Southwest Trying to Stay Afloat Warning Furloughs to Workers

In the USA, Southwest, also called the Heart airline, which has shined during the pandemic, shows signs of disparity to stay afloat. On Thursday of this week, December 3, SWA announced to more than 6,800 employees that could possibly be furloughed in the upcoming Spring of 2021. CNN reported that the numbers are made up of 2,551 ground crew, 1,176 service agents, 1,500 flight attendants, and 1,221 pilots. Once again, this will not help the global pilot shortage. “We are not closing the door — we’ll continue negotiations if union representatives want to continue working toward reaching mutually agreeable solutions,” Southwest Airlines said. Southwest’s revenue since the pandemic has dropped roughly 68%, 1.79 billion from $5.6 billion according to CNBC. Southwest has been one of the last airlines to call for employee furloughs. They may still be able to dodge the furlough if they can negotiate with the union to get a salary for all employees.

This has posed the question, what will the airlines do with all of the planes and equipment that all of the furloughed employees manned, will they ever get their job back, and will this affect the airlines after the pandemic? With the equipment situation, some will be stored, and others will likely just be used less. This will hurt the airline more if they choose not to use planes then bring them back into service. They will have to pay substantial amounts to re certificate the aircraft. However, there is still an option of renting out this equipment, but of course, no airline wants this equipment. But it could be a steal when passenger numbers start to ramp up after a vaccine comes out. There is also the issue of age discrimination, which will rise as furloughed age workers reapply for jobs.

Lastly, the lack of employees will drastically hurt the airlines as they will not be able to jump back into the business. Hopefully, when we begin to see signs of the world getting back to normal, they can start transitioning back as they were before. This is a super heavy topic as we have no idea what is coming up with the airline industry.

What do you think will happen to Southwest Airlines? Leave us a comment below!

-Blake, Touchdown Zone Editor-in-Chief

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