Southwest Pilots Union To Vote On New Contract in January

Pilots would earn a 50% pay increase over a five-year period, or about $12 billion, under the tentative deal.

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A Southwest Airlines plane in the sky.
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After more than three years of negotiations, the Southwest Airlines Pilots Association (SWAPA) is set to vote on a tentative agreement on January 22, following approval by the union's board of directors yesterday (December 20).

"We know that the last few years have been difficult for our pilots as well as our customers, but we believe that this (tentative agreement) rewards our pilots as well as improving reliability for our passengers,” SWAPA President Captain Casey Murray said in a statement. “Our membership has fought for almost four years to reach an agreement with Southwest Airlines. They now have the opportunity to evaluate this deal and cast their vote accordingly.”

Under the tentative agreement, pilots will earn a 50% pay increase over a five-year period, equating to about $12 billion. The deal comes after pilots of American, Delta and United airlines finalized contracts with their airlines, each winning double-digit pay hikes, according to media reports.

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“Our Pilots are exemplary aviators, and this agreement would give them industry-leading pay rates, and numerous quality-of-life enhancements, while also providing opportunities for operational efficiencies,” said Adam Carlisle, vice president of Southwest Labor Relations. “I thank both negotiating committees and the National Mediation Board(NMB) for their hard work to achieve this milestone, and I am glad our pilots will get to vote on this agreement soon.”

As Kiplinger previously reported, the focus areas of the negotiations were pilot fatigue, compensation and quality of life provisions. 

But pilot fatigue is the center of SWAPA’s concerns. In an open letter to the airline in April 2022, SWAPA said: “Our primary job as pilots is identifying and capturing errors in order to break the error chain, but our ability to do so is compromised when we are fatigued.”

Earlier this year, the NMB  denied SWAPSA's request to halt contract talks with the carrier, forcing negotiations to resume and continuing the years-long saga to complete a contract for the Southwest pilots.

Federal mediation began in 2022

The airline and union have been in federal mediation since September 2022 and SWAPA negotiators had become “increasingly frustrated with Southwest’s lack of commitment to negotiating in earnest and the pace of productivity during this negotiation cycle,” according to a June SWAPA statement.

As a basis for the request for release from mediation, SWAPA said it believed “further mediation will likely not result in any additional agreements between the parties,” but NMB disagreed and ruled the negotiations must continue on Wednesday.

Pilot strikes are historically rare, as Kiplinger previously reported. The last one occurred in 2010 at Spirit Airlines. The NMB takes pains to prevent work stoppages from disrupting the flow of interstate commerce via the airline and railway industries, with Congress also sometimes stepping in.

Southwest fined over 2022 operational failures

The news comes on the heels of Southwest Airlines agreeing earlier this week to pay a $140 million fine over its operational failures during the 2022 Christmas and New Year holidays, which resulted in cancellation of 16,900 flights and left more than two million travelers stranded.

In announcing the action, Department of Transportation (DOT) Secretary Pete Buttigieg said the fine — which is 30 times larger than any of the DOT's previous penalties — sends a message to airlines that fail their passengers. "We will use the full extent of our authority to hold them accountable,” he said.

For air travel complaints, the DOT directs air travelers to its customer service dashboard.

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Joey Solitro
Joey Solitro
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Joey Solitro is a freelance financial journalist at Kiplinger with more than a decade of experience. A longtime equity analyst, Joey has covered a range of industries for media outlets including The Motley Fool, Seeking Alpha, Market Realist, and TipRanks. Joey holds a bachelor's degree in business administration. 

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