Kurt Heidemann:
Today's SWAPA Number is 27. That's the number of senators on the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation. This week, that committee held a hearing to investigate the airline industry and invited SWAPA president, Casey Murray, to testify. If you've had any doubt about the value of SWAPA's Government Affairs Committee, this hearing should be all the proof you need. GAC's relationships and their credibility in DC opened the door and our union's data-driven analysis got Casey a seat at the table, which allowed Casey to reach a nationwide audience. This week was proof that having a strong presence on Capitol Hill is critical to getting SWAPA pilots' message heard by policymakers and the public. I'm Kurt Heidemann, and on this bonus edition of the SWAPA Number, we've collected all of the senators' questions and Casey's answers during that hearing.
Chair Cantwell:
Now, Captain Murray, welcome. Thank you for being here.
Casey Murray:
Good morning, Chair Cantwell, Ranking Member Cruz. Thank you for the opportunity to testify before you today. I ask that my written and oral testimony be submitted for the record. My name is Captain Casey Murray, the president of the Southwest Airlines' Pilots Association. I'm a Boeing 737 captain at Southwest and I'm proud to represent 10,235 of the best pilots in the world. For years, our pilots have been sounding the alarm about Southwest's inadequate crew scheduling technology and outdated operational processes. Unfortunately, those warnings have been summarily ignored by Southwest leaders. Our pilots were right, but SWAPA's goal in today's hearing is not to say we told you so, but right doesn't make our pilots feel any more secure. Our hearts are broken. The December 2022 meltdown was as tragic as it was historic. SWAPA's singular goal in participating in today's hearing is to help ensure it never happens again.
We want to be an integral part of its rise once again to lead the industry. While it would be easy to kick our company when it's down, this is our company and consequently, our careers and our livelihoods. SWAPA pilots desire what the American public deserves, a healthy company with happy employees who have the tools they need to deliver a safe, reliable product to consumers. Those who not learn from history are doomed to repeat it, and Southwest has a history of repetition. Unfortunately, despite many opportunities, Southwest Airlines' management did not listen to its pilots and frontline employees who saw this meltdown coming. Pilots have a unique perspective to the airline's operation. From the flight deck, we coordinate with nearly every employee group from the frontline to the airline headquarters. In order to lead a safe operation, you must be present and willing to listen and collaborate with everyone on your team.
What our pilots saw, and have known for years, is that Southwest struggles to manage nearly any disruption regardless of the cause. Our recent history and the data shows a pattern of increasingly disruptive operational failures, misprioritization of resources, and worst of all, a hollow leveraging of our culture to cover up poor management decisions. As we detailed in our written testimony, there were three main causes of the December 2022 meltdown. First, Southwest leadership failed to properly prepare for Winter Storm Elliott. Second, Southwest managers failed to modernize crew management processes and related IT systems. Finally, Southwest failed to listen to the warnings of its frontline employees. Much has been made of Southwest's shortcomings in IT and technology, and while that is a causal factor in this failure, that explanation alone misses the underlying issue that the conditions were set years ago when Southwest leaders allowed the airline to drift away from an employee-centered culture.
Instead, Southwest leaders focused on making the airline the darling of the investment community while building an insulated and strictly vertical structure where decision-making authority was slowly stripped away from frontline experts with the most situational awareness. Warning signs were ignored, poor performance was condoned, excuses were made, processes atrophied, core values were forgotten. The management pitfall is called normalization of drift, and it was coined after studying the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster. As a result of this normalized drift, our once great company went from Herb's legacy of personality and agility to becoming a technocrat's dream with stove piped fiefdoms that communicated vertically with little to no horizontal integration. Thankfully, the accountants who got us here are no longer in charge, at least not officially. Perhaps that is a silver lining, but only if Southwest's new leaders take bold action immediately. There must be clear actions, not words, and that's what's expected from us.
Our hope is that SWAPA's data-driven testimony provides value to the airline industry, the committee, and to the public. We all want to understand how this happened and what must be done together to ensure that it never happens again. As Herb Kelleher famously said, "Never rest on your laurels or you'll get a thorn in your backside." Somehow Southwest forgot this lesson along the way and as a result, Southwest failed 2 million customers. We hope the committee will use this opportunity to ensure that Southwest delivers a timeline for upgrading its true scheduling technology, improving its crew management processes, and a commitment to collaborate with frontline employees and labor to earn back their trust. Southwest used to be an airline that supported its employees, it has become an airline that is supported by its employees. I'm proud to represent the pilots of SWAPA, I thank you for the opportunity to testify, and I look forward to answering the committee's questions.
