Posted on 03/12/2019 12:59:54 PM PDT by CondoleezzaProtege
Southwest Airlines, the nation's third-largest carrier, is struggling with a surge in planes being taken out of service for maintenance. The airline blames the mechanics union, but the union claims it's a matter of safety.
Photos obtained exclusively by CBS News show what mechanics describe as landing gear tires so worn that Southwest had to pull a 737 out of service on Tuesday. More than 40 airplanes per day have been grounded for maintenance issues since last Tuesday. That's unusually high, more than double a normal day.
Southwest has declared an "operational emergency" and its chief operating officer Mike Van de Ven is blaming the mechanics union, claiming it has a 'history of work disruptions' and pointing the finger at a "subset" of mechanics primarily at four maintenance facilities.
The union said management is "scapegoating" technicians and "the airline's self-described 'operational emergency' is simply an attempt to divert attention away from the airline's safety issues."
(Excerpt) Read more at cbsnews.com ...
Are these those Boeing 737 Max planes?
I think I read that SWA has these planes. So. Besides the slowdown by their mechanics - this could be a bad bad year for Southwest.
How has air travel gone downhill?
Yes. And a lot of us look around and we say "Maybe we should stop having everything go downhill. Maybe we can Make America Great Again."
And the Democrats say, "That's racist!"
Which really says a lot about Democrats.
It must be time for labor negotiations between Southwest and the union.
When I was discharged I was told by a VA job counselor that commercial airlines don't like to hire military trained maintenance people because they are "too picky" and red x planes the airlines want to keep in service.
Some things are just perception. We didn’t have a 24 hour news cycle continually using hate, fear, and blood back in the day. And life was not safer back then...
PING
(That private jet travel is looking better and better ;-)
Southwest used to have the highest safety rating till they got new management.
As I understood it they must put their name on the planes they inspect and work on. They must sign off that the plane is safe. If they are to be accountable then when they say a plane is not safe. I will go with them. Again they must sign off on the safety of the plane.
SWA aircraft have a secondary AoA indicator; this should not be issue.
Unlikely to the max. ‘Tis but a pause in the descent.
Trump’s given some the opportunity to live out their lives before the horror arrives, to others he’s given a short time to prepare.
Thank God for President Trump.
It do but the unions could f up a ball bearing with a feather
Put all of the NASCAR pit crews on it. All the planes in the fleet will have shinney new tires in 5 minutes.
And we should believe "See? BS!" why?
Call in a NASCAR pit crew in the dead of night to replace double the tires while the union is locked out of the facility. Problem solved.
SWA was better as a non-union airline, one of the reasons you never see Southwest flights when you are flight-shopping on Orbitz, Travelocity, etc. When American had the first publicly-accessed flight scheduling database, Southwest was left out of any flights or connections because they were non-union. If you want to know where Southwest is going, you have to check their schedules separately.
This is from Feb 20th, it’s an old story about a union slowdown.
Beat me to it.
The Max 8s are a separate problem. The maintenance slowdown is a crappy illegal job action being conducted by a union.
They started red tagging everything they could find. Things like a aisle number on a seat missing.
Their goal is mostly to get Southwest to agree that ALL maintenance must be done by SWA union mechanics. As SWA grew bigger than it’s Texas roots, the mechanics nosed their way in. They began featherbedding and all kinds of typical union crap. But SWA had a trick up it’s sleeve, they have the right to use outside contractors for all kinds of MX work and avoid their own union shop.
All kinds of high quality work gets done, and the Unions don’t see a dime of it.
This is their revenge. The union is such a bunch of dumbasses that they think it’s good for their cause to convince everyone that SWA has unsafe planes.
Very shortsighted.
But the Max 8 issue is a whole separate issue.
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