As the holiday travel season approaches, Southwest Airlines calls for employees to help at some of its busiest airports, including Dallas Love Field.
Dallas-based Southwest Airlines is asking for non-operational corporate employees to volunteer for eight-hour shifts covering customer service tasks like answering questions and providing directions.
“We are expecting a very busy holiday season (which we are thankful for!), but we also want to do everything in our power to set our front-line employees up for success,” the company said to employees in an email.
Southwest will offer loyalty program points as an incentive to encourage employees to work during the busiest time of year. Employees can exchange points accumulated in frequent flyer accounts for free airline tickets. The company says it will award between 60,000 and 120,000 Rapid Rewards points, which amounts to roughly $700 to $1,400 towards air travel, reports the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
The company will accept volunteers from its staff from December 20 until January 3. Other Southwest airports requesting extra help are Atlanta, Baltimore-Washington, Chicago-Midway, D.C., LaGuardia in New York, Oakland, Orlando, Phoenix Sky Harbor, Ronald Reagan in Washington, Sacramento, and St. Louis.
The company has experienced staffing issues as no-shows, and unreachable flight attendants persist. The problem worsened after November 9, when Southwest lifted its policy requiring doctor’s notes when calling in sick, said Sonya Lacore, Vice President of Inflight Operations, reports MSN. The procedure change caused sick calls to jump from twenty to ninety an hour for two hours in a row.
Southwest has concentrated efforts toward ensuring they are well-staffed through December and January, especially after the early-October catastrophe that ended with more than 2,000 canceled flights and cost them $75 million.
At the company’s investor day conference on Wednesday, incoming CEO Robert Jordan said, “There’s been an all-out focus on hiring and staffing.”
Southwest is in the process of staffing, intending to hire 5,000 workers this year and another 8,000 in the coming year.
