The Briefing Room
General Category => National/Breaking News => Topic started by: Elderberry on October 16, 2021, 11:36:48 pm
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Lawrence Person's BattleSwarm Blog 10/16/2021
https://www.battleswarmblog.com/?p=49459 (https://www.battleswarmblog.com/?p=49459)
Here’s a pilot discussing the recent Southwest Airlines issues.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kO39nIcuPhQ (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kO39nIcuPhQ)
His points:
• Southwest was already running their entire operation too lean, too understaffed, too many hours for the people who are there, and thus the small disruptions spreads out everywhere.
“Eventually you have to call in either sick or fatigued, and that’s gonna snowball.”
• They’re running a lot of overtime to keep the operation running.
• Too many pilots/trainers laid off during the pandemic, so getting them back up to speed has been a challenge.
• The mandate is a real issue, because major airlines are considered federal contractors, and the mandate goes against union rules. “It’s a big problem.”
• Mandate deadline is December 8.
• Southwest is in the middle of negotiations with their pilot union.
• The union can’t be leading the strike, because that would be illegal. But individual pilots are a different story.
• $15 an hour airport support personnel may indeed just quit and work somewhere else.
• A lot of older pilots (and pilot trainers) are just going to retire.
Time to haul this out again:
(https://www.battleswarmblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/BumpyNight.gif)