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Southwest has sued its mechanics’ union, alleging that the union is encouraging mechanics to write up aircraft maintenance issues that have no impact on flight safety.
The strategy, Southwest alleges, is designed to improve the bargaining position of the Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association (AMFA), whose members have been doing battle with the airline over a labor contract for six years.
The systemwide campaign by AMFA, Southwest says in the suit filed Thursday, violates the Railway Labor Act, which governs the sequence of steps that airline unions must take during a collective bargaining process before turning to disruptive actions.
The lawsuit comes as mechanics’ maintenance write-ups have forced Southwest to take more aircraft out of service over the past two weeks than is typical, resulting in canceled flights. Southwest canceled 117 flights on Thursday according to Flight Aware, more than any airline around the world that Flight Aware tracks. By comparison, American, United and Delta canceled 34, 20 and seven flights, respectively.
Two weeks ago, Southwest declared an operational emergency at maintenance bases in Phoenix, Las Vegas, Houston Hobby and Orlando due to the number of out-of-service aircraft. The carrier added its Dallas Love Field base to that list early last week.
In the lawsuit, Southwest says that it began experiencing a surge in minor maintenance write-ups soon after a failed mediation session with AMFA on Feb. 7 and Feb. 8. The carrier describes such write-ups as ones that are for items that don’t impact safety and don’t require immediate attention.
“For instance, the number of write-ups for minor interior systems — i.e., a missing row number on an airline that does not assign seats — spiked almost 400% to 500% after February 10, 2019,” the lawsuit says.
The carrier went on to say that on an average day it will have 14 of its 752 aircraft out of service. From Feb. 11 to Feb. 22 the number of out-of-service aircraft ranged from 30 to 62.
AMFA didn’t immediately respond to an email for comment Friday morning. However, in a Feb. 22 letter to chief Southwest legal and regulatory officer Mark Shaw, which addresses allegations similar to those Southwest made in the lawsuit, AMFA attorney Nick Granath accused the carrier’s management of having a “degraded maintenance safety culture.”
“Let us be clear. AMFA members at Southwest Airlines are doing their jobs in accordance with the requirements of their FAA-issued A&P (aircraft mechanic) licenses,” Granath wrote. “Southwest Airlines should be thanking these men and women for their dedication to safety; instead, it hurls unfounded accusations. AMFA rejects any assertions that it or its members have acted in violation of law or collectively to disrupt company operations or undertake any job actions. Southwest Airlines has provided no evidence to AMFA in support of its baseless job action allegations.”
Granath’s allegations related to Southwest’s safety culture followed on the heels of a recent revelation that the FAA has been investigating the carrier for the past year for miscalculations of the total weight of checked luggage on Southwest flights. Such miscalculations have the potential to cause safety problems since pilots rely upon them to compute takeoff weights.
Southwest filed the case against AMFA in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas.
Source: travelweekly.com
