Southwest Airlines apologizes to employees after ‘challenging summer travel season’

Southwest Airlines apologized Friday to beleaguered workers frustrated with mandatory overtime, a hectic schedule and unruly passengers.

Mike Van de Ven, Southwest’s chief operating officer, said in a memo to workers that operations usually get easier after school starts and the holiday season wanes, but that hasn’t happened for the past week. In the past two weeks, union leaders of pilots and flight attendants have sharply reprimanded the company and called for better working conditions.

“The rapid recovery in customer demand has been a welcome change from a year ago, but we have to be honest with ourselves: it has also weighed on our operations and weighed heavily on you all, and I’m really sorry for that,” said Van de Ven in the memo. “Since the beginning of June we have been concentrating on what levers we can pull to improve our operations and support you.”

Southwest Airlines had a historically bad June, landing just 62.4% of its planes on time and canceling 3,250 flights, according to the Department of Transportation’s latest Air Travel Consumer Report. Some of these issues were due to weather and a technical outage that paralyzed flights for several days, but union leaders say the company simply planned more flights than it could handle to meet heavy traveler demand.

TWU Local 556, which represents the company’s 15,400 flight attendants, launched a “No Way, SWA” social media campaign this week. The Southwest Airlines Pilots Union has accused the airline of an “aggressive lack of planning”.

In the letter, Van de Ven said the company is reassessing its flight schedule for October, November and December.

“Firstly, we are continuing to evaluate our fourth quarter flight schedules and seriously reviewing altitudes to ensure our flying matches the personnel required to operate in this more complicated COVID environment,” he said.

Pilots and flight attendants have also complained about lack of hotels and transportation, and that crew members who take short breaks between flights are not provided with adequate meals.

Van de Ven promised further improvements that would be announced soon.

“And despite all our best efforts, we haven’t improved the quality of your working day enough,” wrote Van de Ven. “Every day is an effort.”

Lyn Montgomery, president of the flight attendants union, urged members on social media to keep pushing as the company listens to complaints.

Casey Murray, who heads the pilots union, said he was still waiting for improvements.

“I’d rather hear actionable things than excuses and ‘more on that in a bit,'” he said.

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