This weekend, over 2,000 reported Southwest Airlines cancellations introduced untold hundreds of passengers to their knees. The airline has the boring motive: “weather.” Conservatives have a extra thrilling one: a working-class rebel in opposition to Joe Biden’s vaccination tyranny. So victory in opposition to Democrats is weary plenty pressured to face in line for hours at daybreak, sleep on the floor, and make TikToks, whereas baggage piles up across the conveyor belt.

Among them, Ted Cruz is spreading an unverified rumor that pilots staged an enormous “sickout” to protest “Biden’s illegal vaccine mandate.” Newsweek’s deputy opinion editor Batya Ungar-Sargon asked: “Were the canceled flights the result of a ‘sick out’ on the part of pilots refusing to get vaccinated?” and continued, baselessly, to conclude that this represents a “powerful form of collective action” by working-class vaccine-refusers.

Southwest Airlines pilots have denied that principle, which appears spun from the actual fact Southwest Airlines Pilots Association (SWAPA), a bargaining unit representing over 9,000 pilots, filed a request final Friday asking {that a} Dallas federal court docket block the airline from implementing vaccine mandates.

If Cruz learn the motion, he’d likely hate their rationale; SWAPA’s staking out a labor rights stance, arguing that Southwest illegally uncared for to discount with the union over the coverage change. The movement says that Southwest additionally doesn’t supply minimal pay throughout obligatory quarantine time, and different airways got here to the bargaining desk to barter covid-19 insurance policies with their unions. They say the airline sprung a last-minute deadline on pilots which weakened the union by forcing it right into a “fire drill response.”

In truth, SWAPA want to see violent anti-maskers do jail time; in a joint letter this summer time, it pleaded with the Department of Justice to implement fines and/or up-to 20 years of jail time for passengers who’ve currently assaulted crew members. Passengers indignant about mask-wearing are the first perpetrators of rising in-flight assaults, grounding planes, and forcing the crew to name regulation enforcement on the bottom.

The union tried to place “sickout” theories to relaxation in a press release, writing: “SWAPA is aware of operational difficulties affecting Southwest Airlines today due to a number of issues, but we can say with confidence that our Pilots are not participating in any official or unofficial job actions.” In an e mail to Gizmodo, Southwest, too, wrote that the disruptions “were not a result of Southwest Employee demonstrations.”

“Bad weather and ATC issues in Florida, a large operation for us, on Friday night created significant flight disruptions throughout our network and we spent the weekend working to recover from the high number of displaced Crews and aircraft,” they mentioned.

The FAA additionally mentioned in an e mail that “[f]light delays and cancellations occurred for a few hours Friday afternoon due to widespread severe weather, military training, and limited staffing in one area of the Jacksonville Air Route Traffic Control Center.” They added that “[s]ome airlines continue to experience scheduling challenges due to aircraft and crews being out of place.”

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Southwest Airlines advised Gizmodo that they hope operations return to regular tomorrow and that prospects ought to “reach to our Customer relations team to discuss their specific situation.”