Southwest Airlines has escalated its feud with mechanics, squarely laying the blame on the Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association for its current maintenance woes.
It apologized to customers for continuing flight cancelations while angrily calling out the union for its ‘history of disruption.’
In a thinly veiled threat, Southwest said it is ‘exploring all possible remedies.’
It issued an ‘operational emergency’ several days ago over maintenance issues with hundreds of lights canceled since the weekend.
It canceled 191 on Tuesday and delayed 827 flights, according to flight tracking platform FlightAware.
Nearly 300 have been grounded for Wednesday, although some are likely due to the weather.
The union says the problems are of Southwest’s own making and accused it of intimidation.
"Southwest’s scapegoating of its expert technicians do not bode well for safe operations," said Bret Oesterich, AMFA national director.
He called it an attempt to divert attention away from its safety failures.
The union has been in a long-running dispute with the airline dating back to 2012.
The airline issued the unprecedented ‘operational emergency’ a few days after the latest talks with the union.
The union says Southwest employs the fewest mechanics to number of aircraft of any major US airline.
