Passengers deplane from a Southwest Airways flight from Las Vegas at Hollywood Burbank Airport in Burbank, California, Oct. 10, 2021. Southwest Airways canceled greater than 1,000 flights Sunday, as a part of a big weekend provider disruption that the provider attributed to unhealthy climate, air visitors regulate and its personal scarcity of to be had body of workers.
Robyn Beck | AFP | Getty Pictures
Southwest Airways has employed and skilled 3,000 flight attendants up to now this 12 months, just about triple its report cabin staff member hiring in all of 2018, the provider instructed body of workers closing week.
Southwest and different airways are nonetheless racing to rent and teach body of workers to cater to a rebound in commute call for, which executives be expecting to carry up q4, led through sturdy recreational bookings.
Airways had been prohibited from shedding body of workers all over the Covid pandemic underneath the phrases of a $54 billion federal bailout however had been allowed to supply workers prolonged leaves of absence or early retirement.
Southwest stated it lately has greater than 62,000 full-time identical workers. That is greater than the 60,800 it had on the finish of 2019, earlier than the pandemic.
Southwest has additionally hosted 3 “Hiring Blitzes” at its company campus in Dallas, the place flight attendant applicants are interviewed, carry out bodily efficiency requirements assessments and different screenings with a possible for on-the-spot contingent process provides. Any other is scheduled for this week, Southwest stated in an worker memo closing week.
The provider instructed body of workers that it has 7,000 flight attendant applicants in its hiring pipeline and that its attrition price amongst new cabin staff contributors has dropped to two.5% when compared with 6.1% in 2019.
The hiring spree comes as Southwest flight attendants’ union and control had been locked in contract negotiations. Talks with a federal mediator are set to start out Nov. 1 in Dallas, consistent with the memo.
Southwest and United Airways flight attendants, which can be represented through the Affiliation of Flight Attendants-CWA, are set to wood at main airports on Tuesday to call for higher running prerequisites.
One after the other on Monday, Southwest introduced it used to be selling its leader business officer, Andrew Watterson, to interchange COO Mike Van de Ven, who will transform an “government guide” for the airline in 2023.