We’ve discussed the weekend meltdown in Southwest Airlines’ flights, but there isn’t much “official” comment apart from attempts to deny the obvious. Two industry observers have now weighed in with “informed” commentary. The first was published in And magazine.
The White House has pressed the airlines to adopt vaccine mandates using the leverage of federal contracts. United knuckled under first and announced a vaccine requirement. Southwest recently announced its employees had until December 8, 2021, to get vaccinated or lose their jobs.
The pilot’s union for Southwest Airlines responded to the mandate by filing suit and trying to block the action, but the pilots themselves are not waiting for court action to make clear where they stand. They have started using vacation and sick days and refusing to show up for work. Other employees have followed suit.
The entire airline has been brought to a standstill. The pushback began Friday when a grand total of 3 out of 35 employees showed up for work at the Jacksonville center. Almost every flight out of Orlando had to be canceled. Almost 50% of Southwest pilots remain unvaccinated. There is no indication that any large numbers are moving to get the vaccine. As bad as things are, they are going to get a lot worse.
Over the weekend Southwest canceled 1900 flights. As of the time this article was published it had already canceled 365 flights for Monday, and 600 more are “delayed.” Southwest Airlines is effectively shut down.
. . .
Southwest pilots are drawing a line in the sand. They, like so many other Americans, are done with the creeping tyranny, and they have grasped that in Washington no one is going to stand up for them and push back. It is time for citizens to act on their own.
This is the beginning, not the end. Other airlines are already reported to be seeing the same issues as Southwest. Those issues will expand. Rumors are swirling that United pilots may join the “sickout” any time.
Amtrak just announced the cancellation of several scheduled trains, because personnel are not showing up to work. The expectation is that such actions will spread.
. . .
This action by the Southwest pilots is not designed to attract attention. It is designed to use economic leverage to compel Southwest to change course. The pilots are not saying they want a conversation. They are saying that if Southwest does not change its policy, they will destroy the company.
There’s more at the link.
The second comment (thanks to the commenters who mentioned it in responses to a previous post here) is from Juan Browne of the Blancolirio channel on YouTube. He’s a professional pilot, and posts about aircraft and air transport issues (particularly accident analyses, etc.) on a regular basis. I highly recommend you make time to watch his 12-minute analysis of the Southwest Airlines situation. It’s an insider’s perspective you won’t find anywhere else right now.
That gets it said.
To put this into perspective, Jason Falter calls the whole COVID-19 vaccination push “the greatest bio-engineering catastrophe in human history” (bold print is his emphasis.
Many of us have been fighting the fraudulent “science” and manipulated stats that Public Health has been using since the beginning of the Covid-19 spread … All perpetrated by governments controlled by corrupt Public Health organizations, which are in turn controlled by the big pharma corps, that seem to be giving the orders. Follow the money and you will see the trail of corruption. Meanwhile the news media and Big Tech (social media and search) continue to censor and smack fake fact checks on true stories that don’t fit the Gov/Public Health/Big Pharma narrative. Never before have the wheels of corruption in the machine, been so easy to see for those looking. Never before have the general public been so easy to take control of and leverage their fear and need for safety on a global scale, as a way to remove their freedom and liberty. The narrative is all. George Orwell was truly ahead of his time.
. . .
I have no doubt that the illegal vaccine mandate in the US (via OSHA) will be coming soon, and this will be a “hill to die on” moment. Do you forsake liberty, freedom, and the Constitution for a false sense of safety? Will you throw away your rights (the rights of your children) that will never be returned? Will you bend the knee to those that are forcing you to take experimental vaccines, that on the low end, have caused 15,000+ deaths and have over 100,000 adverse reactions, with many being lifelong disabilities? Or do you stand up and say, “NO. The freedom and the liberty of this nation cannot be thrown away for a virus that is over 99% survivable.” This is the hill where we now reside … we are fast approaching the point where we either say no to this control, or become slaves to the will of those in power.
Again, more at the link.
Folks, I agree with Mr. Falter. This is the crucial decision we all must face. Will we submit to literal tyranny – the imposition of a vaccine with known and severe dangers, which has been proved over millions of recipients to offer minimal protection, and may even make it more likely that they will be infected – or will we take a stand and refuse to submit? Are we citizens, or are we subjects? Are we free, or are we slaves?
I’m not in the least anti-vaccine: I’ve had many of them – but they’ve been vaccines that worked, and were medically proven, and were offered and accepted freely, without coercion. None of the currently available COVID-19 vaccines are as yet officially approved; none have proved effective in preventing further infection; all have produced side effects, totaling more than half a million cases in the USA so far; and all of their manufacturers have had to be protected from the legal consequences of those side effects by law. Over and above that, I have significant religious and moral objections to them. Putting all those factors together, I’ve chosen to reject current COVID-19 vaccines.
