Over the weekend more than 2,000 Southwest Airlines flights were cancelled after the company announced a Dec. 8 deadline for staff to be vaccinated or face termination. The airline denied that the nixxed flights were a result of the announcement, but a pilot tells a different story.
With passengers stranded over the weekend from coast to coast, the Dallas based airline blamed the cancelations on a weather based disruption of service that left aircraft and crews out of scheduled positions.
However, timing of the cancellation chaos directly follows the Southwest Airlines Pilots Association’s (SWAPA) Friday petition to a federal court requesting the airline’s vaccination order be blocked.
More than 2,000 flights have been canceled since Saturday, with 1,400 delayed on Monday and 350 more slashed from the schedule the same day. Tuesday showed signs of improvement, with only 90 cancellations out of the day’s 3,300 scheduled flights.
Incoming CEO Bob Jordan denied that the stoppage was related to employees protesting the mandate.
‘There is absolutely no evidence of any kind of job action,” he commented. “Their trips are disrupted, they have unscheduled overnights and they have all the same types of impacts that our customers experience. If anything, I think they’ve been heroes through this trying to operate.”
SWAPA president Capt. Casey Murray echoed the sentiment, placing the blame “squarely” on the airline for how they manage their network.
“Once a little hiccup occurs due to the internal processes, our pilots aren’t getting to where they need to be,” he remarked. “We’ve been sounding this alarm for about four years and have seen very little approach to correcting it.”
According to former New York Times reporter Alex Berenson, the cancellations were a direct response to the company’s vaccine mandate, but the pilot’s union cannot organize or acknowledge the sickout, as doing so would be considered illegal job action.
Berenson said an unnamed pilot, who’s identity he verified, said the anger internally at the company, from both employees and pilots, is “enormous,” and the pilots “don’t even have to talk to each other about what they’re doing.”
The pilot also believes that the government’s $25 billion bailout last year is making Southwest reluctant to defy the Biden administration.
Fox News host Tucker Carlson also insists the airline isn’t being truthful about the real reason behind the weekend’s cancellations.
“All of that is a lie, it’s not what happened. We’ve spoken to several people with direct knowledge of what actually did happen,” he said on Monday night. “We can tell you the shutdown of Southwest Airlines over the weekend was a direct consequence, it was a reaction to Joe Biden’s vaccine mandates.”
Outgoing CEO Gary Kelly blames Biden for compelling the mandate, which is against his “personal philosophy” that company’s shouldn’t impose forced inoculation on employees.
“I’ve never been in favor of corporations imposing that kind of a mandate. I’m not in favor of that. Never have been,” Kelly commented. “But the executive order from President Biden mandates that all federal employees and then all federal contractors, which covers all the major airlines, have to have a [vaccine] mandate … in place by Dec. 8, so we’re working through that.”
The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of AmericanActionNews.com
Why is this just affecting Southwest Airlines?
Biden is an ignorant a**hole!
Apparently globalist puppet, southwest and delta are more globalist puppets than most other airlines and preach globalist agendas .
Someone should investigate if this was really the result of weather. I for one don’t believe it. The reason they blame it on weather is because it leaves the stranded passengers with no recourse. The airline is not responsible for delays as a result of weather or air traffic control (delays that are beyond their control). They are however responsible for reasonable expenses incurred and or for booking passengers on other airlines to get them to their destination if this was a management failure. Some lawyer should file a class action suit on behalf of all the inconvenienced passengers or individual passengers should file complaints.
I’m with you!!! Now if you can get everyone to support you shut it right down. Next will be a trucker shutdown.
Stop these ridiculous vaccine mandates. This is not a communist country. It is not my obligation to get the vaccine.
Biden NEVER SIGNED any EO’s, period!! All he did was SAY it, but never signed it, it’s not in the Federal Register, and was never sent by Congress. These EO’s are nothing more than figments of the imagination and total bs. These corporate ceo’s are just running scared and should tell the gov’t to shit in its hat!!
globalists bribe their globalist puppets; ceo enough to make them preach globalist agendas .
When the flight crews and pilots start stroking out at 20,000 feet, sue Biden.
Obiden has dementia; he can barely walk or speak; so inspiring…NOT!
There’s NEVER been Any SHIT that’s been able to walk, OR speak, OR be inspiring. Those just AREN’T Attributes of SHIT, so Traitor Joe has NO chance.
Lets go Brandon !
The CEO of Southwest Airlines is hiding behind Biden’s unconstitutional executive order. He should stand up to Bozo Biden and refuse to implement the unlawful order at Southwest Airlines. The employees of Southwest Airlines should stand their ground.
Flash in the pan . Sad that this amounted to nothing
Just another example of huge corporations who are either so “woke” they applaud Biden’s* unconstitutional vaccine mandate and willingly enforce it, or are such “wussies” that they will cave to the least amount pressure. Either way, the corporate heads have shown how little they respect their employees. I applaud those Southwest employees who have shown the courage to buck the pressures of their out-of-touch CEO. I hope they have the stamina to keep it up until the airline completely tanks or comes to its senses.
AMERICANS should boycott all globalist puppets like southwest and delta etc .
The CEO’s of Southwest and Delta and their like are but lickspittles. Time to switch airlines. We’ve been flying Delta to Europe for generations: time to switch to British Airways, Lufthansa or Turkish Airways even if it costs a bit more!