The Southwest Airlines Pilots Association president referred to as the scenario ‘a failure at each stage’ and elected officers stated ‘the general public deserves solutions.’
DALLAS — Following further mass cancellations to its flight schedule, Southwest Airlines launched an up to date assertion on Tuesday to element its plans for addressing its ongoing points.
The airline’s new assertion is an virtually word-for-word match with its earlier public assertion from Monday, providing “heartfelt apologies” and guarantees to maintain “safety at the forefront.”
The new launch, nonetheless, contains two notable additions. First, it broadcasts that the airline has “made the decision to continue operating a reduced schedule by flying roughly one third of our schedule for the next several days.”
It additionally says Southwest is “working to reach Customers whose travel plans will change to offer specific information and available options” about these modifications in a brand new part of its web site discovered at southwest.com/traveldisruption/.
Other noteworthy statements relating to the cancellation — albeit from exterior of the corporate itself — had been additionally issued on Tuesday.
Speaking to ABC News, Southwest Airlines Pilots Association President Casey Murray slammed the cancellation fiasco.
“It’s been catastrophic,” Murray stated. “It’s been a failure at every level at Southwest. Our pilots, our front line employees have worked under enormous stress to try to get our passengers from A to B, but we were dealt a really bad hand as far as Southwest is concerned. I mean, our processes, our I.T., our infrastructure just wasn’t there to support the operation. And, unfortunately, our customers are bearing the brunt of it.”
Added Murray: “We have pilots, we have flight attendants, who don’t have hotels, who they truly just don’t know where they are. We have our ramp agents trying to load bags, but there wasn’t a preparation done to make sure that the loaders, the fueling trucks were prepared, the de-ice equipment was prepared. It is simply a failure of Southwest management.”
On Tuesday at Dallas Love Field, at the very least one Southwest Airlines pilot might be seen serving to to load baggage onto one of the flew flights set to take off for the day.
Meanwhile, U.S. Congressman Colin Allred (D-Texas), whose North Texas district (Texas’ thirty second) covers components of North Texas (however not Southwest’s hub of Dallas Love Field), launched a press release of his personal in his capability as a member of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.
“North Texas is the proud home to Southwest Airlines and many of its hardworking employees, but the catastrophic collapse of their flight schedule has impacted thousands of customers, leaving many families stranded over the holidays,” Allred’s assertion learn. “This is unacceptable and given the federal help they obtained, the general public deserves solutions. As a member of the Aviation Subcommittee on the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, my workers and I are monitoring the scenario carefully, talking with stakeholders and can present extra information when applicable.”
In 2020, Southwest Airlines accepted more than $3 billion in government grants and loans to assist cowl payroll and be certain that it would not face staffing points all through the pandemic and because the airline labored to get better from the losses suffered throughout COVID-related shutdowns.
On Monday, the U.S. Department of Transportation tweeted that it was “concerned by Southwest’s unacceptable rate of cancellations and delays” and the “reports of lack of prompt customer service,” promising to “examine whether cancellations were controllable and if Southwest is complying with its customer service plan.”
story by Source link