200 (HIMS, Tom Stanley)

Today's SWAPA Number is 200. That's the number of pilots currently in monitoring of the HIMS program at Southwest Airlines. Today, we're sitting down with the HIMS Committee chair, Tom Stanley, to talk about all things the HIMS Committee is engaged in and some of the great success stories of the program. Now, maybe you don't feel like you need to know about this program, but mutual support has always been a part of flying, so let's dive in and talk about an important resource to SWAPA Pilots.

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Transcript

Matt McCants:

Today's SWAPA Number is 200. That's the number of pilots currently in monitoring of the HIMS program at Southwest Airlines.

Tony Mulhare:

Today, we're sitting down with the HIMS Committee chair, Tom Stanley, to talk about all things the HIMS Committee is engaged in and some of the great success stories of the program. Now, maybe you don't feel like you need to know about this program, but mutual support has always been a part of flying, so let's dive in and talk about an important resource to SWAPA Pilots.

I'm Tony Mulhare.

Matt McCants:

And I'm Matt McCants.

Tony Mulhare:

And here's our interview with Tom.

Tom, first of all, there's a very powerful video on the HIMS committee page that we'll link in the show notes, but you, Chris, and Tyler talk about your personal stories there and what led you to HIMS.

If there's someone listening to this podcast that even thinks they have a hint of a problem with drugs and alcohol or is debating with themselves about whether they have a problem with drugs or alcohol or knows they have a problem but is maybe ashamed to admit they have a problem, why is that video so important?

Tom Stanley:

Well, I'll start by saying a huge shout-out to SWAPA Comm for actually producing that video, and it was a tide shift for our committee. When I first came in, there wasn't a lot of good communication, so I actually went to Comm and said, "I'd like to make a video." And that video was unscripted. I think that's important to know. And it was done with the three of us in separate sessions. And what I told Amy in Comm was to, "I want you to do these interviews. I want you to talk to us, and I want to see what you see in our stories."

And I start saying that because the important part of that video is that Tyler, Chris, and I are all very different people. We all come from different backgrounds, we come from different places, but the one thing that we are is not alone in the fact that we are alcoholics and addicts. And what I think is beautiful about that video is that it streams all of our stories together in a way that we could not have possibly scripted because we didn't know what the questions were going to be, and when it was edited together, it shows that there is a common core there.

So our committee really focuses... and Tyler, Chris, and I have all given up our anonymity, which is kind of important in an addict sense. We made that conscious choice in that video to put that out to show people that our stories are similar. For me personally, the biggest thing that I found was that I thought I was alone. I thought I was unique. I thought I was the only person that had ever suffered this way. And what I really am proud about that video is that it shows that we're not alone and that's the key to beginning the process of recovery is to understand that we are not alone.

There are others out there like us, and we all have very different stories, but they all kind of got us to the same place, which was a bottom of different sorts. Chris's was probably the most stark in his uniform, getting driven away from the airplane, looking over his shoulder, going, "Huh, what am I going to do now?" All of us, through our own ways, came to a point in recovery where we were able to save our lives and eventually our careers and deal with the people that we are in the presence that we have.

Matt McCants:

You kind of alluded to it there, but in that video, you say, "We can save your life and your job." And I think pilots sometimes have a really hard time separating those two, and this issue is just so much more important than keeping your FAA license. Can you speak to that?

Tom Stanley:

Absolutely, and it's something that comes up in almost all conversations that I have with a pilot, and it's interesting to me because, in the beginning of it, I'll make a statement that essentially says, "I am interested in saving your life. Everything else will come, and you're just going to have to trust me in that." And a lot of times, people don't want to hear that. What they're calling for is an absolute guarantee.

They want me to say, "I will absolutely do X, Y, or Z. I will save your marriage. I will save your job. I will do all of those things." And the fact of the matter is I can't make that promise. What I can tell them is if they take the steps in their own lives to deal with the addiction that is in their life and is in front of them, that each day, things will change and hopefully get better. In some cases, there are problems in recovery, but we learn a framework to live with it.

So the goal is to bring someone in, help them with the life-threatening disease that they have, and to deal with that, and then one day at a time from that point forward, everything else flows. The FAA has a process. The company has a process. There are policies and procedures in place, which we can't necessarily guarantee, but what I can say is that things will get better, and that that's what that really goes to. It's saving your life, and then everything else comes after that.

Tony Mulhare:

Yeah, I think that's an incredibly important point is that your life is so much more important than just your career here at Southwest. So we've been talking about the why of the HIMS program. Let's get to the what. Tell us about what you do in HIMS and what services you provide our pilots.

