Passengers across the country waited in airports this week while Southwest Airlines’ operation crumbled, because it couldn’t get pilots and flight attendants assigned to flights.
Meanwhile, the pilots and flight attendants sat in hotel rooms and airport break rooms waiting on hold in hopes of getting on a plane.
Some reported waiting on the phone for five to eight hours without an answer, union leaders said. Others went to sleep in hotel rooms with their phones next to them. When they woke up the next morning, they were still on hold.
“We had aircraft that were available, but the process of matching up those crew members with the aircraft could not be handled by our technology,” chief operating officer Andrew Watterson said in a memo to employees Monday. “In our desired state, we have a solver that would be able to do that very quickly and very accurately. Our system today cannot do that.”