Union Says Southwest pilots suffering from fatigue

The Southwest Airlines Pilots Association union says its pilots are suffering from fatigue due to the airline’s haphazard scheduling.

The union wrote an open letter to new Southwest CEO Robert Jordan and other top brass at the Dallas-based airline, according to ABC News. In it, they noted Southwest’s failure to match its staffing to the number of travelers who have returned to the air since last summer.

The issue of being short-staffed while facing near pre-pandemic levels of passengers is an industry-wide problem. JetBlue, for instance, has already trimmed its schedule for this summer in part due to staffing and pilot shortages.

But the union said fatigue is also raising safety concerns – the number of pilots who asked to be let out of an assignment because of fatigue rose 330 percent in March of this year compared to the month of March in previous pre-pandemic years.

“April is already setting fatigue records,” the union wrote. “Fatigue, both acute and cumulative, has become Southwest Airlines’ number-one safety threat.”

Southwest spokeswoman Brandy King told ABC News there was “a significant and steady decline” in pilots calling in fatigued after the airline made schedule changes in November. As for March, weather issues that caused delays and flights led to expected pilot fatigue.