Tom Stanley:

The most obvious that people generally call us for is that they have a problem with addiction, and for whatever reason, they've picked up the phone to call us. I do, and my team does the initial pilot counseling with all of those folks. Initially, we have a confidentiality veil with the company that is well recognized. So when they're talking to us, nobody will know anything about that conversation without explicit permission from the pilot to move forward into a different phase.

So we will talk to them about, "This is what I experienced in my life. I think that I hear things in your story that sounds similar to me." And we'll actually talk about what is going on, where it goes, what it looks like, what it feels like, and we're going to see at that point what the appropriate amount of intervention is. In some cases, it's not going to be, "You have to go to treatment tomorrow." It may be, "Have you been to an AA meeting?" It may be, "We have a lot of resources in the committee that are psychologists and counselors."

There's even our LIFT team that we can refer to get the pilot talking about the issue and then deal with it at as low a level as possible. We also have expertise in particularly DUIs. I implore anybody that listens to this, if you get a DUI, please call us because there are very, very specific reporting requirements to the company and to the FAA, and there is this kind of notion that, "I have to hide it because the fewer people I tell, the better it's going to be."

For a pilot, that's not a really great idea, and we have the expertise to kind of guide you through that because, in most cases, properly reported DUIs are far less severe than is in the pilot's mind. We also have been focusing through national HIMS and through SWAPA, particularly on family services. This is a family disease. So I've had pilots call me, not necessarily about themselves. They've called me about their wife, their kids.

For a while there, we have a lot of pilots whose children are growing up and becoming pilots, and maybe they had a DUI in their past or things along that line that we can help with. Plus, it is a family disease. So when a pilot actually goes to treatment, we have family support and help to get your family help while you're away doing your job, which is to get your medical recertification.

Tony Mulhare:

Talk about some of the medical services and your referrals that have specifically the NDAs with you, as well as the FAA knowledge and experience that those medical providers have.

Tom Stanley:

So across the United States, there are literally thousands of counselors and medical professionals. What we do through our relationships, which come through conferences and experience, and what we've done over the years is we've honed down that list to a group of people that are savvy with pilots and our certifications. The goal is to treat the pilot but to do it in such a way that they're still certifiable to fly medically after it's over.

So when you call to the SWAPA line and talk to me or anybody on the committee, the psychologists that we have that are on retainer will... there's one that I can refer to who will actually talk to the pilot, find out kind of what's going on and what they need, and then we'll actually find a local provider and have a conversation with the pilot about economics, in network, out of network insurance, that kind of thing. And they will actually vet the provider before the pilot ever talks to them to say, "Hey, this is who they are. This is what a pilot does. Do you understand that?"

That's very valuable. The other folks that we have there are lower levels of intervention. Some people just need maybe an evaluation. Maybe what they're doing is borderline, but there's possible interventions that we can take before we get to the full... label it as addiction. Maybe it's a situational depression issue. Maybe you had someone die in your family. Those are the kind of people in a safe environment that we can refer to.

Tony Mulhare:

So what I'm hearing here is this is not a one-size-fits-all same approach to every individual. This is an individual tailored approach taking numerous factors into consideration as you deal with each person.

Tom Stanley:

Absolutely. It's never as simple as one size fits all. There's not one script. There's not a track that I'm aiming for when you call, I'm going to listen to, and my team is going to listen to what is going on in your life. What is going on in your situation? How did we get here? Why are we here?

And some people will call us. Quite frankly, they're sick and tired of being sick and tired. I get everything from, "Do I have a problem? Do I absolutely have a problem, and when do I leave for rehab?" And we deal with everything in the middle individually and with as much compassion and dignity as we possibly can for the people involved.

Matt McCants:

I think it's a very important thing to take away from that. And you mentioned Project LIFT a little bit earlier, and back in 2021, you were on a SWAPA podcast with Project LIFT.

In that case, you talked about Southwest's policy of automatically terminating anyone with a DOT-positive drug or alcohol test on the line in uniform, and we were the only major airline without a second chance policy, if you will. Has SWAPA been able to achieve any gains in Contract 2020 in that regard? And what other benefits were gained by HIMS in this last round of negotiations?

Tom Stanley:

So the answer is yes. We made significant gains in Contract 2020. Prior to that contract, we had HIMS at the airline, but it wasn't written down anywhere. We didn't really have contractual protections, and the company had a program which was in their best interest, but it wasn't defined. Specifically to your point, there is now a pathway, which is a large, large shift in thinking for Southwest Airlines, that there is a possibility of a pilot who goes through the DOT positive process, which is the after-work test when the clipboard person shows up.