Some principles are too important to be bought and sold, or given up out of fear. Freedom is the first of them. Yes, there may be a price to be paid for freedom. Our forefathers did so. Why should we be afraid to follow their example? It seems many Southwest Airlines pilots aren’t. Good for them!
Peter
The loss of pilot and (admittedly mostly passenger) flights won't be helping the freight situation either. It's going to be one very nasty mess.
The pilots talk to one another (and mechanics, cabin crew, rampers, loadmasters, etc.). They follow the stories because what affects one outfit can easily impact another. While the passenger airlines are highest visibility this could be most critical if the cargo airlines follow Southwest’s example (Amazon Air, Atlas, FedEx, UPS, etc.). Air freight traditionally picks up the slack to expedite otherwise delayed cargo and in the US people have come to overrely on overnight shipping. Cargo rates have skyrocketed. A 747F charter from Hong Kong to JFK used to go for $250k escalating to $400k during peak shipping season (now). In recent weeks that same transport of 220,000# of freight has commonly topped $2 million / flight. Some carriers are operating 777 pax planes with full bellies and cargo bulk loaded in the main compartment (no pax). It wouldn’t take many flight cancellations due to sick outs or work-to-rule white strikes to push the supply chain past the breaking point. The ramps and warehouses are already overloaded on freight handling. It’s crazy to dump $$$ on shipping cargo from Asia to the US in under 24 hours then have it sit on the ramp for 2 weeks waiting to be processed. Very strange times
I struggle to understand why the administration dropped this bomb on the nation at this time. My top two reasons are utterly incompetent and clueless arrogance, or actual destructive evil.
Nothing else even comes close to making any sense.
Why not both? James Bond – style villains are kinda thin on the ground. Lots of room for delusional idiots who believe they're James Bond – style villains, though.
In a similar vein,, Hanlon's Razor has it that we should never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by incompetence. Surely someone has noted what might be called Clarke's Corrollary:
Any sufficiently-advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice…
I'd really like it if we could avoid people shooting each other in the face, but damned if I see any way to prevent it, so long as the fools in charge keep doing things like this…
Yes, more from Major Von Dach's Total Resistance is forthcoming if not already underway…
The head of Southwest's pilot's union was on Glenn Beck's show for the third hour of the show yesterday. He sounded far more sane than the leaders from other unions I've heard.
One of his points was that SW does get some government contracts, but it's 2% of their business. It wouldn't be a big hit if they told the Fed.gov to stick their mandates where the sun don't shine.
already quit my job when they went woke and decided to mandate the vax two months ahead. now i am unemployable pretty much, but i have a small military pension. if they go after that, i go hunting. if they come to force the vax on me, i go hunting. major von dach rocks!
I am still working on a medical exemption because I don't want to lose my job quite yet. If a full mandate without exemptions comes in I'm prepared to walk away but it would be nice to make it til summer so that I can cash out my built up sick leave. If I quit or get terminated it all goes away (and it's a lot). Not exactly giving anyone the bird but just trying to maximize my ROI.
"I struggle to understand why the administration dropped this bomb on the nation at this time."
I think it's a matter of Abidin' talking out of his ass, as dementia patients have a way of doing.
Having watched the video why does everyone feel the need to point out that they had the vaccination with no side effects in the middle of their point? It seems to be a constant.
Will truckers follow? Read where California has banned owner/operators at the ports and have imposed many current and future draconian rules and requirements on all truck operators.
I got my shots (Moderna) in Jan and Feb, my wife in Feb and Mar, and we've had no problems. I have recently celebrated my 78th birthday. Just a data point, heresolong. Your mileage may vary.
Don't know if anyone has mentioned it yet, but the whole 'vaxx resistance' scenario right now seems like a somewhat modified plot from Ann Rands Atlas Shrugged novel. Yeah, a lot of those folks probably read that a sometime. I did, though my eyes glazzed over somewhere mid way through John Galt's monumental speech that took 3 hours [in the book, I can tell you it took me a lot more that 3 hours to read just that part of the book]
I have never reread Atlas, if I did that speech I would leave out.
heresolong:
Maybe they are just whistling past the graveyard?
Living in Victoria, Australia I can no longer go to work as the government has introduced a vaccine mandate for all workers.
I very much object to the whole thing, especially as the roll out is under the guise of everyone who takes it is agreeing to participate in a clinical trial. They have completely ignored anything regarding consent freely given, and as far as I can tell are making the legal argument that work, going to anything, going shopping, and pretty much all the things you need to live are a privilege rather than a right. As such they are allowed to restrict it to those who've taken the vaccine.
Full on clown world.
There's one thing here that doesn't make sense.
Why the insistence that people who have had the disease get vaccinated. It makes no sense given that evidence from Israel (IIRC) that having the disease provides good protection and probably better than the vaccine does