It was reported that Hawaii’s bellwether Hawaiian Airlines has had to cancel 51 interisland flights in just two days this holiday week as a result of a pilot training issue.
This was first reported to us by a friend who got stuck trying to fly interisland. Then, Hawaiian Air’s Alex Da Silva said “We are also substituting our 128-seat Boeing 717 aircraft with larger aircraft – including our 189-seat Airbus A321neos and 278-seat A330s – on 33 of those flights to ensure we can accommodate all guests scheduled to fly with us.
The issue revolves around a flight simulator needed for pilot training. It was inoperative earlier this year, and that resulted in a backlog of the airline’s recertification of its pilots on the Boeing 717 aircraft used for interisland flights. The equipment has now been repaired, and Alex said that “With our 717 flight simulator now back online for several weeks, we are training at full capacity to minimize future disruptions.”
Southwest pilots warn of a sharp rise in fatigue and “safety is becoming untenable.”
Pilot-related issues are occurring at multiple airlines. Earlier this week, the SWA pilot union issued a letter of warning that certainly caught our eye in relation to Southwest Hawaii flights as well as the entire industry. You can read it for yourself below.
One particular reason for our concern is that Southwest Hawaii flights are of longer duration than many SWA flights. These flights to the islands are comparable in duration only to Southwest’s transcontinental flights.
Fatigue is considered a leading contributor regarding airline accidents and longer duration flight missions may be one factor associated with increased fatigue.
Since Southwest began increasing flights following a Covid lull, the union indicated a very concerning rise in pilot fatigue, with as much as a 600% increase in one month reported, and February and March 2020 up over 300%. That was compared with pilot fatigue pre-Covid.
The letter states that “Fatigue, both acute and cumulative, has become Southwest Airlines’ number-one safety threat. 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. SWAPA Pilots are tasked with, and pride themselves on, making safety their highest priority. Over the last 12 months, our Pilots have filed an ever-increasing number of ASAP reports showing errors that can be directly correlated to fatigue.
In fairness to SWA, other U.S. carriers have also reported similar pilot fatigue associated with increased and unsustainable overtime and unstable schedules, according to WSJ.
The Pilots are fatigued? They had several
months off !
Tell that to the Dr. and Nurses who did
Double duty and no time off for 2 years .
How many hours are Pilots working ? I thought there was a limit to
How often they can fly .
Did everyone forget all the workers that were let go because they didn’t want the Covid shot ?? The airlines caused this problem themselves with that stupid rule. And all the other jobs that were lost due to that political scam.
Southwest didn’t “let anyone go” over covid vaccinations.
100%
I know several persoanlly.. many went to other airlines, including Southwest… Guess they’re not as dangeruous as Hawaiian’s CEO thinks.
So should I fly southwest. I have up coming trip to Florida. Will I be safe?
Cry babies..i am sorry you can only fly 1000 hrs a year. Crew rest is there.
Those 1000 hours are engine running time. Everytime you see us in the airport, we aren’t getting paid. Every time you see us pre flighting an aircraft, we aren’t getting paid. Every time you see doing anything outside of the cockpit, we aren’t getting paid. Basically anytime you see us in uniform, we aren’t getting paid. Please do not equate what we do to your 40 hr work week. It has no comparison at all.
Thank you, Mark, for your response to that comment. I appreciate your and other pilots’ hard work, paid and unpaid, that we passengers rely on to get us safely to our destinations!
Bidding you Blue skies and Tailwinds!
Lisa B
I was forced to retire from Delta due to the age 65 rule. I would fill in as would other retirees on a temporary basis if the FAA would resend that onerous rule
I think you mean rescind.
I didn’t want to mention that. I feel I make enough typos myself that I don’t have to point out typos made by others. I think LiGTHNiNG1 knows the difference between resend and rescind. And, I’m sure most of us were expecting rescind and therefore read the sentence with that word.