Southwest pilots union warns of holiday pickets amid ‘complete lack of support’

Southwest Airlines’ pilots union told its members on Thursday to prepare to picket over the busy year-end holiday period in protest over a lack of hotels and food for pilots, as well as hectic scheduling and other issues.

Casey Murray, president of the pilots union, known as SWAPA, told CNBC the pickets could occur during the bustling Thanksgiving and Christmas holiday travel periods.

“We are asking for you to stand with us and show the company that we are resolute in our insistence that they begin to address their immediate operational issues and accept SWAPA as a partner to resolve the chronic problems that cloud our airline’s future,” Murray said in a video announcement.

“We will maintain our strategic maneuverability, but should Southwest Airlines continue its current trajectory, you can expect one or more pickets sometime in the fourth quarter,” he added.

The union said members are facing a “complete lack of support” from the company.

“This has continued for too long with no plans in sight to alleviate those pressures,” the union said in a statement. “The lack of hotels, food availability, record-setting reroutes and JAs, COVID protocols, jumpseat denials, hotel desk, and Crew Scheduling access … the list goes on.”

The tension reflects the company’s struggle this summer to ramp up operations in order to meet soaring demand for domestic travel as Americans emerge from the depths of the pandemic, which brought air travel to a near-standstill.

Southwest as well as other airlines, including Spirit, have struggled with staffing issues in recent months and people again took to the sky in droves.

“This summer, the airline and travel industry have seen a multitude of operational challenges as we navigate the effects of the pandemic,” Bob Waltz, vice president of flight operations, said in a statement.

“We have teams across the airline working diligently to adapt to the current environment and support our employees during this peak travel season, including efforts focused on providing support to our pilots.

“We routinely work with the Southwest Airlines Pilots Association on a variety of matters that affect our pilots, but we also have a responsibility to consider a number of factors before implementation of suggestions. We remain committed to listening to feedback and proactively working to address issues as we navigate the months ahead,” he added.

The recent surge of COVID-19 cases driven by the Delta variant of the coronavirus has caused a new headache for airlines, some of which are expecting a pullback in travel in the months ahead.

Last week, Southwest revised its forecast for the third quarter, warning investors that sales might fall short of where they’d initially hoped.

The pressure to meet customers where they are has pushed pilots to the breaking point, and the flight attendants union, TWU Local 556, has reportedly spoken up, too.

“We have experienced technology failures, severe understaffing and operational failures that are completely out of our control, yet we suffer the sometimes violent frustration of our customers as the face of Southwest Airlines,” the union’s executive board wrote Tuesday to Southwest CEO Gary Kelly, according to CNBC.