![]() The union said the collective bargaining agreement it holds with Southwest Airlines became amenable almost four years ago. Off-duty flight attendants will gather with other supporters to demand what they consider better pay, safety on the job, and improved quality of life through a new contract with their employer, Southwest Airlines. The union said they need a new contract, and they are taking the fight to the picket lines. The flight attendants are members of TWU Local 556, the union of 18,000-plus flight attendants of Southwest Airlines. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.PHOENIX - Thousands of off-duty Southwest Airlines flight attendants across the country are planning to picket Tuesday, including at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport. In addition to the 1,200 extra pilots brought on this year, Southwest has hired 3,500 flight attendants and 8,000 ground operations employees, including baggage handlers and ramp agents. Short staffing wasn’t just hurting the operational performance for our customers. “They’ve been rerouted, their shifts have been extended, they’ve lost multiple weekends in a row they had intended to be with their families. “You look them in the eyes, and you can see when somebody is tired,” Jordan said. Pilots and flight attendants have complained about flight delays and cancellations that have resulted in trips being changed and extended. Unions have rebelled against mandatory overtime policies and long shifts, making work conditions a major point in contract negotiations. By January, the company should be able to bring six new 737 Max simulators online for a total of 26.īeing short-staffed has been a drain on the company, Jordan said. Southwest is adding more flight simulators at its Dallas headquarters campus in an expansion to its LEAD building where pilot training takes place. With sufficient pilots, Jordan said the airline could probably do between 6% and 8% more flying. In fact, Jordan said Southwest effectively has 40 or 45 fewer aircraft in its fleet because it doesn’t have enough pilots to keep all of its planes flying full time. The constraint is we only have so much training capacity.” “We’re getting plenty of pilots, we’re filling all of our classes. “The airline is constrained by pilots,” Jordan said. The biggest chunk of 2023 hiring is planned for pilots, where the company hopes to add about 2,250 new aviators after hiring 1,200 this year. Southwest has recovered to prepandemic employment levels faster than any other major network airline, according to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics. Fort Worth-based American Airlines still has 5,400 fewer employees than it did in March 2020, although executives have indicated that some positions may never return. Chicago-based United has 3,300 fewer employees than in early 2020, while Delta is up about 1,500 workers.Īll this has happened while Southwest is flying about 2% fewer available seat miles during the fourth quarter of this year than it did in 2019. That 15,700 new hires this year is a record for Southwest, besting the 11,000 employees the company hired when it acquired AirTran. Southwest reduced its headcount by about 7,800 workers between March 2020 and July 2021 through a series of voluntary retirement and leave-of-absence programs as passenger traffic dropped during the worst of the pandemic for the travel industry. Accounting for attrition, the company has added about 10,000 workers this year and plans to get up to 11,000 by the end of 2022. Southwest has hired 15,700 employees so far in 2022 as the demand for travel has increased and the company has seen two straight quarters of profitability. Jordan said he has seen no indication of a recession from airline customers. ![]() “If you look at our growth plans, we’re going to look up in five years, and not only will we continue to be the largest domestic carrier, we will have roughly 6,000 flights a day, we’ll have 1,000 aircraft and we’ll be just shy of 100,000 employees,” Jordan said. Now the carrier is looking to continue that hiring into next year, including hopes of adding as many as 2,250 pilots, CEO Bob Jordan said Wednesday.Īnd that hiring rate could continue, even though firms are announcing layoffs amid recession concerns. Southwest Airlines hit 65,000 employees in September - 2,500 more workers than it had in February 2020 before the COVID-19 pandemic hit and forced massive cutbacks across the travel industry. Dallas-based Southwest Airlines is planning to hire 8,000 more employees in 2023 after hitting record staffing levels this year.
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