"It's a very different environment than a 9-to-5 job," said Paula Darby, Southwest's new ramp retention specialist at Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport, where it's the largest carrier. "What I'm doing is keeping up the morale."
The cheery king of the domestic airlines that's known for its loyal, well-compensated employees and gets flooded with hundreds of thousands of resumes a year is struggling to fully staff the tarmac at these large urban airports and in California, Southwest executives said.
It can be grueling work. Handlers must brave the elements for hours, crouched on their knees as they hoist heavy bags into planes' cargo holds. They have to move quickly to meet Southwest's fast turnarounds of its planes.
Mandatory overtime is required for new recruits, who often quit or get fired for poor attendance before their six months of probation is up.
"In between that entry-level wage and that second year, we're losing a lot of people," said Charles Cerf, president of Local 555 of the Transport Workers Union, which represents more than 6,800 Southwest ground workers. "It's a Southwest problem in just those three to four cities."
The shortages come at a time when heightened anti-terrorist measures are adding pressure to baggage handling operations across the airline industry.
http://www.baltimoresun.com/business/bal-b...0,1939623.story
The cheery king of the domestic airlines that's known for its loyal, well-compensated employees and gets flooded with hundreds of thousands of resumes a year is struggling to fully staff the tarmac at these large urban airports and in California, Southwest executives said.
It can be grueling work. Handlers must brave the elements for hours, crouched on their knees as they hoist heavy bags into planes' cargo holds. They have to move quickly to meet Southwest's fast turnarounds of its planes.
Mandatory overtime is required for new recruits, who often quit or get fired for poor attendance before their six months of probation is up.
"In between that entry-level wage and that second year, we're losing a lot of people," said Charles Cerf, president of Local 555 of the Transport Workers Union, which represents more than 6,800 Southwest ground workers. "It's a Southwest problem in just those three to four cities."
The shortages come at a time when heightened anti-terrorist measures are adding pressure to baggage handling operations across the airline industry.
http://www.baltimoresun.com/business/bal-b...0,1939623.story
