Airlines and their unions may not agree on much. In fact, a quick search of my photos library turned up several picketing events held by various American Airlines and Southwest Airlines unions outside DFW and Love Field.
But this morning, Southwest and its pilots could agree on one thing: The pilots had not staged a walk-out.
In their defense, if the pilots’ union had staged a sick-out or work stoppage, they would want you to know. That way, the passengers could see signs pointing out how unfairly they felt management was treating them [or, in American’s case, unfAAirly].
To get to the bottom of this, I decided to head to Love Field to shove my microphone in passengers’ faces. Southwest had canceled 1,800 flights over the weekend and 355 more this morning.
Police at the airport couldn’t have been more helpful. When I wandered up to the ticket counters, I asked a couple officers if it had been busier than usual for 5 a.m.
“Oh yes,” one said.
Then they offered to start scouting out passengers for me to talk to.
“She looks angry, the one standing by the schedule board,” the other explained.
She wasn’t angry, though, even though she had been stranded in Dallas by way of Atlanta and Florida.
In her defense, that does sound frustrating. But even then, she said this was out of character for Southwest.
In that case, the pilot may have hit his or her maximum flight time.
Some passengers had started pricing flights on American and considered making the trip to DFW.
Southwest had been encouraging people to go on their website instead of coming to the airport. Many who were at Love this morning say they were already on their way to the airport when they got the text their flight had been cancelled.
Loyal Scaiaholics will recall Southwest had a computer glitch back in 2019. In that case, a homeless gentleman I treated to a Croissan’Wich made a suggestion: Reboot. Perhaps that could help now if they’re having trouble with scheduling software.
Back when Arlington hosted the Super Bowl, lines of people stretched outside terminals at DFW Airport when we had the ice storm. I reference “microphone shovin'” frequently in the blog, but it is a useful tool. In that case, people said American had flown them into town, but then the snow moved in, so the hub airport had to shut down and people couldn’t get to their destination. They were all standing in line for taxis to take them to hotels.
“I can fit five people in the news car!” I exclaimed to the line. “Who’s headed toward Fort Worth?”
Many of those folks did not know where they were headed, so I just started looking at their hotel reservations and rounded up the first five people who had an address along the way. And for their trouble, they got a free ride in a real, live news car.
After all the passengers at Love Field today had been through, with some flying halfway across the country only to get stranded 200 miles from their destination and others unable to get home, perhaps I should have offered to go on a Croissan’Wich run for everybody.
