By Mary Schlangenstein
Southwest Airlines Co. will offer voluntary departure packages or extended leaves to airport workers in 18 cities, including Los Angeles and Atlanta, as aircraft delivery delays force the carrier to trim its flying plans.
The offers will be extended to airport ground workers such as customer service, ramp and operations agents, as well as cargo employees and supervisors in some cases, the company said in a statement Monday. Employees in Southwest’s headquarters that support airport workers will also be given the buyout option.
Southwest didn’t immediately say how many people will receive the offers, which will be shared this week. Those who accept will leave the airline at the end of the year. The carrier previously said it plans to end this year with 2,000 fewer workers than at the end of 2023.
“Southwest has reduced overall capacity to meet demand with a constrained fleet due to aircraft delivery delays,” the airline said Monday via email. “Offering voluntary separation and extended time off to contract and noncontract employees, along with continued slowed hiring, will help us avert overstaffing in certain locations.”
The airline is grappling with expensive new labor contracts and a slowdown in Boeing Co.’s ability to deliver aircraft on schedule, which have increased costs. Southwest has said it will receive just 20 new planes this year, down from an earlier expectation of 79. It won’t get any long-awaited 737 Max 7s, forcing it to delay the retirement of older planes.
The carrier earlier this year said it would slash flights at Atlanta and trimmed operations at other cities as it sought to eliminate uprofitable routes. Those changes affected 200 Atlanta flight attendant jobs and 140 pilot positions. Southwest has long maintained that it has never involuntarily furloughed workers, but it has offered buyouts, leaves of various length and early retirements in the past.
The new buyout and extended leave offers are going to workers at airports in Los Angeles, Atlanta, Dallas, Miami, Baltimore, Detroit and Cleveland. Other cities include Buffalo, New York; Corpus Christi, Texas; Myrtle Beach, South Carolina; Portland, Oregon; Tampa, Fort Lauderdale and Fort Myers, Florida; and Burbank, Long Beach, San Jose and Santa Ana, California.
The offers were reported earlier by industry blogger JonNYC.
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