Algorithms can predict rare kinds of failures in areas such as air traffic scheduling

Algorithms can predict rare kinds of failures in areas such as air traffic scheduling

On Dec. 21, 2022, just as peak holiday season travel was getting underway, Southwest Airlines went through a cascading series of failures in their scheduling, initially triggered by severe winter weather in the Denver area. But the problems spread through their network, and over the course of the next 10 days the crisis ended up stranding more than 2 million passengers and causing losses of $750 million for the airline.