By Bill Zeeble, KERA News for Audio Texas
DALLAS – It’s been a bumpy week for Dallas based southwest Airlines. This week, a computer outage took down its website, forcing 1300 flight cancellations, and stranding passengers and crews. Then, despite a record second quarter profit, its stock price fell. Friday (22 July), hundreds of union members picketed at Love Field over stalled contract talks.
As a Southwest 737 flew overhead near Dallas Love Field, union mechanics marched this morning to vent their frustration. They’ve have been working now four years without a contract.
“All the contracts now have degraded to the point that they’re under federal mediation.”
Louie Key is the national director for the Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association, the union for Southwest mechanics.
“We’re all frustrated they’re going nowhere, which seems absurd to us given the record profits the company’s making.”
Yesterday, Southwest Airlines reported a record 2nd quarter profit of $820 million. Key says other carriers have given employees raises after profitable quarters. Not Southwest. In addition to pay, Key’s also worried about job protection.
“As airlines outsource more and more work, we have to protect those jobs. Southwest sends many of their planes to El Salvador for their heavy maintenance work.”
Key was joined by fellow flight attendants and pilots, who’ve also gone years without a contract. As they picketed, managers worked to fix other problems. Wednesday’s computer outage forced yet another 300 flight cancellations this morning. That’s after 1000 cancellations the past two days. Southwest refused to comment on air. In a statement, the company said thousands of customers were inconvenienced across the system – certainly not the level of customer service, quote, “we strive to deliver.”
As for the drop in Southwest’s stock price, – more than 10% over just two days, the company said it doesn’t comment on stock prices.
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