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Comment by afandian | Hacker News Reader

I'm flying Southwest later this month. Being in the UK, I'm geoblocked from this article. Should I be worried?

The two main complaints are:

1. Inaccurate weight and balance calculations (seems to be passenger seating since its reported to not be baggage weight and balance).

2. 88 aircraft with non-conforming repairs, the airline has since replaced the repairs with conforming repairs.

I'm not surprised on the first issue, since Southwest has to perform the weight and balance checking in a matter of minutes between all the passengers getting on board and pushback, because of the open seating.

The FAA will be implementing more stringent oversight between now and September 30th.

> Southwest has to perform the weight and balance checking in a matter of minutes between all the passengers getting on board and pushback, because of the open seating.

Why wouldn't this be an issue for other airlines as well? United doesn't ask for a passenger's weight in advance to pre-calculate based on their assigned seat.

Passengers are (for the most part) considered equal for W&B calculations. It's about "Is this seat occupied?"

For most flights, it is fine, since most SW flights are full or close to it. It is for the flights that happen at off times to less popular destinations where you may have a half empty plane with most people toward the front, to one side (to see a view maybe), etc.

I’ve been on Southwest flights so sparsely full (maybe 40 people on a plane with capacity for 120) where the flight attendants have to repeatedly tell people to “spread out for weight and balance.” That’s about as scientific as their calculation got.

Which is drastically different from my experience from flying a different carrier with a very empty plane. The original seat assignments had all of the passengers bunched together and the flight attendants denied anyone's request to move to empty rows until the plane reached altitude. They finally explained that the plane's load master stated that's where the weight needed to be during take-off/landing. Once they explained that, everyone complied without any further complaints.

I wonder if everyone moved back to their assigned seats before landing. Did they?

Yes, when they made the announcement about making the descent on approach, they asked everyone to move back to the seats they were in on take off while return your tray and seat to their upright position

CG CP - Center of Gravity, Center of Pressure.

I just took a nearly empty southwest flight last week. The flight attendant asked me to move further back in the plane, and appeared to have an iPad or notepad she was using to track passenger count per zone. First time I’ve seen this system.

Southwest uniquely allows passengers to board the plane as they please. Random boarding is mathematically the faster way to board (where other airlines choose the slowest options to drive priority boarding upsales), but has this side effect.

When an airline does need the passenger's weight, they don't ask. They measure, and oblige the hand baggage.

It's common in the Pacific, as there are many small islands connected by planes.

Thanks very much for the summary!

One fatality in 50 years. I sleep on every flight.

I go back to, it's not the quantity, it's the quality. How long does it take to fall 7 miles vs, say, a car collision?

You won't be conscious if you're falling 7 miles[1]. Most accidents are at takeoff and landing so at worst you'll fall between 1 and 4 miles while conscious but most likely on the lower end of that scale.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_of_useful_consciousness

How long does it to take to bleed out when you die in a car crash? How long does it take to burn to death when you are trapped in a fiery wreck?

>The report found that Southwest “operates its fleet of aircraft with frequent weight and balance errors.” Such incorrect information was “frequently” communicated to pilots, which can “greatly affect” a plane’s safety and performance, the report said.

>The report also found that Southwest “operates previously owned airplanes in unknown states of airworthiness.”

Take your conclusions.

But later in the article, it says:

“While weight and balance control is critical for the safety of flight operations, the issues at [Southwest] rarely involved a baggage miscount that significantly affected aircraft loading,” the FAA said in its response.

No. I don't like Southwest, but they're one of the absolute safest airlines in the country. The issues mentioned in the article could indicate they're being increasingly non-responsive to the FAA, but, no. I wouldn't hesitate to fly them.

https://archive.md/SNyR4

Mile for mile, it's still significantly safer than driving the same distance.

Trip for trip, it isn't. Taking a few long distance trips in an airline is very safe, taking many short distance trips isn't.

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