Southwest Airlines Flight Attendant Allegedly Quit Job After Passenger-Facing Crew Dispute

A Southwest Airlines flight attendant allegedly quit after a verbal argument with other cabin crew in front of a fully boarded plane. A report by View From The Wing has suggested that passengers were told a flight attendant was sick before the captain of the flight to Kansas City came on the loudspeaker and explained that the two had ‘personality differences’.

Just this past Friday, Southwest flight 557 was set to operate from Dallas Love Field (DAL) to Kansas City International Airport (MCI), when the pushback of the jet was delayed due to the disagreement between the two co-workers. The argument set the flight back several hours.

Personality Differences Led To The Delay Of Southwest Airlines Flight To Kansas City

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Shared on a passenger’s Reddit page, an eyewitness passenger onboard described the argument between the two Southwest flight attendants taking place at the front of the aircraft in full view for all of the passengers onboard. This resulted in the crew being taken off the aircraft and then it being blamed on them being sick.

This performance in front of the other passengers forced the captain to speak to the passengers onboard to explain the situation, with the blame being put down to personality differences. Further claims have suggested that the flight was already delayed by ten minutes, but the full delay of up to two hours before the jet finally pushed back and departed for Kansas City was down to the crew dispute.

Simple Flying reached out to Southwest for comment on Saturday; however, an airline spokesperson could not immediately be reached.

A Crew Member Quits After A Disagreement Got Heated

Credit: Robin Guess | Shutterstock

As suggested by VFTW, one of the Southwest flight attendants involved in the argument has since quit their job with the world’s largest operator of the Boeing 737, after they were embarrassed after having a verbal argument with another crew member in front of a fully boarded aircraft.

Southwest flight 557, a regular scheduled six-weekly service between Dallas and Kansas City, was scheduled to depart at 2:25 PM. Due to an initial maintenance delay, and then the subsequent crew argument, the flight was delayed two hours and 24 minutes before the aircraft eventually took off.

The short one-hour, four-minute journey then landed in Kansas City at 6:16 PM that evening, two hours and 21 minutes behind its initial scheduled arrival time of 3:55 PM. The aircraft operating the service was that of a Boeing 737-700, bearing registration N255WN. Full aircraft characteristics are in the table below, as per ch-aviation:

Down One Crew Member, Forced Finding A Replacement So The Flight Could Depart

Credit: Ryken Papy | Shutterstock

With the crew member allegedly quitting and refusing to operate the flight, this ultimately forced Southwest to find a replacement crew member to crew the service to Kansas City, and was the primary cause of the flight’s delay.

To crew a 737-700, the typical requirements are two pilots and three cabin crew to serve the total of 137 passengers in an all-economy class configuration. Southwest is the largest operator of the 737-700, with more than 270 active aircraft in its fleet.