Southwest Airlines will replace several members of its board with candidates pushed by Elliott Investment Management to end a monthslong fight with the hedge fund.

Southwest Airlines will revamp its board and the chairman will retire next year, but it intends to stick with CEO Robert Jordan.

In a few weeks, Robert Jordan will become the chief executive of Southwest Airlines, replacing Gary Kelly, the longest-serving CEO among major U.S. carriers.

Southwest Airlines appears to be fixing problems that caused the cancellation of nearly 2,400 flights over the previous three days.

The busiest airline serving the Orlando International Airport will mandate employees to get the COVID-19 vaccine.

Southwest Airlines is reducing the number of flights it will operate the rest of this year.

Travelers are returning to flying, and it's showing up in higher revenue for the airlines.

Change is coming in the leadership of Southwest Airlines.

The long pandemic nightmare for airlines seems to be easing.

(AP Photo/Rick Bowmer, File)Across the United States, air travel is recovering more quickly from the depths of the pandemic, and it is showing up in longer airport security lines and busier traffic on airline websites. "Our last three weeks have been the best three weeks since the pandemic hit, and each week has been better than the one prior,” American Airlines CEO Doug Parker said Monday. However, the airlines still have far to go before travel fully returns to pre-pandemic levels. Since the pandemic hit, air travel has picked up a few times — mostly around holidays — only to drop back down. The airline said people are booking leisure trips to beach and mountain destinations but business travel is still lagging.

An American Airlines Boeing 777 is framed by utility wires as it prepares to land at Miami International Airport, Wednesday, Jan. 27, 2021, in Miami. And now a halting rollout of vaccines threatens to further delay a recovery in travel and the travel industry. On Thursday as airlines reported results, a new coronavirus variant identified in South Africa was found in the United States for the first time, with two cases diagnosed in South Carolina. “Travel restrictions on international have resulted in a reduction in demand,” American Airlines CEO Doug Parker said. AdJETBLUE AIRWAYSJetBlue reported a loss of $381 million, after reporting a profit in the fourth quarter of 2019.

DALLAS – Southwest Airlines will cut pay for nonunion workers in January and says union workers must also accept less pay or face furloughs next year as the pandemic continues to hammer the airline business. Southwest will negotiate similar cuts from union workers, who represent about 85% of the workforce. Southwest Airlines Co. had about 61,000 employees in June but at least 4,200 agreed to leave. All the carriers are lobbying Congress and the White House for another $25 billion in taxpayer money to pay workers for the next six months. Southwest flight attendants began contract negotiations in late 2018, long before the pandemic.

Unions are gaining support in Congress for another $32 billion in federal aid to protect airline workers from layoffs for another six months. In March, companies got $32 billion to help cover payroll costs for six months in exchange for not laying off workers. Thirteen airline unions have joined to lobby Congress for a six-month extension of the payroll provision. Major airlines support the extension, but they are keeping a low profile. American Airlines notified 25,000 workers, Delta Air Lines warned more than 2,500 pilots, and smaller airlines also sent out notices.

That pushed the combined loss of the nation's four biggest airlines to more than $10 billion in just three months. Between them, American and Southwest carried 15.4 million passengers from April through June. Earlier, Delta Air Lines reported a $5.7 billion loss that was worsened by writing down investments in global airline partners who have filed for bankruptcy protection, and United lost $1.6 billion. American, based in Fort Worth, Texas, reported a loss of $2.07 billion, compared with a year-ago profit of $662 million. Seattle-based Alaska Airlines said it lost $214 million compared with a $262 million profit a year earlier.

Published: May 4, 2020, 7:59 am Updated: May 4, 2020, 8:07 amORLANDO, Fla. – The head of Southwest Airlines says it’s safe to fly during the coronavirus pandemic. The company’s CEO, Gary Kelly, told CBS’s “Face the Nation”, the risk of contracting the virus on an airplane is no greater than anywhere else. Kelly says Southwest Airlines is using hospital quality disinfectants to clean and specialized equipment to make sure the air is properly filtered. He also says that the company will not book flights to capacity. Southwest will also require passengers to wear face coverings staring May 11.