Southwest Airlines just laid off 15% of its corporate staff, letting workers go for the first time in its history. But they’re not done with cost-cutting. They revealed inside the company today that they will be closing two flight attendant bases – in Austin and Fort Lauderdale.
In January, the company cancelled employee rallies. Maybe these weren’t the best way to engage staff and drive the culture, but there’s not a new plan to replace them either. And the messaging was that this is part of cost-cutting in the important “fight to return to excellent financial performance” which they plan to do by “enhancing efficiencies, and capturing value throughout the Company.”
Southwest CEO Bob Jordan
Southwest isn’t done cutting personnel costs, though. In a memo to employees today, the airline announced that they will eliminate their Austin and Fort Lauderdale satellite crew bases effective July 1. This will have a big effect on flight attendants currently based in those cities. As the memo explains,
When we opened these satellite bases in January 2018, we wanted to try something new iwth the goal of enhancing productivity while having Crew resources in some of our larger outstations where we have a good amount of Flight Attendant commuters. We were optimistic that we would achieve benefits such as a more efficient set of planned pairings, fewer sick calls, and greater participation in Open Time – reducing the need for Crew Scheduling to pull in Crews from other bases to cover these trips.
While we did see some initial improvements, over time these metrics returned to levels comparable to our other bases. Additionally, Crew Scheduling continues to rely on Crews from other bases for coverage and frequently adds deadheads to/from AUS/FLL trips to cover flying from other bases.
Due to the added complexity and expense of maintaining two bases, continue to operate FLL/AUS as satellite bases is no longer sustainable. Additionally, their size does not provide the scale needed to support adding reserves without adding substantial cost.
There’s a bit of sleight of hand here. The Austin and Fort Lauderdale satellite crew bases aren’t performing better than their other crew bases – but that wasn’t the goal. It was to perform better than other outstations by basing flight attendants there. Why would a base in Austin do better than a base in Dallas?
When flight attendants live in Austin, but are based out of Dallas, they have to commute and commuting leads to more sick calls and delays (it’s the responsibility of the flight attendant to make it to their base to start their trips). Basing them in Austin is convenient for the crewmember and good for reliability, and having crew in the city is also good for finding replacements when needed.
Suggesting that they still needed to fly in flight attendants from other cities to work Austin flights suggests that they hadn’t grown the satellite base enough, not that they shouldn’t have one.
The move isn’t just bad for flight attendants based in Austin and in Fort Lauderdale, but for reliability of flights out of those cities as well. Southwest goes on to describe how this will effect crew involved,
Next Steps
Given this, we will consolidate our resources into our 12 larger, traditional bases. This approach will enable us to operate more efficiently and enhance schedule stability for all Flight Attendants. These closures will affect the roughly 280 Flight Attendants currently based in FLL and AUS.There is a potential for some secondary displacements in other bases as we ensure the right staffing levels for the remaining 12 domiciles. Similar to our recent ATL reductions, we will work to reduce these secondary displacements. This movement will occur during the July vacancy, awarded on May 28.
Not only will flight attendants based in Austin and Fort Lauderdale either have to move to another city or commute there, but transferring flight attendants into these new bases may mean knocking other flight attendants currently in those cities out, as a result of seniority and since Southwest may not be growing those other bases when they’re scaling back their growth plans overall.
Southwest Airlines surrendered to Elliott Management, and has begun selling planes to raise cash to fund stock buybacks. Yet the airline’s stock is flat since the activist investor took a stake and since they crossed the threshold of 10% owners. Transforming the carrier to become more like JetBlue and American, with assigned seats and extra legroom and a renewed focus on cost, turns out not to be a recipe for confidence in future earnings growth. Nonetheless, the cuts will continue until morale improves.
Oof. Canceling employee rallies sounds like ‘the beatings will continue until morale improves.’ It’s just sad. Blame Elliott Management, not the crews or passengers.
Way to go, Bob. Austin has some of the most profitable routes for SWA. Ever tired to buy a ticket from AUS-DCA? For less than $500 each way? By all means, pull back from where the premium fliers and big money lived and works. All that’s missing is…premium seats. My goodness.
Kinda of think of it, wasn’t Bob one of the Bobs in “Office Space”? Like Peter Gibbons said: “It’s not that I’m lazy, it’s that I just don’t care…”
As someone who flies SW for most domestic journeys from Atlanta, I’m sad to see these developments. Non stops are getting to be fewer and farther.
No matter how Southwest tries to spin this it is not good for their employess and ultimately customers as delays are more likely to happen due to flight attendants having to drive further to get to their jobs.
If you are a discerning traveler in search of an elevated and thoughtful travel experience, please consider Delta.
@Matt — Bah! Second time today. I like your style!
I would have thought FLL would have been a large FA base. AUS I can see since DAL is less than 200 miles up the highway.
Quit acting like things didn’t have to change. WN had hit the limit of their business model. Shareholder performance had lagged and that is something that has to be front and center for any publicly traded corporation regardless of what it does to “culture”.