Should that test become positive, there is now a pathway that can lead back to Southwest Airlines in your seat with your seniority. It may not be the prettiest process in the world because it does involve being terminated for a period of time, but prior to that, there was absolutely no policy or procedure at Southwest Airlines that would allow your return. So, in this contract, we now have a process which has actually been exercised where a pilot will be terminated. They'll have to go out... They'll have to go through all of the medical process and recertification.

There is a revocation of certificates that occurs, so you're going to have to go take all your tests again. But once that's over, there's a reinstatement meeting which SWAPA is directly involved in where the VP of Flight Ops finally makes a decision, and then the pilot is brought back with their seniority on a last chance agreement back into the HIMS program, which didn't exist before. For what I would call the more mainstream HIMS cases, there were also significant gains in the initial certification process. It used to be completely done through our benefits package.

In that benefits package, it would generally cost a pilot between 15 and $25,000 out of pocket to do the things that are required to come back. If a pilot voluntarily comes into the program now under Contract 2020, Southwest Airlines, outside of the benefits package, so this is money directly from the airline, will reimburse the costs for the AME, which is the doctor required to do all the paperwork. They will reimburse something called intensive outpatient, which is a Southwest requirement.

In our program, it's kind of a step-down from rehab to coming back to your life, and it's done at home. And then they will also reimburse something. It's referred to as a PNP, but it's a psychological and psychiatric evaluation that includes some cognitive testing. All of those things together were where most of that 15 to $25,000 came, and now they have to pay for them upfront, but they are reimbursed after the fact in a process through Flight Ops, which is a huge game.

Tony Mulhare:

What about the extension of HIMS benefits that happened in this contract that... My understanding is it used to be prior to Contract 2020 that any HIMS, any person out on a medical associated with HIMS or mental health disability, was limited to 24 months, but that has now changed, correct?

Tom Stanley:

That is correct. Specifically, I'll start with the mental health side because I think that's a huge thing that we don't talk about enough is that now there are no limits to the mental health side. For the HIMS side, and we're specifically talking, this is with loss of license through the company. On the HIMS side of things, there was a 24-month limit that became problematic because some of the time that you were spending in that 24 months trying to get recertified, you had no control over because it was FAA processing.

There's various delays that can occur that have nothing to do with the pilot. Well, now, if you're formally enrolled in the HIMS program, you've come in and gone through our process and signed an aftercare agreement. There is no limit to loss of license. So that's a significant gain in that not all people return at the exact same time. Most people come back within nine to 12 months, but there are some mitigating factors that can take longer, and now we don't have to worry economically about those issues.

Tony Mulhare:

Tom, I think pilots would be surprised at how many HIMS success stories are flying the line today, people that many of us fly with regularly or work with regularly. Can you update us on how many pilots each year you are able to help and how many of those are able to come back and fly again?

Tom Stanley:

So currently, we have anywhere from 12 to 20-ish pilots that actually go through the formal process, go to rehab, and enter the program. There's currently approximately 200 pilots being actively monitored at Southwest Airlines. There's more out there that have finished the process, but because the way the process worked previously, there really weren't records kept on the ones that kind of completed it and were, quote, unquote, release.

So all around you, our pilots you've probably flown with and may not have known that have come into the program and successfully returned to the line and come back to very robust careers. We also help outside of that probably 30 or 40 more cases, at least a year, that are... that touch DUIs and other forms of certification issues. So our record, I think, was during the COVID, we put a pilot a week into treatment. It varies but between 12 and 20 a year.

Matt McCants:

Sure, there's probably some ups and downs as to when pilots enroll in HIMS, but is it often that you see or hear from a pilot who becomes part of the HIMS program that that pilot found out about the HIMS program through another pilot that's in the program?

Tom Stanley:

Absolutely. I know in my own personal case, when I was... I got sober at Southwest Airlines, and I kind of called them God moments, I wound up flying with some folks that were in the process. And while I, at the time... You know how you have those conversations flying across the country? At the time, the other pilot didn't know I was struggling, but I managed to ask the questions that I needed to ask to make my own pathway.

And I do that when I fly with folks now, and the folks on my committee do that. We talk actively in the airplane, and I know that there are other pilots out there that do the same thing because I hear it coming back. And to go back to the people that we help. On any given day, people are not really happy to get my phone call or to talk to me because they're usually at a very bad point in their life.

