If you’re near Dallas Love Field today, you’ll see a line of white pickets, but this isn’t a fence, it is angry Southwest Airlines pilots.
Southwest Airlines Pilots Are Angry And Tired…And Consumers Will Feel The Effect
1,300 pilots are expected to protest outside DAL airport today with a demand for a better union work contract. Pilots say they have been overworked and have not been properly compensated for their work. Importantly, pilots are tired of telling passengers, “I’m sorry” as Southwest faces another summer of delays and cancellations.
Pilots are sick of picking up a day turn and being extended to work another day (or two or three) involuntarily due to rolling delays, cancellations, and other roadblocks to operations. They also claim rest periods are not long enough.
As a result, fewer are picking up extra time. That leads to more delays and cancellations. Southwest Airlines is hardly alone, but is notably reliant upon pilots volunteering to work overtime in order to run operations this summer. If more pilots decide that picking up extra work is not worthwhile, this summer will turn into a nightmare for travelers on Southwest.
Captain Casey Murray, President of the Southwest Airlines Pilots Association, lamented:
“We’ve been under a lot of stress for the past year. What is going on, on a day-to-day basis, is a wasteful use of the pilot resources they have.”
Murray offered this sobering statistic: 30% of pilots are being reassigned everyday to fly other routes. Often, those are longer routes or at more inconvenient times, which disrupt planning, families, and lead to fatigue.
He added:
“Our contract is going to provide a framework to correct some of these inefficiencies we are actually seeing on a day-to-day basis and that our guests feel every day. I think all of our guests have seen where pilots aren’t in position. They are taking delays, cancellations at times.”
A pilot, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told Live and Let’s Fly that the problem is not a contract alone, but that pilots really are exhausted and have stepped up like never before during this turbulent pilot shortage. However, there is a limit. Other airlines are experiencing the same problem.
CONCLUSION
Southwest Airlines pilots are upset and picketing today in Dallas over work conditions that are leading many to refuse overtime. That leads to flight delays, cancellations, and higher ticket prices. But until Southwest is able to hire and train more pilots, there is no end in sight for this problem.
2022 America in a nutshell. Things are so good economically that people don’t need to make extra money working OT.
They are either making too much or the high prices of food and fuel are over exaggerated. No wonder people are still at 60 or later when they aren’t smart enough to make extra cash when they are younger and invest it.
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Strange but there seems to be a lot of Labor disputes around; Alaska, Southwest, RyanAir. And this is after the opening up of travel after COVID. And news of a world global recession just around the corner.
They celebrated removal of masks, now they can thank themselves for their missing sick out “team members”.
The staffing shortages have nothing to do with COVID.
Everyone is in a tough position right now. There is just no easy solution. With a looming recession the entire aspect of what to do next is impossible. Try to find more pilots only to have redundancies in six months? In some ways the pilots also need to realize that many of them got paid to work very little during Covid….now they need to step up. But I imagine it’s not the scenario they expected. In many ways the only thing you can do is just try to get through the summer and see what happens this fall. We have all had a heck of a ride with being over worked and having uncertainties in every industry the past two years. I imagine come October many will be grateful they hung on through the storm of work, piled up some overtime pay, and still have a job.
We’re all suffering because of the Biden bust.
Yes, we know, your paper cut was all Biden’s fault. We get it.
There is a long record of policy failures we can go over if you would like?
They make often $300 to $400K a year. They work a max of 100 hours a month. They get 15% 401K match and a great medical plan. They work less than 15 days per month. This is all about contract negotiations. It’s ridiculous
How much should they make? How much does your surgeon or lawyer make? Is that too much?
Usually opinions that someone makes “too much” and “doesn’t really do anything” come from people who have no idea what they’re talking about.
They are piloting a metal tube, hurtling through the air at 3o,ooo feet, filled with 200 people. I think we can pay them whatever they want.
Many thousands of pilots refuse to get vaccinated. Many thousands more retired early to avoide the vaccine. Everyone knows this is the real cause, but the Radical Left media continues to hide the truth. Absolutely Shameful!!!
+1. also, I was looking into United’s Aviate program and they are still requiring vaccination for pilots. https://unitedaviate.com/aviate-program-career-paths/united-aviate-academy/admissions-program-details. it’s a no from me.
And they give out religious exemptions for almost anything…those “principled” people who quit on the basis of “conviction” wanted to quit.
I am not familiar with the reasons for quitting but can’t imagine many quit their jobs for the heck of it. either way, if pilots are in such demand now, why are they being forced to get a shot that many don’t want?
1/3 of the people in that program don’t finish. That’s what happens when you hire single mothers and other diversity hires.
I doubt this is the cause, But even if it is who wants a pilot flying their plane that can’t do a simple risk-benefit analysis like taking a vaccine during a pandemic. I’m surprised they can even properly put on a pair of pants, much less fly a plane
What was the benefit, exactly?
People who have had four shots still got the virus.
Why was natural immunity not considered?
Oh, and the “highly effective” J&J “vaccine” was literally a placebo that did offered almost no protection but did make me sick for two days.
The risk analysis is far from definitive even if you think it lessened the effects of the virus.
Pilots are usually military veterans who realize the vaccine doesn’t work. They aren’t unwilling to risk their lives and careers for a vaccine that is causing clotting issues that kill or cause permanent health conditions (that can end their lives or careers). Also, vaccinated individuals now get covid 2 times more often than unvaccinated people. Vaccinated and boosted individuals get covid 3 times more often. Someone clearly must be making a lot of money from this disturbing situation.
You’re taking a huge chance getting on an airplane these days. Every single employee at every level is overworked and feels unappreciated. Only disaster can come from that.
never mind this new sudden adult death syndrome where 25 year old NBA players are dying from “natural causes” https://www.si.com/college/purdue/basketball/former-purdue-basketball-star-all-american-caleb-swanigan-dies-at-age-25
Every industry and every part of the economy are suffering because of the Biden bust.
But at least they’re are no more mean tweets.
Amazing it IS …. that there are still those out there that are buying into Big Pharma Fauci’s LIE that … 1) there is a “deadly” virus conveniently called ‘COVID’ which is such a so-called “EMERGENCY” that it … 2) warrants unconstitutional mandates and infringes on people’s civil liberties to force people to serve as LAB RATS and to capitulate to Big Brother’s greedy desire to make BIG PROFIT$ from a DANGEROUS TOXIC CLOT-SHOT which, by the way, ISN’T A EVEN A *TRUE VACCINE*. I personally *know* for a FACT that the plan-demic of the so-called “COVID-19” is ACTUALLY ‘Type A FLU’. Therefore …. if ANYONE — pilots included — doesn’t want to have their own body be injected with a well-documented TOXIC and DANGEROUS substance of which NOBODY is certain of it’s contents …. then THAT is their RIGHT to REFUSE. And if it meant that many chose to retire or to quit their job because of the criminally-mandated TYRANNY imposed by the government, by the corporations, and by employers all across this country ….. then THAT is the employees’ RIGHT to DO SO. If the airline CEOs had stood up to the corrupt CDC and to the FDA and to Fauci and to Big Pharma and to the administrations of both Trump and Biden and had stood up for the civil constitutional rights of their employees INSTEAD ….. then our country wouldn’t be in this MESS. DUH!!
PS) And YES …. I *DO* personally *KNOW* for a *FACT* that “COVID-19” is actually ‘TYPE A FLU’. IT IS INFLUENZA!!