Disastrous End to 2022 Riles Pilot Group After 3 Years of Fruitless Negotiations

Southwest Airlines is still seeing the fallout from their rough and embarrassing end to 2022, this time with a call from the pilot union for a strike authorization vote.

Southwest Airlines Pilot Association's President, Casey Murray, issued the clarion call for the strike vote citing the company's "largest meltdown" and "utter lack of meaningful progress" on contract negotiations. Murray pointed to SWAPA requests for scheduling work rules and improved software systems in particular, noting that such requests have been on the table for more than 3 years now. 

Those information technology issues are seen as a key reason for Southwest's December brouhaha, when its scheduling systems failed to such an extent that the company had to call for a full airline-wide pause to get their operational bearings. In the immediate aftermath of holiday travel, angry customers and stranded pilots, SWAPA condemned management's "pride and avarice", saying that the entire mess would have been avoidable with better investment in its IT backbone. Now, it seems, SWAPA is losing its patience with management, possibly spurred along by increasing gains throughout other industry pilot groups.

“While your Board of Directors and Executive Officers have had many strategic discussions on timing, I think it is best to consider what our customers have been through over the past several years and the past several weeks," said Murray. "It was the lack of discussion or commitment by our leadership team to rectify these issues for our passengers and our pilots that drove us to make the decision to carry forward on this path afforded to us by the Railway Labor Act.”

The strike authorization vote will start on May 1st and will ultimately give the pilots the ability to strike once released to self-help. “We believe that May 1 provides a date that allows our union time to prepare and gives our customers time to book elsewhere, so that they can have confidence that their summer vacations, honeymoons, and family outings are assured.”

The votes will be tallied at the "end of May", according to Murray. “It is not a decision we have taken lightly, but given the trajectory of our current leadership group, we have little faith in the stability and future of our airline.”

FMI: www.swapa.org