SWA is attempting to manage the damage to their brand. It's pretty obvious.
And again, the Union has to deny everything. Any organized walk-out, or something they knew would happen and did nothing to stop ("official or unofficial") is illegal.
What we do know is SWA cancelled over 2,000 flights in a single day, and continues to cancel flights up through today... and no other airline is impacted... and the weather issues they claim don't exist... and the ATC issues they claim also don't exist.
Seems pretty obvious something else is going on. Sick out, walk out, sit-in, just refuse to fly, whatever... but the official story can't even carry its own water.
> and no other airline is impacted
Yeah, so... why is that? Other airlines have similar mandates. Is Southwest just uniquely anti-mandate? Did they have a particularly large population of pilots who weren't vaccinated before the mandate even took effect?
If anything, I'd say that the uniqueness of Southwest's problems is evidence against a sick-out and points to a problem in Southwest's business model or logistics.
No, I believe that absent contrary evidence, the simplest explanation is usually the most likely. I've seen virtually every other US carrier experience a cascading failure due to weather or computer failures at least once over the past 10 years. I've also seen how quickly certain politicians, who stand to benefit personally from casting doubt on vaccine mandates, have jumped on this event.