Southwest in flight by
Samantha Gades for Unsplash
As Southwest Airlines continues to cancel flights — another 2,500 today, more than half of tomorrow’s flights and some 11k in all according to FlightAware have been grounded — workers at the local union speak up by way of press release.
TWU 555, a Dallas-based union of the Transport Workers Union of America, representing more than 17,000 ramp, operations, provisioning and freight agents at Southwest Airlines, put out a statement Wednesday morning, asserting that, “If airline managers had planned better, the meltdown we’ve witnessed in recent days could have been lessened or averted.”
Union representatives say ground workers at Southwest are under-supported.
“Many of our people have been forced to work 16 or 18 hour days during this holiday season,” the union reports. “Our members work hard, they’re dedicated to their jobs, but many are getting sick.”
The statement says workers in some places (Denver has been more heavily affected than DFW) workers have even gotten frostbite.
“Although it can be complicated, especially during the holiday season, we need to consider better spacing of flights during extreme weather events in the bitter cold of winter – as well as the extreme heat of summer,” the statement reads. “When the forecast for Denver, Kansas City, Atlanta, Nashville, Baltimore, Chicago, Portland and a long list of other key markets for the airline looks challenging, as it did over the past week, we should consider slowing the entire schedule.”
Since Christmas Eve, Southwest pointed to the winter storm that swept the U.S. last week as the reason for the travel disruptions.
CEO since last February Bob Jordan Tuesday issued a video statement apologizing for the Dallas-based airlines’ problems.
“Our network is highly complex and the operation of the airline counts on all the pieces, especially aircraft and crews remaining in motion to where they’re planned to go,” Jordan explains. “With our large fleet of airplanes and flight crews out of position in dozens of locations. And after days of trying to operate as much of our full schedule across the busy holiday weekend, we reached a decision point to significantly reduce our flying to catch up.”
He concludes by saying, “We have some real work to do in making this right. For now, I want you to know that we’re committed to that.”
The CEO will be answering a lot of questions in the days and weeks to come.
The statement from Transport Workers Union 555 notes, “The fact is this is not the same airline that Herb Kelleher built where planes went point-to-point.
“We are now experiencing the same problems as the more traditional airlines that rely on a hub and spokes system. When Southwest’s model changed, preparation needed to change.”
US Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg told CNN he has been talking to Jordan.
“I made clear that our department will be holding them accountable for their responsibilities to customers, both to get them through this situation and to make sure that this can’t happen again.”
The chair of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation released a statement saying the committee would look into “the causes of these disruptions and its impact to customers.”
