Southwest Airlines is performing some inside harm management after the corporate’s abysmal vacation season, the place 16,700 flights were cancelled. The Dallas-based provider has supplied thousands and thousands in bonus pay to its workers for the disruptions, which left many staff as helpless as stranded passengers.
Southwest gave roughly $45 million to its pilots union, which works out to about $4,500 per pilot. That’s on prime of bonuses that have been already given for holidays and flight reassignments. The Dallas Morning News reports “a number of [other] operational workgroups” have been additionally supplied bonuses for the troubles, however didn’t element which teams that included.
The bonuses will probably be given to workers who labored shifts between Dec. 20 and Jan. 3.
Southwest suffered an operational meltdown starting Dec. 22, when a winter storm affected Chicago and Denver, two of the airline’s main hubs. That impacted the provider’s flight rescheduling software program, which was unable to maintain up with the adjustments and finally misplaced monitor of 1000’s of workers, leaving planes with out pilots and flight attendant crews—and stranding staff alongside annoyed passengers.
CEO Bob Jordan has repeatedly apologized to each teams, vowing it is not going to occur once more, and hiring a third-party guide to look into the issue and guaranteeing the software program is up to date.
The numerous funds to staff comes as there’s rising unrest amongst pilots about long-running contract negotiations. For the previous three years, Southwest and its pilots’ union have been engaged on a brand new deal. And final week, the president of the Southwest Airways Pilots Affiliation called for a strike authorization vote, which is able to happen starting Might 1. Votes will probably be counted on the finish of the month.
Even when pilots vote to strike, they received’t be capable of stroll off the job anytime quickly. It’s simply step one in a sequence of actions required earlier than a piece stoppage can start, beneath a federal regulation overseeing airline/labor relations.
Mediation between the airline and its pilots are scheduled to resume on Tuesday.
Discover ways to navigate and strengthen belief in what you are promoting with The Belief Issue, a weekly e-newsletter analyzing what leaders have to succeed. Sign up here.