I was watching a commercial on TV the other night, one of the bag fee court ones. When interviewing the “other airline” executive he made the statement, “They [SWA] love customers. I love cash!” Do we truly love our customers anymore? I was sitting in the terminal preparing to go on a flight while talking to the operations agent working the flight before mine (same gate). He told me that my flight was holding short, awaiting the push at this gate. They had arrived 10 minutes early. I looked out the window and noticed the gate next door was vacant and looked at the gate reader and saw that there weren’t any flights scheduled for that gate. Why wait? Why not bring the flight into the next gate? The reason that it was not brought into the other gate was because in their infinite wisdom station management determined that we would not staff or operate that gate that morning. We decided to make the customers wait. The aircraft prior to my flight pushed the gate and my aircraft pulled in. After deplaning 69 passengers and boarding 70+1, we pushed off the gate five minutes late. The pilot did a really good job of making up time, and we landed at our destination on time. How do you think the businessmen felt that were running late for their meetings because station management made the determination not to staff or operate all the available gates? I watched them deplane. I saw them muttering, and I observed their displeasure. Did they feel loved? How was the delay codedfor my departure? What is the delay code for management or corporate greed? What is the delay code for customer insensitivity? You can rest assured that if the agent was to write it up truthfully that it would be changed by an operations supervisor later, but that is another story altogether.

We cannot continue to operate this airline on the premise that we are SWA—we are not as bad as the others; they will continue to fly with us. I first noticed a marked reduction in customer service when RX (or API or whatever they are calling themselves these days) first appeared on the scene. It was acceptable practice for customersto wait 12-13 minutes in line to receive their boarding passes atthe counter. We don’t need to man all the customer service agentstations. We have kiosks now! We need more productivity. Weneed to tweak schedules to maximize utilization. We need to usemodels to dictate the schedules and gate utilization. In theirinfinite wisdom, the “Staff Planning” department was created. Ihave been told by vice presidents that schedules from headquarters are suggestions and can be tweaked by localmanagement to better fit the station’s needs. This message hasnot been passed along to the stations, or it appears that localmanagement, in most stations, does not want to be labeled as anon-team player and just goes along with it and attempts to makeit work.We have fewer members today than we had three years ago, yetwe have opened six cities—ECP, BOS, LGA, MKE, MSP, andSFO—without increasing the overall staffing levels. We havealready announced and are opening CHS, EWR, and GSP thisyear. We continue to expand and grow, yet we cannot staff whatwe operate now. Staffing levels are at an all time low. Accordingto the last staffing report for 2-11-11, we are below authorizedstaffing levels (on the ramp) in 41 of the 69 cities we currentlyserve, almost 60% of them. We are below authorized staffinglevels in operations in 21 of the 69 cities, 30%.The staffing shortages increase injuries and lead to even greatershortages in manpower. It is a vicious cycle, and the victims aremy fellow brothers and sisters. I have seen mandatory overtimeaffect their quality of life and expose them to discipline. At SWA,we love to pat ourselves on the back. We tout our successes andpublicize how we treat our employees like family. We havealways bragged about how many people want to come to work atSWA. Here is a novel idea, if that is true, hire them! If our agentsonly did their jobs correctly 40% of the time, we would not beemployed here. We are held accountable; someone needs to beheld accountable in the People Department.I hear the excuses. “It’s too hard to hire people due tobackground checks and the Department of Labor rules.” Thatoverused cop-out explanation only holds so much water. Howdoes it explain the shortages in ops? There is no reason foroperations to be short. We used to promote from within. Theyhave already passed background checks, and they are here. Ihave a hunch that recruiters, managers, and directors in thePeople Department aren’t required to work on their days off.Share our pain! They should only get one day off a week until allstaffing is at its authorized levels. They need to work anextension of 3 hours and 45 minutes every day or face disciplinefor refusing it. Try to make plans while not knowing if you willleave at your scheduled time off.My hat is off to all the members of TWU Local 555 for the job thatyou do on a daily basis. The women and men of this local do somuch under very difficult and trying conditions. You load theluggage while dealing with many elements, such as bad weatherconditions, heavier bags, and extreme shortages in staffinglevels. Due to your willingness and ability to handle HRs thecompany was able to tap into this very lucrative market and addneeded funds to our bottom line. Cargo revenue continues to riseevery year. This adds money to the bottom line, which is solelydue to the members of this local handling this commodity.The “no fees” advertising campaign has greatly enhanced ourbottom line by adding additional passengers. These additionalpassengers bring luggage along with them when they travel. Thisluggage is loaded and handled by the members of this local. Theplanes are full! We are carrying more passengers than we everhave before. In the 4th quarter of last year we had a record loadfactor of 80.7%. That is factoring in all departures, and 80.7% ofall available seats were occupied! That is incredible.At the top of your paychecks it states, “Deposits made possibleby your Southwest Customers.” Our passengers provide therevenue by buying their tickets, but it is on the backs of themembers of this local that every SWA employee is provided witha good living: all the way from our CEO to the lowest paidemployee at HDQ. We are a part of the team and, in my opinion,the most important part of the team.Be safe and may God protect and keep you.

Fraternally,

jerry.mccrummen@twu555.org