A major airline pilots’ union, in the midst of negotiating a new contract for its members, has written an open letter hoping to shed light on what it says is a major problem with fatigue.
Union officials representing the pilots of Southwest Airlines said the steep increase in pilot fatigue is a safety concern. Their open letter, addressed to Southwest CEO Robert Jordan, says that the problem began when airline travel began to climb back to normal levels following the COVID-influenced shutdown.
Southwest in particular was plagued with staffing shortages that led to mass cancellations last year at the nation’s fourth-largest airline. Those shortages at Southwest as well as other airlines were caused by the companies having persuaded employees to quit by the thousands amidst the COVID shutdown.
Those pilots were unavailable as air travel began to quickly ramp back up upon the softening of regulations.
Now, with the business of air travel having climbed back to about 90% of its pre-pandemic business as of last month, with about 2 million people catching flights every day, the pilots’ union says its members are overworked.
The number of pilots who asked to be relieved of their flight assignments due to fatigue in March of 2022 was up a whopping 330% over March of 2021. That led to the pilots’ union urging Southwest to hire more pilots.
In response to the open letter, Southwest spokesperson Brandy King said they have already seen a “significant and steady decline” in fatigued pilots since the airline enacted scheduled changes last November, and that the March spike in pilot fatigue was expected after a number of flights had to be cancelled due to weather.
King added that the March spike also demonstrates that the system for pilots to report fatigue works.
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