Southwest CEO: ‘We don’t want to furlough employees, we don’t want to ground airplanes, we don’t want to close cities’
The CEO of Southwest Airlines said he does not want to furlough employees or ground planes during the coronavirus pandemic.
The CEO of Southwest Airlines said he does not want to furlough employees or ground planes during the coronavirus pandemic.
“We don’t want to furlough employees, we don’t want to ground airplanes, we don’t want to close cities,” Gary Kelly said in a video posted to the carrier’s blog on Monday. “All of that depends on passengers and air travel returning.”
Southwest, which suspended international service in March, last week posted a new flight schedule for travel June 6 to June 27, noting that the airline’s flight activity has been reduced by nearly 50 percent, to approximately 2,000 flights per day.
Kelly said he doesn’t know when the airline will begin ramping up service.
“I don’t think air travel will snap right back to where it was here this year,” Kelly said. “Maybe it will come back next year. If this is a real recession, and a bad recession, it could take four or five years.”
Kelly said the company is busy preparing business plans for the following three scenarios: a very sluggish recovery, a rapid recovery, and a prolonged recession.
“We’re just going to do the best we can to perform the best we can in any of those scenarios,” Kelly said.
In an interview with the Global Business Travel Association on Monday, Tom Nealon, president of Southwest Airlines, said business travel tends to return more slowly than leisure travel, so it will be important for the business community to begin traveling again as soon as they feel comfortable. He also said his airline will fight to avoid a furlough.
“We’ve never had a furlough at Southwest Airlines,” he said. “We’ve never had an involuntary layoff at Southwest Airlines. So we are very very protective of that. That’s part of who we are. This really is a family.”
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