As Christmas time approaches, airlines expect travel demand to pick up. Southwest Airlines, in anticipation of the holiday travel season, calls employees for some holiday help.
The carrier asked non-operations employees to do eight-hour shifts for customer service tasks. This involves tasks such as answering questions and pushing wheelchairs to name a few.
Busy Holiday Season
Southwest in an email to some of its employees said that “We are expecting a very busy holiday season (which we are thankful for!), but we also want to do everything in our power to set our front-line employees up for success, especially in locations where staffing is a challenge”.
Southwest asked for some extra holiday help in some of the busiest airports including Baltimore-Washington, Ronald Reagan in Washington DC; Atlanta, Orlando, Chicago-Midway, Phoenix, Oakland, Sacramento, Dallas, St. Louis, and LaGuardia in New York.
The company plans to ramp up its staffing on these airports from December 20 to January 3.
This isn’t the first time that Southwest and other airlines asked for additional manpower from non-operation employees during holidays. American Airlines also asked for additional manpower during the summer.
Holiday Help and Staffing Shortages
Airlines are still dealing with staffing shortages. Senate lawmakers are requesting CEOs of major US airlines to testify in next week’s hearing. They are asked to explain why airlines are still having staffing shortages despite the $54 billion bailout fund.
Southwest canceled more than 2,000 flights in October that cost the company $75 million. Though the company blamed bad weather and air traffic control issues, these problems cascaded to a shortage of pilots and flight attendants.
For Southwest, the carrier is hiring additional 5,000 employees for this year and another 8,000 for 2022. According to incoming CEO Robert Jordan, “There’s been an all our focus on hiring and staffing”.
Southwest is also offering pilots and flight attendants incentives to work during the peak holiday periods.
