As a result of Southwest doesn’t serve meals or perishable meals, it doesn’t use refrigerated vans, not like different airways, that means soda saved at airports is heating up on sweltering days.
“We’re conscious of the difficulty and have begun taking steps to aim to mitigate it,” Southwest spokesman Chris Perry mentioned.
The summer time has produced report warmth and excessive temperatures throughout the nation, with climate-change-fueled warmth waves worldwide. Almost a dozen southwestern U.S. cities matched or broke report temperatures final month when a warmth dome set in, prompting warmth warnings all through the area. Las Vegas and Phoenix have repeatedly reached triple-digit temperatures this summer time, with record-breaking warmth.
Southwest’s soda issues have primarily occurred in these cities, together with a couple of others that routinely have sizzling days. Along with Las Vegas and Phoenix, the airline is working to deal with the soda-storage difficulty in Dallas, Austin, Houston and Sacramento.
“Airports the place we now have a big presence — reminiscent of Las Vegas, Phoenix and plenty of in Texas — proceed to obtain report temperatures, with extreme warmth arriving earlier and persisting all through the summer time,” Perry mentioned. “For the protection of our workers and clients, we’re taking schooling and mitigation measures on all heat-related hazards.”
Southwest has directed floor crews to digitally measure the temperature of soda cans earlier than loading them onto a departing flight, and flight attendants have been instructed to not open cans that seem deformed. The airline can be testing using some air-conditioned vans in Las Vegas.
Although bursting soda cans have been a problem in previous years, the airline has skilled an uptick in reviews this yr. The airline couldn’t quantify how ceaselessly it’s occurring.
No passenger accidents have been reported. The airline didn’t present details about the character of the accidents to flight attendants. The Southwest flight attendants’ union didn’t reply to a request for remark from The Submit on Thursday.
The soda downside comes as shopper journey demand has reached an all-time excessive, partly due to the still-new journey flexibility for distant employees. The Transportation Safety Administration introduced a report for passenger screenings final month. On July 7, the TSA counted greater than 3 million passenger screenings in a single day, breaking the report of slightly below 3 million those that was set two weeks earlier, on June 23.
Kelsey Baker contributed to this report.
