, AS for my redeyes.

I did a red-eye on Southwest once.

It was a charter of course, and it was unintended. OAK to AUS. Got delayed until... 2am departure? My photos would say when we left.

That airplane was N772SW by the way.

I certainly like the seatroom available on WN.

TerminalD wrote:

1) the WN ops software requires all planes be on the ground at approximately 4am Eastern when the system resets. Any airplanes in the air must be manually managed without using the Ops dispatch software which is such a pain they avoid it.

WN had previously operated PHX-SEA nonstop flights that were still in the air at 4:00 AM Eastern Time when the system reset takes place, but those flights departed from PHX prior to the system reset taking place.

Some of the WN systems need to be operational at 4:00 AM Eastern Time to process check-in for flights departing from the East Coast between 5:00 AM and 6:00 AM Eastern Time.

jplatts wrote:

TerminalD wrote:

1) the WN ops software requires all planes be on the ground at approximately 4am Eastern when the system resets. Any airplanes in the air must be manually managed without using the Ops dispatch software which is such a pain they avoid it.

WN had previously operated PHX-SEA nonstop flights that were still in the air at 4:00 AM Eastern Time when the system reset takes place, but those flights departed from PHX prior to the system reset taking place.

Some of the WN systems need to be operational at 4:00 AM Eastern Time to process check-in for flights departing from the East Coast between 5:00 AM and 6:00 AM Eastern Time.

As I said " Any airplanes in the air must be manually managed without using the Ops dispatch software which is such a pain they avoid it."

Why is Southwest Airlines so reluctant to update technology overall?

ASFlyer wrote:

interesting how people assume nobody wants red eyes. There are a whole group of crew that love them because they're able to juggle personal/home responsibilities with work. While passengers probably don't love them, they're often extremely convenient for people going west to east.

Last September I flew AA, Fresno to DFW to Fort Lauderdale with the FAT to DFW portion being a red eye. The cabin crew on the FAT to DFW were all young and enthusiastic while the cabin crew for DFW to FLL were the opposite...Lol.

Anyone who thinks "no one likes redeyes" has never travelled seriously. They are extraordinarily efficient in many circumstances.

The main reason Southwest has issues with red eyes is their maintenance processes are largely built around not having them.

Spiderguy252 wrote:

Why is Southwest Airlines so reluctant to update technology overall?

Getting Southwest to move to a modern DCS and PSS that allowed them to operate internationally, to Hawaii and be distrbuted through channels other than their own was basically a decade long process. They were very engrained in their old ways, because they worked. They just aren't there yet.

dfwjim1 wrote:

ASFlyer wrote:

interesting how people assume nobody wants red eyes. There are a whole group of crew that love them because they're able to juggle personal/home responsibilities with work. While passengers probably don't love them, they're often extremely convenient for people going west to east.

Last September I flew AA, Fresno to DFW to Fort Lauderdale with the FAT to DFW portion being a red eye. The cabin crew on the FAT to DFW were all young and enthusiastic while the cabin crew for DFW to FLL were the opposite...Lol.

In the interest of fairness, the FA’s on the FAT-DFW were probably more Junior, hence young and enthusiastic. Lol

N1120A wrote:

Anyone who thinks "no one likes redeyes" has never travelled seriously. They are extraordinarily efficient in many circumstances.

Agree 110% -- most efficient way from the West Coast to the East without the wasted travel day.

IF WN decides to operate red-eyes, I would imagine that major west coast cities would have flight to the connecting cities in the east i.e LAX, OAK, SAN, etc. to MDW, BWI, BNA, ATL

Personally, I would love to see WN bring back their version of the "Night Flight" at LAS -- 10 pm departures from all the California airports plus RNO, PDX, SLC, PHX, TUS inbound to LAS -- outbound to the major cities in the east, not just the connecting cities i.e BOS, FLL, TPA, DTW, CLE, CVG, PIT, BUF, MKE, PHL, etc.
Would seem to be the most efficient way to provide red-eyes nationwide, plus the O/D factor of LAS should allow for full aircraft.

ASFlyer wrote:

interesting how people assume nobody wants red eyes. There are a whole group of crew that love them because they're able to juggle personal/home responsibilities with work. While passengers probably don't love them, they're often extremely convenient for people going west to east.

Back in the 1980´s Mexicana (CMA/MX/MXA) realized that Red Eyes were a very lucrative way to maximize income on low yield MEX-USA-MEX such as LAX-MEX, ORD-MEX. Eventually it operated a lot of Red Eyes from the USA to destinations such as MLM, GDL, BJX and ZCL with their pletoria of migrant worker traffic.
As much as I personally hate them, Red-Eyes can be a very effective way to optimize productive aircraft use and increase revenue with happy passenges ready to pay low fares and "sleep" on them, and yes, some pilots love them.

N1120A wrote:

Anyone who thinks "no one likes redeyes" has never travelled seriously. They are extraordinarily efficient in many circumstances.

The main reason Southwest has issues with red eyes is their maintenance processes are largely built around not having them.

Spiderguy252 wrote:

Why is Southwest Airlines so reluctant to update technology overall?

Getting Southwest to move to a modern DCS and PSS that allowed them to operate internationally, to Hawaii and be distrbuted through channels other than their own was basically a decade long process. They were very engrained in their old ways, because they worked. They just aren't there yet.

I’ve done a lot of serious travel over 45+ years and would never take a red-eye when the option of getting real night’s sleep and real dinner was there. The only way that red-eyes make some sense is eastbound intercontinental flights. Ex-SAN visiting my brother next month, I’ll be on the morning flight east.

I’d rather home somewhat rested, not a zombie trying to stay awake or napping the afternoon away.

GalaxyFlyer wrote:

N1120A wrote:

Anyone who thinks "no one likes redeyes" has never travelled seriously. They are extraordinarily efficient in many circumstances.

The main reason Southwest has issues with red eyes is their maintenance processes are largely built around not having them.

Spiderguy252 wrote:

Why is Southwest Airlines so reluctant to update technology overall?

Getting Southwest to move to a modern DCS and PSS that allowed them to operate internationally, to Hawaii and be distrbuted through channels other than their own was basically a decade long process. They were very engrained in their old ways, because they worked. They just aren't there yet.

I’ve done a lot of serious travel over 45+ years and would never take a red-eye when the option of getting real night’s sleep and real dinner was there. The only way that red-eyes make some sense is eastbound intercontinental flights. Ex-SAN visiting my brother next month, I’ll be on the morning flight east.

I’d rather home somewhat rested, not a zombie trying to stay awake or napping the afternoon away.

A red eye last week iterally made the difference in seeing my father in law before he died or not. They make a huge difference for people in business too. They have made a ton of sense for me in the last 12 years needing to be able to take phone calls in the morning after traveling from one home to another. Their utility is undisputed, regardless of your personal preference. They exist for a reason. I'm not surprised it is all "you, you, you" however.

Sorry to hear of his passing, yes a good use of a red eye. Apparently “you, you, you” don’t like differing opinions. I would rather my employees come to work rested, but that’s why we have crew duty rules in aviation.

I would hope your employer wouldn’t expect the employee to be on an airliner all night, then perform work. None of mine did.