Southwest Airlines Will Offer Fewer Flights This Fall
Folks looking to get out of town this autumn aboard a Southwest Airlines flight may find that they have fewer options than expected.
The company has reshuffled its fall flight schedule, as was promised to its employees last week when Southwest found itself faced with a potential picket by overworked, frustrated pilots and flight attendants.
As a result, the airline has announced that it will reduce its flight schedule through November 5 to better align its operations with the current staffing shortage. On average, 27 flights per day will be cut from September 7 through October 6, and 162 flights will be cut between October 7 and November 5, Fortune reported.
“We’re confident these adjustments will create a more reliable travel experience,” Southwest Chairman and CEO Gary Kelly said in a statement.
Similar pruning of Southwest’s schedules is expected during November and December, though the airline said that it is hoping to maintain the usual number of flights around the end-of-year holidays when the demand is expected to be greatest.
Faced with unforeseen high levels of demand for air travel this summer, and seemingly unable to ramp up employee operations quickly enough to meet it, Southwest has had a tumultuous season.
With extreme weather across the U.S. compounding the problem, the carrier has had a substantial number of delays and cancellations in recent months. According to data from Cirium, Southwest’s on-time arrival rate between June 1 and August 18 came in at just 64 percent—lower than American, Delta and United.
On Thursday, the airline remarked that it is already “aggressively” hiring and is also offering incentives to existing employees for their referrals. The company also said that it’s expecting to have brought all of its staff who took voluntary leave during the pandemic back on board by the end of 2021.
Southwest isn’t alone in its struggles to meet increased staffing needs, nor its decision to pare back on flight levels. Spirit Airlines likewise recently announced that it would be reducing its schedule through September, cutting an average of 50 flights per day.
Spirit suffered some serious setbacks earlier this month when it was forced to cancel hundreds of flights each day for nearly two weeks, due to a combination of staff shortages, technical problems and weather challenges.