I just returned from a conference, and one of the people who is now working in the program as a peer monitor came to me and said, "You know what? Four years ago, you saved my life, and it mattered." And those are the things that we hear over and over again, and that's really why we do the work that we do.

Tony Mulhare:

Yeah, I think those stories are so important because they provide hope in a dark time at a time when someone needs hope to look forward to that there is a path, there is a way to turn this around.

Tom Stanley:

Absolutely. There is a way with dignity and with great compassion that you can really turn your life around. And I could sit here for more time than anybody wants to listen to and tell you stories over the last five years.

And you would be surprised at the very vast differences of how low a bottom you can get to coming back to a career that you love and enjoy. Because we all identify as pilots. That's what we do. And you come back better with a sharper mind. You fly better. So many things happen, and it is very important.

Matt McCants:

And we've heard a couple of other SWAPA agencies mentioned here. We talked a little bit about Project LIFT. What is the difference between HIMS and LIFT, and how do you work together?

Tom Stanley:

So LIFT are a group of trained pilots who do peer counseling, and they work in a wide spectrum of basically the mental health, depression, anxiety, along those lines. However, those issues can also tie directly into HIMS. Conversely, people who call me also have issues that kind of go out of just straight addiction and kind of touch into what LIFT works with.

So within SWAPA, we have a way to talk to each other so that if a LIFT member were to get a phone call from somebody who is really struggling with addiction, and in the course of their conversation, they're able to talk about that and there are members of the LIFT team that have direct addiction experience. They'll talk to that person and give them our contact information or talk to me and say, "Hey, maybe this is a better phone call for you to make," again within a confidential veil so that nobody's talking about this outside of the pilot and the people directly involved.

And the other thing is every single time there's a process when we put someone through the HIMS process in the very beginning, it's very scary. You've just admitted to probably one of the darkest secrets in your. You are now finding yourself having to file disability forms that you may have never done. You're talking to people about something that you don't want to talk about, and you're about to leave your family for 30 days. So regularly, in that process, I will refer to Project LIFT, and they'll have someone call just to kind of check in on those sorts of things as the pilot leaves town.

Matt McCants:

Yeah, so these are supporting casts that work together, but again, all with the pilot's concurrence of them working together and all in confidentiality, correct?

Tom Stanley:

100%.

Matt McCants:

And how about Clear Skies? Do they get involved with this too? That's another program that we see thrown out there from time to time. Is there an association here?

Tom Stanley:

So Clear Skies is a benefit that comes through Southwest Airlines. Essentially, to really answer your question, we do not interface with Clear Skies really at all. It's a benefit that all the pilots have. It is essentially when you call the Clear Skies line, they're going to talk to you, and they're going to tell you how many visits you can have, and then they're going to really go in... You're talking to somebody on the phone who's going to refer you through a database to counselors, treatment people within your local area.

It's a good service. It can do good work. The caution there is that the people you're talking to really don't understand pilot certification. And so that can lead to issues if we don't vet those folks on the front side, which is why I would encourage them to call SWAPA so that we can have that conversation. And at least, even if you get a referral from Clear Skies, I can run it through the psychologist I was talking about before and at least have that person understand what it is you do for a living before you call them.

Tony Mulhare:

Okay, so walk me through a typical phone call. I call you and say, "Tom, it's Tony. I think I've been drinking too much. I think I have a problem." What happens then?

Tom Stanley:

So usually, those phone calls will last anywhere from an hour to two hours by the time it's all over. It's kind of dependent on how much you want to talk about the circumstances. First, we're going to have a conversation about the statement that you made. "Why do you think you're drinking too much? Are there other things going on in your life? When you start to use substances, do you always know what's going to happen?" Things like that.

I'm going to talk a little bit about my story because I can only talk about my story. I'm not a professional, I don't evaluate you, but I'm hoping that by telling you some of those things about myself that maybe you hear some commonality in what you're going through. And then, I'm going to lay down what the FAA process is. I never ever force anybody to do anything, but I want to educate them on all of the options.

So we'll talk about the entire HIMS protocol. We're going to talk about what AA is. We're going to talk about peer support groups. We're going to talk about outside counseling, and we're also going to talk about where the FAA has dividing lines and what the pitfalls are of falling on each side of the dividing line of whether you get a diagnosis or you go to a counselor or perhaps there's already been a doctor that's written in your medical records.

