Leaked Southwest Airlines Memo Asks HQ Employees to Help Get Flights on TrackAn internal message requested Southwest Airlines headquarters employees to voluntarily work in scheduling rather than their normal jobs.

Southwest Airlines is working so hard to right its corporate ship that it is enlisting Dallas HQ employees as volunteers on shifts helping with crew scheduling.

Citinga leaked memosent on Wednesday, Business Insider reported that the shifts would be eight hours long and run around the clock. The airline also wants employees to take a break from their regular positions and make the temporary switch.

Southwesttold Insider that additional employees are lending a hand. However, the memo did not mention extra pay for anyone answering the call.

New hires in crew scheduling reportedly undergo extensivetraining. The memo said untrained corporate employees would be trained using a "train the trainer" approach — essentially shadowing schedulers to learn the ropes on the fly. Crew schedulers handle logistics to ensure Southwest flights have correctly scheduled cabin crew members who know their flight assignments.

要求安排志愿者似乎是related to the airline'sdisastrousChristmas weekend. Thanks partly to a "once in a generation" winter storm, more than 9,000 flights — over 91% of domestic flights alone — were canceled between Sunday and Wednesday.

The storm wasn't entirely to blame, as Insider reported that Southwest is running onout-of-date software, though an airline rep indicated a system upgrade might happen in the near future. The rep said that in Southwest's "desired state," the airline "will have automation that can handle crew reassignments quickly and efficiently."

Late Wednesday, theNew York Timesreportedthat over 2,300 Thursday flights were already canceled and that the airline said "it could be days until normal service resumes."