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Dec. 11—Southwest Airlines plans to furlough up to 1,182 Bay Area employees as part of national temporary job cuts of 6,828 workers as travel demand remains sluggish.
The furloughs include up to 739 employees at Oakland International Airport, 285 at San Francisco International Airport and 208 at San Jose International Airport, according to a letter to California's Employment Development Department.
Additional furloughs of up to 1,330 employees in Southern California and 208 in Sacramento are planned. They are scheduled to begin on March 15.
Union negotiations have stalled and the airline is seeking to cut staffing, Southwest said.
The company, headquartered in Dallas, has about 58,000 total employees. Like the rest of the travel industry, Southwest has been battered by the coronavirus pandemic. In the third quarter, the company lost $1.2 billion and revenue dropped 68.2% compared with the prior year.
Other airlines had major furloughs in October after federal aid expired. United, SFO's biggest carrier, had Bay Area furloughs of fewer than 3,000 employees as of October and 13,000 nationwide. American Airlines furloughed 19,000 people.
"We have been engaged with our unions since early October seeking temporary cost reductions to help offset over one billion dollars of overstaffing costs projected for 2021. Our absolute goal is to preserve every job at Southwest Airlines; however, due to a lack of meaningful progress in negotiations, we had to proceed with issuing notifications to additional employees who are valued members of the Southwest Family," said Russell McCrady, Southwest's vice president of labor relations, in a statement.
"We are willing to continue negotiations quickly to preserve jobs if we can achieve the support that allows Southwest to combat the ongoing economic challenges created by the decline in demand for air travel," he said.
Roland Li is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: [email protected] Twitter: @rolandlisf
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