Chair Cantwell:
I definitely think Herb Kelleher would be here if he was the CEO, he would've been here today because that's Herb. I actually sat with him on the Roatan Commission, so got to know a lot about his views on aviation. I think Captain Murray is going to say that you lost operational control and that is the FAA's oversight to make sure that you have operational control. So if you don't make the technology investment to keep up that operational control, then yes, we should say something about that. Now, Captain Murray, did Southwest Airlines lose operational control in the aftermath of the weather event?
Casey Murray:
My answer is yes. I think the written testimony provides a lot of data and tells the story of how it did. Mr. Watterson's own written testimony, fourth paragraph under, "Why did this happen?" He actually says, "We could not execute the plan we had established for operating during the storm." And I believe that answers your question as well.
Chair Cantwell:
What do you think it takes to get this system changed and upgraded so that if we have another massive weather event, the point-to-point system that is unique to Southwest doesn't have the same delays and outages?
Casey Murray:
Well, I think it's going to take a much more holistic approach to operating our network. We love our network. We think it's the magic behind Southwest. That's not our issue. Our issue is when there is a disruption, it takes Southwest much longer to recover. And more for us, it's a process in how they program that IT and how they connect pilots to airplanes and flight attendants, which is what causes the ongoing execution problems. So that is something that can be done relatively quickly. Any pilot who is here, and these pilots have come here on their day off, can attest to the chaos that they go through when going to work. They don't know where they're going to go. They don't know where they're going to overnight. They don't know how long they're going to be on duty and they don't know how long their overnights going to be. So it's holistic.
Ranking Member Cruz:
Murray, let me return to what you and Chair Cantwell were just discussing. In the view of the Southwest pilots, what caused 16,000 flights to be canceled, and what needs to be done to prevent that from happening again?
Casey Murray:
Well, thank you, Ranking Member Cruz. Again, it was a cascade of events that ultimately caused the failure in IT. The failure in its ability to keep up. The loss of where pilots, where airplanes, and where crews were. A failure of infrastructure. Our operations agents who have a front row to our customers and board our airplanes weren't sure what was going on nor could get answers. So it was a failure, epically, from top to bottom. We had crews that were on the phone, we have screenshots, 17 hours on the phone trying to get ahold of someone. Many of our frontline employees went above and beyond and were able to cobble together a crew, cobble together an airplane, get passengers, and they did that on their own. So when I said in my oral testimony that they rely and they've continued to rely more and more on being supported by their employees, the employees are the ones that did the Herculean task of trying to recover.
Ranking Member Cruz:
So in your testimony, you expressed frustration that in your view, management was not listening to the concerns of the pilots. Could you elaborate on that frustration and do you feel that the changes that are needed are being implemented now?
Casey Murray:
The pilots have been sounding the alarm bells for over a decade. We've been the whistleblowers on this. We've watched this progress and seen these meltdowns occur. I've laid it out in my written testimony for you. We've seen these meltdowns occur with more frequency and more severity. We love our airline and they have to be better and we are trying to partner with them. And I think that's key. The frontline operators, whether it's a baggage cart, whether it's a fueling truck, whether it's a pilot, whether it's a flight attendant, whether it's a customer service agent, all have frontline experience in seeing what goes on. And there has to be a partnering. We are a very data-driven organization at SWAPA. We have provided them point-to-point solutions for their point-to-point network. This isn't an IT fix, this isn't a plug and play. Again, it's got to be holistic and it's got to be addressed and it can be addressed tomorrow in a process.
Ranking Member Cruz:
And to clarify, your criticism is not with the point-to-point model. Southwest is unusual. Most other airlines have a hub-and-spoke model, whereas Southwest has a point-to-point model. And some members of this committee have raised concerns with the point-to-point model. I will say, as a customer, I actually find it very convenient and there's a reason I'm on a Southwest flight just about every week of the year, but your concern is not with the point-to-point model, is that correct?
Casey Murray:
Absolutely not. I do believe that if you look at Southwest Airlines' history in comparison to the rest of the industry, since our existence, we have made money every year except during 2020. The rest of the airlines have not. And I believe that is the magic of our point-to-point system. I think our customers love it. I believe it gives us a competitive edge. More importantly, during downtimes, it provides some flexibility and some agility to take advantage of times. Herb Kelleher has a famous quote that we've predicted 12 out of the last five recessions and it was our point-to-point network that provided for that.
Speaker 5:
Has Southwest done enough to ensure SWAPA and other workers have a seat at the table with any forthcoming technology upgrades?
Casey Murray:
Thank you, Senator. I think that's 100% critical as we move forward. And it's got to be all of labor. And up to this point, we've seen some minor touches and been included in two meetings, but really addressing our process failures and how that's going to be programmed into our IT, the frontline operators must be involved. And that is something that we're insisting on and it's something that I hope comes from this testimony today.
Speaker 6:
Captain Murray, in your testimony, you highlight how in November you warned about risks associated with the crew scheduling and IT systems. Why do you think your warnings were ignored?
