Southwest Airlines announces reduction of staff at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport

CLAYTON COUNTY, Ga. — Wednesday morning, Southwest Airlines confirmed to Channel 2 Action News that they would be reducing the staff operating in the Atlanta area as they “continue to optimize the network to meet demand and maximize profitability.”

According to the airline, booking patterns as they are now “simply don’t support continuing our previous levels of service at ATL.”

As a result, they are reducing how many staff they have at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport.

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However, the airline said all of their employees will be given opportunities to transfer stations, and the schedule changes won’t be in effect for at least six months.

“With these changes, we are targeting underperforming markets with lower demand, placing focus on local originating Passengers with service to and from Southwest points of strength (for example, AUS, DEN, DAL) and maintaining network accessibility with depth of service to Backbone stations such as BWI, HOU, and MDW,” Southwest told Channel 2 Action News in a statement.

Going further, the company said that while staffing levels at the Atlanta airport would be “drawn down,” they planned to boost services at Nashville and six other markets from there, including Albuquerque, Albany, Jackson, Memphis (intra-Tennessee service for the first time), Providence and Tulsa.

As far as the direct situation in Atlanta, a Southwest Airlines spokesman said “Decisions like these are difficult for our Company because of the effects on our People, but we have a history of more than 53 years of ensuring they are taken care of.”

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