We're going to talk through all of that, and between the two of us, we're going to come to some sort of a plan. That plan may be, "I want to stop talking for today and will you call me tomorrow?" And if we set a time for the next day, I'm going to put a reminder in my phone, and we're going to call back, and we're going to talk. It may be, sometimes, we have these conversations on a speakerphone with a family sitting around, and we're going to come to a resolution.

And if that resolution is, "Maybe I've tried this before. Maybe I've been struggling for a long time. Maybe there's other things going on in my life that really lead me to know I know deep down inside I may be scared, but I need professional help." And once we come to that, then we're going to create that plan, and we're going to move forward with it.

And the only time that anything will happen is when the pilot makes an affirmative message to me that says, "This is what I want to do." And then at that time, the confidentiality veil that we're talking about, I will describe exactly to them who we have to contact, what's going to happen, all of those internal SWAPA referrals that we're going to do we have to reach across to the company, only at that time will that veil change.

Matt McCants:

But that is a decision that that pilot calling you needs to make.

Tom Stanley:

100%. And there are times within that veil where a pilot will call me and say, "I have a problem, and I want to fix it, but I don't want to do that." And then we're going to refer to outside agencies. And what I mean is we'll say, Hey, try some AA meetings, or would you go to counseling? Would you do these other things?" And then we'll set a callback time, and sometimes that works, and sometimes it doesn't, but it is the pilot themselves who makes that choice.

Matt McCants:

Okay, so we've hit on this a couple of times that there's not a one-size-fits-all situation here. The pilot who is reaching out to you needs to make a conscious decision to ask for help and then get enrolled in any number of various programs. Let's talk about door number two. They don't decide to do anything like that. What has that looked like in your experience?

Tom Stanley:

There's a couple of different roads that takes, but the most common thing that will happen is that I may not hear from them for a little while. Addiction is a progressive disease, so sometimes that period of time can be months. A couple of times, it's been a couple of years, and we may get touch points with that pilot. And what I mean by that is maybe I'll get a phone call from them. Every once in a while, I'll get a phone call from their family or their friends.

So I always know there's kind of something going on and eventually that pilot may get to the point where they're miserable enough that they'll call and say, "You know what? I can't do this myself and now I'm willing to accept that help that we talked about." That is what happens most of the time. The second permutation of that that is a little bit less desirable is that they'll continue to suffer.

And eventually, this is a disease where your mind is telling you, "I got this." And it's one of those things where it's like, I got this until I don't got this. And then not only don't I got this, now I'm in a situation that maybe I'm in a jail cell. We've had phone calls from pilots that are in orange jumpsuits sitting on a concrete floor. That's a big wake-up call.

Hopefully, we get to a situation where there's no physical injury or really bad legal charges, or God forbid, we get to a point where there's a pilot who shows up at the end of a day, and the person with clipboard is there, and they take a test. Because once we get to the DOT process, even though there's a pathway back, it is far less palatable than volunteering two years ago to come in and be on a recovery road before we have to deal with those steps.

Tony Mulhare:

Just let me ask a follow-up question there. If I come to you before I have an issue with a company that threatens my employment, if I come to you and we decide between us, and I go, "Hey Tom, I really need to go get some help. I need to get some treatment. I need to go to rehab." Do I get terminated when I go on that 30-day rehab and then through the follow-on process? Or am I still employed but out on disability? How are those two roads different?

Tom Stanley:

So a voluntary entry into the program, there's no job action in that case. You go into the disability system because you have a disease, and there is a specific FAA way back, just like if you have a heart attack, steps you have to take to become recertified medically, to come back to fly the line.

So you go off to rehab, short-term disability, long-term disability, loss of license, all of those things are in play, and that is the system that you're in. The only time that termination is really going to happen because of the drug and alcohol policies at the airline is if you go to a DOT test and it winds up being positive.

There are some other very specific legal issues, but I mean they're really bad specific weapons charges, or there's physical harm to somebody else or things of those natures. The company has always been very, very good at sending people to rehab, getting them sober, at least starting their sobriety. But if we get into those kinds of employment issues, there will be a termination that comes after that.

Tony Mulhare:

I just think that's such a huge weight taken off people's shoulders once they know that they can come to you, talk about this very deep dark secret in their life, and not immediately lose their job, and we're coming up on a when that always rears its head.

We're coming up on the holiday season on the cliches that holidays are a happy and a joyful time, but that's not true for everybody. You call this membership drive season. What is it about the holidays that brings more phone calls from people that need help?

