Southwest Airlines is considering bringing back sales of hard liquor onboard flights after having interrupted the service for almost a year.
CEO Gary Kelly, who is retiring and gives way to Robert Jordan on February 1, said during this week's earnings call that the carrier had already planned to start serving alcohol again in February before the Omicron variant disrupted airline service for almost a month over the Christmas and New Year's holiday.
Kelly said the service could return "late in the first quarter, maybe early in the second quarter," according to Fox Business.
Southwest joins most other airlines that have phased in the resumption of alcohol service including United Airlines, which announced last October it was bringing back hard liquor.
Alcohol service onboard, and at airport bars and lounges, has been a big issue in the industry. Sara Nelson, International President of the Association of Flight Attendants Union, has railed against the practice, saying it has greatly contributed - along with the federal mask mandate - to the nearly 6,000 incidents of verbal and physical confrontations on flights last year.
At one point, Nelson even testified before Congress about the perils that flight attendants have faced.
Southwest is certainly familiar with such incidents - one of the airline's flight attendants had three teeth broken by a passenger during a confrontation.
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