Perhaps what's even more unfortunate is that airline employees and unions have been trying to get the airline to upgrade the software for years but to no avail.Ĭasey Murray, President of the Southwest Airlines Pilots Association, expressed his disappointment in the lack of effort from the airline to upgrade its software by commenting: Without being able to change their flights or get hotel rooms, many pilots and flight attendants were forced to sleep in the airports alongside the stranded passengers. This left many crew members unable to get reassignments or adjust their schedules accordingly, affecting their operating limit and rest requirements. Instead of adequately reassigning the crews to other flights during the chaos, several employees struggled to even get through crew scheduling services. The budget carrier does, except the outdated software is contributing to the problem instead of helping. Also within the declared emergency was Southwest Airlines threatening to terminate ramp agents who would continue calling in sick. Allegedly, the airline was receiving what it deemed as an unusually high number of absences due to Denver ramp agents calling in sick or for reported personal absences. Thin ice cracked slightly before Christmas Day when the airline declared a state of operational emergency at Denver International Airport on December 21st. However, the budget carrier's relationship with its employees hasn't always been exceptionally positive, but more of being on relatively thin ice. Just like most of the airlines within the industry, Southwest Airlines is still facing an issue of staff shortages, despite having hired over 10,000 workers since January and being back to pre-pandemic staffing levels. While it's true that the holiday troubles relatively began when Winter Storm Elliott battered most of the US last week, the harsh storm seemed to have unlocked quite several issues within Southwest Airlines that are currently causing the meltdown seen these past few days.
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