Casey Murray, the president of the Southwest Airways Pilots Affiliation, instructed the Senate committee that his union had lengthy complained concerning the issues on the root of the airline’s meltdown however administration did little to deal with them.
Mr. Murray mentioned Southwest didn’t adequately put together for dangerous climate, didn’t make investments sufficient in its operations and had poor management. He was significantly crucial of the executives who ran the corporate earlier than its present administration, which incorporates Mr. Watterson and the chief government, Bob Jordan, who took over final 12 months.
“Warning indicators had been ignored, poor efficiency was condoned, excuses had been made, processes atrophied, core values had been forgotten,” Mr. Murray mentioned.
In the course of the holidays, Southwest didn’t have sufficient covers to guard airplane engines and didn’t put together floor crews for the storm, he mentioned. Mr. Murray additionally argued that the techniques used to plan flights and schedule crews weren’t properly built-in and spit out plans that didn’t all the time make sense collectively.
On the top of the disruption, communication broke down between workers at Southwest’s headquarters in Dallas and crews across the nation. Pilots and flight attendants attempting to achieve headquarters had been positioned on maintain, typically for hours. Based on {a photograph} included in Mr. Murray’s ready remarks, a Southwest dispatcher messaged pilots in an airplane asking them to establish themselves and noting that issues had been “a multitude down right here.” A minimum of 350 pilots had been assigned schedules that put them removed from their residence bases on the finish of their workday, in response to the union.
The airline has mentioned it’s working to stop one other meltdown, together with intently looking forward to indicators of potential issues, growing staffing and upgrading instruments used to schedule and talk with crews.
The Division of Transportation has begun an investigation to evaluate whether or not executives knowingly scheduled flights that the airline couldn’t realistically full, a violation of federal legislation banning unfair and misleading practices.
Ms. Cantwell criticized Mr. Jordan on Thursday for not showing earlier than the committee, saying he “didn’t wish to present up.” In an announcement, Southwest mentioned it had offered the committee with Mr. Jordan’s schedule and famous on the time that he had a battle on Thursday. Mr. Watterson was “exceptionally properly positioned” to reply lawmaker questions, the airline mentioned.