Reminds me of one time I was a finalist for a senior management position in one of the largest non-profit religious hospital management companies. Their mantra was that they wanted to support the “mission” but “without margin there is no mission”. Other companies should keep this in mind. In other words if don’t generate industry level profits and, in the case of public companies, take care of shareholders nothing else really matters.
The closing of a small satellite base does is not in any way an indication that Southwest will reduce flights at Austin.
Multiple cities in the Southwest route system have just as many or more daily Southwest flights are are not crew bases.
San Diego and Saint Louis immediately come to mind.
You’ve been blued, screwed, and tattooed…
That statement sounds so cold. I understand that there’s a bottom line and that hard decisions have to be made. But I feel like we’re moving back to forgetting that employees are people as well and that at the end of the day you need these people.
Getting Elliotted may become the next Bonvoyed.
280 FAs – a couple percent of WN’s total number of FAs for two bases says they don’t want to have FA bases, even satellite bases, there.
Given they have 12 other bases, they have plenty of options – S. Florida and central Texas just aren’t them unless you want to commute
WN should have swallowed the poison pill.
Bob Jordan, trying to get more money out of his job, seems to have become an employee of Elliot. Since all of the management is coming from Elliot, I wonder when they will realize that his position is redundant and get rid of him. Then they could bring in a true hatchet person (formerly known as a hatchet man.)
Oh don’t follow American they have NOOOO clue what they’re doing ceo on the outs anyway….. hopefully!! Rumors are correct!!
Elliott will not stop until it destroys Southwest Airlines. Yes the Stockholders deserve a return on their investment but they are not going to get it with what Elliott is trying to accomplish. Not to mention the prospect of putting 70,000+ employees out of a job. Gary Kelly started this ball rolling when he turned his back on the technology side of the business in favor of overloading the staff at the top and systematically tearing apart the house that Herb built. And Elliott waited until the passing of Herb Kelleher and Colleen Barrett before striking. Where was Elliott when the stock price was under $10.00 per share. Oh, yes, Herb and Colleen were still running Southwest and I seriously doubt Elliott would have had the courage to go up against Herb Kelleher.
@Matt sorry Delta could not pay me to ever fly them again. Incredibly bad Customer Care.
@American — If Delta isn’t good enough for you, how is American’s (or any other US carrier’s) ‘customer care’ equivalent any better? I’ve dealt with most of them, and when things go wrong, none of them are ‘great,’ but Delta at least tries–even during and following that awful Crowdstrike failure, they at least offered to reimburse some alternative travel, for instance. I don’t recall Southwest doing that when they had a ‘meltdown’ of their own in December 2022–there was little to no help from the company then; passengers and crews were practically stranded without recourse.
Flight attendants don’t knock out junior flight attendants from bases because of seniority . Being a satélite base means the crew is part of the mother base count already. Fas are not based in AUS. They are based is Dallas. They are just senior enough to hold trips originating in AUS.
@Eric –
I am not trying to sound mean…. but I am a Southwest flight attendant and practically EVERYTHING in your comment is INCORRECT.
Please don’t listen to Gary Leff’s doom-and-gloom article on what this means for customers. It’s his standard M.O. to make everything sound either exciting or outrageous, as he has to produce so many articles that people will read for him to get paid. Plus, he can’t help himself.
That fact is, this change means absolutely nothing to customers, nor to number of flights, flight efficiency, reliability, etc. Literally nothing.
Approximately half of all airline flight crewmembers commute. In Southwest’s case, that’s about 10,000 flight attendants and about 5,500 pilots who commute. What do you think adding exactly 261 more flight attendants to 10,000 FAs that already commute will do to Southwest’s operation? Especially since they’re now going to do some of the shortest commutes out there (AUS to DAL or HOU, and FLL to MCO)? Uh, the answer is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. It was a good deal for those 261 FAs while it lasted, but apparently it turned out to be not cost effective. Big freakin’ deal.
Gary may or may not be an expert on points or miles, but he knows jack you-know-what about how to run an airline, or how one actually operates.
Looks like the people over at Elliott Management are absolute dirt bags and are going to ruin a once well run airline! Al Checci and company did the same thing to Northwest Airlines back in 1989 and now it’s happening to SWA! Employees should look into a company buyout vs having this leech Eliott Management destroy the company!! It’s all about the $$$ to these people, they could care less about the employees! Sad situation over at SWA!
How does this differ from other large companies who build in Kansas. If you live there ,great deal new industry in your area of locals but if you live in Ohio, and you want a job, then you must move there for employment or find something else.. This is life, go where the jobs are. I think that’s very simple. Why run a hub for flight attendants and lose money? On the other hand, get this 10% out as quickly as possible as they tend to destroy companies and not have all the answers, be careful on who is running the show. A 10% out of Pittsburgh destroyed a Big Bear grocery chain by sucking it dry and destroying the entire chain. What a loss.
Another result of “DOSE” Department of Southwest Efficiency.
All these naysayers bad mouthing American and using false accusations about American; because American is a threat and is making a huge come back with professional service and affordable fares!