Southwest goes through a tough week with Hawaii behind the scenes

by



[ad_1]

  • Southwest Airlines is picking up on the union representing its mechanics and suggesting that workers deliberately anchor planes to gain more weight in negotiating a new contract. Southwest had canceled more than 400 flights, or 10% of its schedule, on Wednesday, February 20th in the middle of the morning. (AP Photo / Julio Cortez, File) Photo: Julio Cortez, Associated Press

    Southwest Airlines is picking up on the union representing its mechanics and suggesting that workers deliberately anchor planes to gain more weight in negotiating a new contract. Southwest had canceled more than 400 flights, or 10% of its schedule, in the middle of the morning of Wednesday, February 20th. (AP Photo / Julio Cortez, File) less
    Southwest Airlines is picking up on the union representing its mechanics and suggesting that workers deliberately anchor planes to gain more weight in negotiating a new contract. Southwest had canceled … more


    Photo: Julio Cortez, Associated Press


Photo: Julio Cortez, Associated Press

Southwest Airlines is picking up on the union representing its mechanics and suggesting that workers deliberately anchor planes to gain more weight in negotiating a new contract. Southwest had canceled more than 400 flights, or 10% of its schedule, in the middle of the morning of Wednesday, February 20th. (AP Photo / Julio Cortez, File) less
Southwest Airlines is picking up on the union representing its mechanics and suggesting that workers deliberately anchor planes to gain more weight in negotiating a new contract. Southwest had canceled … more



Photo: Julio Cortez, Associated Press



TravelSkills on SFGate is brought to you by Visa

.


With a long-awaited announcement about its flights to Hawaii, Southwest Airlines had a week of delays, cancellations, labor disputes, investor anxiety and prompted an ongoing federal investigation into the issue. how she weighs her luggage. The airline could surely use a little aloha spirit right now …

Here is a quick summary:


> Southwest launched an operational emergency last week and ordered the mechanics to work after the carrier saw an increase in the number of planes shut down. This week, airline chief operating officer Mike Van de Ven criticized the Brotherhood of Aircraft Mechanics, which represents 2,400 mechanics from the Southwest, suggesting that it was a work stoppage related to ongoing discussions between the airline and the airline. AMFA said the airline was "scapegoating" its members and urging the mechanics to put the aircraft back into service. The out of service jets resulted in the cancellation of hundreds of flights across the country.


> We also learned that the airline was undergoing a year-long investigation by the Federal Aviation Administration on how it was calculating the weight of customer luggage loaded on Southwest jets. FAA investigators found that the southwestern air marshals counted their baggage by hand and then calculated the totals using average federally approved weights. But the numbers were not always accurate. The FAA found that totals sometimes exceeded 1,000 pounds more than those given to pilots. In extreme cases, these differences in weight can affect flight controls. The carrier announced that it has developed new digital scanners to read baggage tags to calculate accurate weights, as do other major US airlines. The investigation began in February 2018, but was reported this week by the Wall Street Journal.

Southwest announced Wednesday a loss of $ 60 million due to the partial closure of the federal government last month. In January, Southwest estimated the impact of the market closure at $ 10-15 million. The carrier reported lower than expected government-related travel reservations after the federal government fully reopened.

> The Southwest stock has again been dragged down this week after a Goldman Sachs analyst downgraded the carrier because of the delay in launching flights to Hawaii. The analyst believes that Southwest will have to offer exceptional rates to fill its aircraft, once the rates announced and offered for sale, which investors do not usually want to hear. (But it is certain that music is in the ears of travelers!) The carrier stated that customers should expect a very short time between the start of sales and the departure of the first flights.


The Dallas-based airline has not yet publicly announced whether it has been awarded the FAA's ETOPS (Extended Operational Performance Standards) certification. But we are getting closer: "We completed the ETOPS validation flights last Tuesday, and we are continuing our dialogue with the FAA to receive their feedback so that we can complete the final phase of the ETOPS application process to their satisfaction." said a spokesman. said SFGate Friday. The airline tells SFGate that it will not announce routes, sales or introductory rates until it has obtained the necessary federal approval.

Do not miss a piece of important travel news! Sign up to receive our free email updates every two weeks!

> Nature also mistreated Southwest as part of its busy Las Vegas business yesterday. More than 250 flights from the McCarran International Airport in the southwest were canceled Thursday due to a rare snowstorm. Las Vegas is one of the busiest airports in the Southwest with 225 daily departures.

> And finally, on Friday morning, a computer problem blocked southwest flights all over the country for less than an hour. Since the problems began at night, only a few flights from the southwestern US West Coast have been affected by the blackout. At Oakland International Airport, where Southwest is the largest in the San Francisco Bay Area, nine flights were canceled late in the morning, according to the FlightAware Flight Tracking Site. Nine flights to the southwest were also canceled at the Mineta San Jose International Airport and a single flight to the southwest at San Francisco International Airport was canceled.

Read all recent posts from TravelSkills here

Get updates twice a week from TravelSkills by email! register here

Chris McGinnis is the founder of TravelSkills.com. The author is solely responsible for the content above, which is used here with permission. You can reach Chris at [email protected] or on Twitter @cjmcginnis.


[ad_2]

Source link