Alaska Airlines CEO Ben Minicucci has told employees and passengers that flight cancellations and disruptions will continue through the month of May as the carrier battles a severe staffing shortage.
Alaska Airlines Flight Cancellations Will Continue
It has been a dismal couple months in terms of operational performance for Seattle-based Alaska Airlines. The carrier has cancelled dozens of flights a day, leaving thousands of passengers stranded.
In a note to employees reviewed by the Seattle Times, CEO Minicucci explained the problem:
“Of the 1,200 flights that we operate every day, we’ve been canceling about 50 of them, roughly 4%. This is coming at a time when flights are already full, so rebooking options are limited and many of our guests have experienced extraordinarily long hold times. We will continue to see these cancels through June 1st. We are working to manage these to reduce the impact as much as possible.”
Specifically, Alaska Airlines is 63 pilots short to run its current schedule. The inevitable result is daily flight cancellations.
With hold times up to 10 hours and few alternative booking options due to full flights, passengers frustrations have risen to new heights.
Impressively from a leadership perspective, Minicucci took responsibility for the delays rather than trying to pass the buck:
“Since April, we have canceled too many flights, disrupted too many plans, stretched our teams too far. There are no excuses. The leadership team and I take responsibility and we’re executing a plan to get this right and ensure it doesn’t happen again.”
He also stopped short of blaming pilots for the problem: “I want to be clear – our pilots are not on strike.” (pilots are playing hardball as they negotiate for a new contract)
Minicucci also apologized to Alaska Airlines frequent flyers via a video posted on YouTube:
“I’m deeply sorry. I hear every day from friends, neighbors and guests about how disruptive our flight cancellations have been.”
As in the employee memo, Minicucci conceded “the month of May will continue to be choppy” but offered hope “for June and beyond, we’ve made significant changes to ensure a high degree of reliability.” One such changes includes centralizing the team for staff and schedule planning.
CONCLUSION
Relief is coming for Alaska Airlines…but not until at least June and possibly not until July.
“By July and through the rest of the summer travel season, we should be back to flying a reliable and well-staffed operation. An additional 50 pilots, 400 flight attendants and 200 reservations agents will have joined our ranks.”
For now, flying Alaska Airlines may be frustrating.
Lots of people are having their business and travel plans ruined, but at least their mostly white male pilot base will end up making just a little bit more money once they’re done negotiating. That’s what’s really important.
Yes -race is everything. When I wake up, I worry about race issues all day, all night, even on flight-industry blogs.
*rolls eyes*
Money doesn’t care about race – but you’ll figure that out one day.
Well Jerry, we really contemplated negotiating pay raises and benefits for just every pilot on the seniority list that WASNT a white male but, turns out we’re a Union and all so that wasn’t gonna work. And then, we considered just having every pilot that wasn’t a white male resign so that all the non white male pilots looking for a flying job at Alaska could have our job…. you know, as penance for our being white and male and all, BUT, turns out that would’ve caused a whole lot more flight cancellations soooo…. Ya know.
You’re right, Jerry…an old, white man is to blame for the pilot shortage.
That old white man? Chuck Schumer.
He insisted on the increase in required hours to be a commercial pilot as part of the FAR117 changes back in 2014.
A 600% increase in the amount of hours was eventually cause this issue and which is why airlines re looking for relief.
He seems to look a bit like Jeff Goldblum.
So airlines get tons of free money they shouldn’t have gotten, still lay off/fire people and now can’t easily get them back? Or did a bunch of pilots just retire? Pilots don’t grow overnight so the industry is going to be a mess for a while unless the economy crashes more and people start losing jobs and not having money to fly.
If only we had thought to give the airlines money during the pandemic so that they wouldn’t have staffing issues when travel demand returned…
Two things are disingenuous.
Being 63 pilots short to run the schedule? How does that happen? The dog ate my homework? I made a math error when I planned the schedule? There has to be a cause for why Alaska is short. All of us inconvenienced deserve to know how this came about.
There is clearly a labor action underway with the pilots union. They are working to rule, calling out for the slightest reason, and not picking up extra trips. Even if Minicucci doesn’t want to blame the pilots and their union, to not address this underlying issue at all is insulting and the opposite of being forthright and candid.
What’s probably really true is that in the past Alaska could skate thin and the pilots would pick up extra trips and everthing worked, and now that the pilots are trying to exert leverage, that’s not working. Even if Alaska doesn’t want to throw blame, it’s dishonest to the passengers not to explain what is really going on.
Otherwise, the level of incompetence to build a schedule for which the airline isn’t staffed calls into question just about everything else, starting with safety. And not finding a way to increase call center staffing more quickly is also disrespectful of customers.
Have you seen the prices of airfares skyrocket even for short, west coast flights? And to Mexico. I’m not flying Alaska until they get their act together and their prices lower, comparable to others.
In this context I live Europe! For very flight canceled less than 14 days before the company has to compensate.
This leads naturally to a intersection of two curves;” how much does it cost to have a thicker ice of pilots Vs money paid in compensation”
But probably now I can count to three until someone says that flight prices in Europe are so expensive 😀