Airline Pilot Central Forums - SWAPA Comm To Membership About the Meltdown

Comm from our SWAPA leadership today that should give you on the outside looking in an explanation of the meltdown and background to it:

The Bill Has Finally Come Due
Tom Nekouei, 2nd Vice President
In his December 23 communication to our Pilots, the Vice President of Flight Operations, Lee Kinnebrew, stated that the “industry is experiencing massive cancellations as a result of Winter Storm Elliott.”

This statement was patently false. As we monitored other airlines, it became evident that by late morning on Thursday, even in places like Denver, the wave of cancellations was very unique to our operation, as we had cancelled 500% more flights than United — and that's including their regional affiliates.

On Monday, in his update to employees, COO Andrew Watterson confirmed why SWA was more severely affected when compared to other airlines by stating, “And, so when we finished with the winter storm, for the most part, then we found ourselves with Crew at a place where we're not able to re-Crew the network. So, we had people that were legal. We had aircraft that were available, but the process of matching up thoseCrew Members with the aircraft could not be handled by our technology.” He went on, “Inour desired state, we have a solver that would be able to do that very quickly and very accurately. Our system today cannot do that.”

This begs the question of whether the VP of Flight Ops is so disconnected that he uses sick calls, fatigue calls, and a lower-than-average Open Time pick-up rate as factors as to why SWA accounted for 85% of all cancelled flights in the U.S. for nearly a week? Or is he falsely deflecting blame toward Pilots who were left stranded for hours without hotels —with Scheduling hold times in excess of four hours —or even a plan?

To this day — more than a week since the meltdown started — there have been zero attempts to partner with SWAPA in the decision-making process in recovering from their self-inflicted wound. While we have been briefed on the number of flights they plan on operating, no input nor evaluation from SWAPA has been sought since this began. It’s not only shameful, it is a disgrace. To add insult to injury, due to SWA and Flight Ops' leadership failures, don’t be surprised to find increased FAA scrutiny on your Jumpseat. Recent attention brought to our operation from a number of oversights and compliance issues has us under scrutiny, above and beyond the current meltdown.

Just yesterday, in his “A Note from Lee” comm piece, he talks about the offer of “gratitude pay” that they have offered to SWAPA. Let’s examine that offer a bit.

On Christmas Eve, President Casey Murray received a call directly from Carl Kuwitzky, offering an obscure override that would be retroactive to December 22.

We then talked about it at the executive level and agreed that Negotiating Committee Chair Jody Reven should not have been bypassed and we referred this offer to him, as specifics needed to be worked out. The offer was a blanket override statement without specifics such as leg-pay, rigs, etc., and Jody and his team are the SMEs in drafting any language needed for implementation of any such offer.

As such, when questioned by Jody as to whether this was a mere acknowledgment or an incentive and whether the Company could address a counter that we have been waiting for on a C2020 section, Kuwitzky responded that “it is a pay-only offer and not open ended. If SWAPA wants it great, if not we move on.” He also stated, “we are not interested in agreeing to additional terms.”

It is also important to mention that the offer was extended to January 3, as we are confident that the Company can forecast another breakdown in the network based on the Open Time inventory around New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day.

Make no mistake, this offer is purely a way to entice Pilots to help them out of a self-induced operational meltdown without any negotiated protections for additional reassignments and JAs. We are in the midst of a protracted and mediated negotiation cycle, and based on membership and BOD direction, any offer must be negotiated through your NC.

As the number of meltdowns increase and the severity of each becomes more pronounced each time and the recovery time for each lengthens, I would be remiss not to address the fact that SWAPA identified these woes back in 2014.

We have tried to partner with the Company to point out that our IT and scheduling practices are woefully flawed. Our attempts, despite being data-driven and extremely analytical, have been repeatedly ignored by Flight Operations leadership since 2016.

We have repeatedly sounded the alarm that billions of dollars in stock buybacks and dividend payments to shareholders without proportional capital re-investments into the Company would have disastrous effects on the very survival of our beloved Company. This has fallen on deaf ears for years!

What we are suffering through today is the result of conscious decisions made by Gary Kelly over the past two decades.

His goal was to cater to short-term Wall Street glory at the expense of the Company’s long-term health. The effects of his neglect are finally manifesting themselves and our internal and external customers are left paying the price.

Although I am somewhat encouraged that Mr. Jordan and Mr. Watterson are finally coming to grips with the chronic under-investment into our infrastructure, I am concerned that if immediate corrective action in terms of capital expenditures, changes in scheduling practices, and management accountability is not taken, SWA will undoubtedly head down the path of other once-great airlines.