Flight Attendant Applications Swamp Website

Contributed by Stefana Hermansen on Feb. 21 at 7:59 a.m.

The number of people wanting to become a Southwest Airlines flight attendant has reached a record high. On Monday, Southwest began accepting flight attendant applications in the careers section of its website. So many people tried to submit an application that that part of the Dallas-based carrier’s website went down.

“The pipeline was full,” Southwest spokeswoman Brandy King said about the website’s crash. “The number of people trying to utilize those pipelines was unprecedented.”

Several people complained that they tried for hours to send Southwest their résumés, so the carrier reopened the flight attendant position post for a little more than an hour Wednesday.

In a message on its Facebook page Wednesday afternoon, Southwest said it was reviewing 1,200 applications for 200 positions. The message went on to say that the carrier interviews every qualified applicant, so it “simply can’t keep a position open indefinitely.”

Southwest also apologized to those who were unable to submit an application online.

Southwest has said it plans to boost its network capacity by 5 to 6 percent this year and will add thousands of employees if its acquisition of AirTran Airways is approved by government regulators.