Brooks Agnew – We broke a story in November of last year about how the jab had cleaned the airlines out of their most senior pilots two ways. First, there were the pilots who refused to take the experimental jab, due to FAA regulations forbidding the use by pilots of experimental drugs. Second, there were thousands of injuries that grounded pilots, thus knocking them out of retirement. This impacted all airlines, but the hub-style airlines were able to move assets around and ground the big iron that the senior pilots were flying.
It takes 2 years to train an experienced pilot to fly the big jets. They did not have that time, so they trimmed the routes and put smaller aircraft in its place. This put another stress on their system, though, since younger pilots took the jab and were being injured by the thousands. Now, they are short pilots.
Virtual Joe is forcing the FAA to train and hire black pilots as a priority. That means the best students don’t get the jobs. The black pilots get the jobs. I know it’s the most racist thing you have ever heard, but I swear to you it is true.
That was the major airlines who run hub service. That is to say, they move passengers to their hub, switch planes, and then fly you to your destination. There used to be a half dozen code-shares who moved people from smaller airports to the Delta hub in Atlanta, the American hub in Dallas.
Point-to-point airlines suffered the worst. And the airline that flies exclusively one airframe type, which is a brilliant business model for many reasons, were devastated by the jab for the same two reasons. Senior pilots quit rather than take it, and pilots that took it were injured at the rate of 50% or more. There is no smaller equipment to move. There is no way Southwest is putting freshmen pilots in front of their equipment. So, they have to cancel flights.
December’s cancellation chaos has cost Southwest Airlines another $325 million — raising the toll to more than $1.1 billion — as customers continue to avoid the airline after it canceled a slew of flights during the holidays in late 2022.
Southwest Airlines had been hit with an $800 million revenue loss in the last ten days of 2022 alone and then suffered another $159 million loss in the first quarter because of travelers avoiding booking with the airline and canceling their return flights from the holidays.
Now, travelers appear to continue avoiding Southwest, as the airline’s loss in revenue has gone up another $325 million, bringing its financial toll to more than $1.1 billion, according to a report by the Dallas Morning News.
“The majority of this impact was driven by a negative revenue impact of approximately $325 million, as a result of cancellations of holiday return travel and a deceleration in bookings for January and February,” CEO Bob Jordan said.
“Despite that, travel demand and revenue trends in March were strong and resulted in solid profitability for the month and record first quarter revenues,” Jordan added.
In December, Southwest Airlines canceled a staggering 16,700 flights during the last ten days of December after a winter storm hit its hubs in Chicago and Denver. The move caused chaos and widespread meltdowns during the holiday season.
At the time of the cancellations, Jordan and other Southwest executives apologized for the chaos, saying the airline is determined to upgrade its systems “for these extreme circumstances so that we never again face what’s happening right now.”
The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) reacted by launching an investigation to see if “unrealistic scheduling” contributed to Southwest’s holiday travel issues.
This past week, it was revealed that the U.S. Department of Justice is joining in on the federal investigation into the airline’s treatment of customers after the December cancellations. I doubt seriously they will face the truth. They will be suing airlines because they don’t have enough black pilots. I am serious as a plane crash.
SF Source Brooks Agnew Apr 2023