Casey Murray:
Thank you, Senator. That podcast was one of many warnings that we had relayed to Southwest either publicly, privately, and as I testified a little bit earlier, we've tried to offer solutions where we see breakdowns. So we've gotten very little traction in that regard. So as we have moved forward, we have been expressing some very dire warnings about how brittle-
Speaker 7:
Senator Graham has a bill that would allow pilots.
Chair Cantwell:
Is your microphone on?
Speaker 7:
Yeah-
Chair Cantwell:
Okay.
Speaker 7:
... it is. Is it picking up?
Speaker 8:
No.
Speaker 7:
Okay. That would allow... Let's see what he calls this thing, let experienced pilots fly at. And it would allow pilots to fly up into age 67. So what I would like to hear, Mr. Watterson, let me start with you, see what you think about that. And then let's see. Is it Captain Murray? I'd like to hear from you on this also.
Speaker 9:
Thank you, Senator. I would respectfully say that I think more can be done on the other end of the spectrum, so to speak. It takes far too much money for an airline pilot to go through schooling and get the experience to qualify to become an airline pilot. Other professions in the United States receive government assistance and education process. And that's not [inaudible 00:14:58] available to pilots.
Speaker 7:
Now, that takes time, sir. So I'm talking about alleviating issues today. I live in Nashville, fly you all a lot. I know sometimes we have grouchy flight attendants on planes, people that are overworked. I talk to pilots, they're doing yeoman's work and God bless them all and all the ticket agents and gate agents that work so hard through this debacle. So, this is something that could be done in the short-term. You're talking about a long-term fix, I'm talking about today. So just answer me yes or no. Would you support that?
Speaker 9:
Thank you, Senator. Unfortunately, I'll defer to Captain Murray. We stand behind our pilots even with regard to age lines?
Speaker 7:
All right, Captain.
Casey Murray:
And mine won't be a simple yes or no. I believe very strongly, especially with FAA reauthorization, that a lot of our issues with where the pilot shortage is occurring is at the evaluation level and FAA availability to really test pilots and help them come up and get through check rides. So moving forward, that's where we have to address it is really at the cradle. I've spent a fair amount of time with-
Speaker 7:
Well, and I agree with that. And when we do the FAA reauth, we can have those discussions. A part of that is someone who is 65 years old today and is going to turn 66 next month and they are in good health and they have a great record and they want to continue to fly for a year or two. It is allowing them to stay and to continue to work. That is simply what this bill does.
Casey Murray:
And what we saw in 2008 with the age 60 to 65 had some caveats in there having to do with medicals, having to do with who flew. There were ICAO issues. So we would have to see how that is addressed in allowing from 65 to seven or eight, however that works.
Speaker 7:
Okay.
Speaker 10:
How do you think you guys are going to fit into this assessment and what are going to be the highlights from your perspective?
Casey Murray:
Well, thank you, Senator, and thank you for the question. I think that SWAPA is uniquely qualified to provide input and we have been trying to do that for many years. I like to say that Southwest has an airline to run, we have an airline to analyze. And that's what we do. And we have some of the best in the world at analyzing. And as I've spoken about processes before, that is where I feel along with an IT support system for the correct processes has to be addressed. Mr. Watterson just testified that tech was an issue but not the issue. And I agree.
He said primarily though, it was the capacity to handle the storm. And with that, I disagree with. We've been sounding the alarms for years and I know that's been echoed in this room today over two dozen times through podcasts, through email blasts. We have been trying to draw attention to the chaos that all of our pilots have to deal with every day. So I am concerned, moving forward, that we're not going to be addressed or any of the frontline employees are going to be addressed as true partners. And that has to be done.
Speaker 10:
There's been a couple of reports in the news just in the last month of some near misses within our airline system. Fortunately, nothing happened in terms of an accident, but I think most Americans take for granted but are proud of how safe our passenger airline service is because it is quite remarkable when you think about it. But are there any things that you, Ms. Pinkerton, or anyone else on the panel think that we need to be thinking here to get ahead of the curve? What I always think when Congress is acting at its best, it's preempting challenges and getting in front of them before... You don't want to have a hearing because there was a major mid-air crash and the FAA realized it had a problem. From a safety perspective, is there anything right now that any of you would say, "Hey, make sure you're getting on this and watching it before something bad happens?" We don't want anything bad to happen.
Chair Cantwell:
Quickly, Captain Murray and Mr. Hudson.
Casey Murray:
I just want to add that there is an infrastructure issue that has to be addressed. That's what y'all will be doing. But at the end of the day, whatever failures occurred and it's still under investigation, the latest one, at the end of the day, what saved those two airplanes was an experienced professional crew that broke the air chain at the very last moment. And it is an incumbent as we move forward and as we see emerging technologies that two crew members stay on the flight deck to prevent exactly what occurred in Austin.