Over the weekend, Southwest cancelled nearly 2,000 flights, and no one really knew why.
Turns out, the pilots may be finally standing up to the vax mandates in the industry.
Southwest has said poor weather conditions in FL and subsequent air traffic control roadblocks there were responsible for the mass cancelations -- but the FAA pushed back, admitting Friday was a bit of a mess in Jacksonville ... but noting Saturday/Sunday seemed fine. Other airlines also reported significantly less cancelations over the same time period.
Here was the official tweet from Southwest:
The problem with the narrative of weather issues is that there were reports of a mass pilot "sick out," or a coordinated effort to call in sick that grounded planes across the nation.
Customers like Mikey weren't buying the official report:
There was also this internal memo:
Oh, and Southwest pilots also filed a lawsuit last week against the Biden admin's vax mandate:
On Friday, Southwest's pilot union filed legal docs seeking to halt a vaccine mandate that went into effect last week -- following Biden's order for federal workers and/or contractors, which applies to the airline. That was left unresolved heading into the weekend, it seems.
The airline union denied the rumors, because of course they did.
On the record, they're denying any sort of protest -- but there are reports, citing airline sources, that a massive "sickout" went down, and that ripple effects are still being felt.
Regardless of what the truth here is ... it's screwing a lot of people, and causing a lot of problems. And, IF there is merit to the sickout speculation -- it could also be a bad sign of what's to come in other industries that might try to enforce vaccines on employees.
For some strange reason, I suddenly have a desire to fly Southwest. Or maybe just to charter a private flight with one of these "sick" Southwest pilots. It's funny how bravery and respect for freedom will do that!
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