Tom Stanley:

So when you're struggling with addiction, when I struggled with my addiction, you're constantly dealing with a behavior that is, say, outside of, I don't like the word normal, but let's say you drink a lot more than a lot of other people do. So you're constantly struggling to find a way to make that look more normal. Well, when we get to that period of time from about a week before Thanksgiving through New Year's in that period, there's parties, there's family get-togethers, there's football games, there's all kinds of things where the rest of the world is celebrating.

And in those times, if you're struggling with a problem where you maybe drink more than everybody else does, when everybody else decides to let their hair down and have a normal party, that just makes it more normal for you. When those parties end, you're still struggling with the same thing. So when people go back to what I would call their normal life, you're still in that big party mode, and this kind of dissidence between what's in your head and where you want to be and where the rest of the world is, it gets really hard.

And so, during the holidays, not only do we have that going on, but we also have people who struggle with depression or not everybody's happy at the holidays. I mean, I'll tell you personally, my sobriety anniversary is the 26th of December. That means that the last day I was drunk in my life was about 15 years ago, on Christmas day. It took me in my own sobriety. I have a very dear friend who got me to this thing at Disney World, where they... it's a Christmas thing, and they sing Christmas carols.

That was probably three, four years ago, was the first time I went. It was the first time that I felt Christmas for a long, long time. It sounds kind of silly when I say it now, but it really was a hard time for me, and I really struggled, and I'm not alone. There are other people that, for other reasons, a family member died on Christmas Day or whatever. There was some event in their life that made it so it's not a happy time.

So between struggling with addiction and trying to hide and manipulate it and then finding yourself in a place where it kind of blossoms and gets worse and then trying to deal with that and the normal things that happen during holiday season when everybody else is happy and you can't be or won't be or struggling, that's why we wind up getting a lot more phone calls.

Matt McCants:

Now, obviously, you never want to step on toes, but as we approach the holiday season and we're out on the line, what can I do to look out for my fellow pilots on an overnight, at the training center, or wherever you encounter pilots in your life?

What is the way to go about this? Because I think we talked about regret earlier, and I think, at some point, everybody has come across someone in their life that you just know something's wrong or something's up. So help us start that conversation. What does that sound like?

Tom Stanley:

So the first thing I will say is it's important that if you have the thought that however uncomfortable it is, that that thought comes out to the person. Because in my own life, there's a pilot here at Southwest Airlines that I flew with in the military. Long, long time ago, we were drinking in San Antonio, and I'll never forget it. He looked at me, and he said, "Tom, you scare me, and you scare me because you have one speed when it comes to drinking, and it's all out." And he said, "It's really kind of frightening to watch."

And at the time, it registered, but I didn't do anything about it. But that thought rattled around in my brain for all those years, and it was one of those things that I kept coming back to when I finally made the decision that enough is enough. And December 26th came, and it was time for me to stop drinking. I've been able to go back and thank him for that. You never know the one thing that you say, and you may not even look at the person. They might just look like they're blowing you off, but they're going to hear it.

And so much of my life was based on creating an environment where I could continue this behavior that I ultimately, in my head, knew was damaging and wrong and kind of pushing people away who are trying to tell me otherwise. I didn't want to hear it. But the more times that those things come around because that was the first time in my life that someone actually kind of stood up to me and said, "You know what? I'm sitting here drinking with you, and you scare me when I'm looking at you."

Eventually, there were other little nuggets that came and another thing, and you never know if you're the tipping point. So that's the one thing. The second thing that I'll say is you're on an overnight. We kind of all know where the Southwest people are. We kind of all know that we're in the same hotel. You may not know the person that you see wandering down the hallway that looks like they can't find their room, but you know that you saw them come in on the van. Don't walk past them. There's sort of a triangle is the way I think about it.

But we have a chain of events that happen to an accident, right. You never know if you're breaking the chain that's going to lead that person to an airplane. And what we're trying to do is stop that person from getting to an airplane because the closer they get to an aircraft, the closer they get to operating, the higher the toll will be if the intervention comes too late. So if you see the guy wandering down the hallway and you can't find his room, help him find his room. Maybe take the time to say, "Maybe you should call in sick tomorrow."

If you won't do that, or you can't help him in any other way, pick up the phone and call SWAPA Contract. Admin has a 24-hour line. They have direct contact with execs at SWAPA who have direct contact with all the subject matter experts to try and help that person before they get to the airplane. In the morning, if they don't look right, implore them to call in sick. Take the time. Don't just sit there and watch it happen and walk through behind them and go, "Glad it's not me."

And I guarantee you, if you're their crewmate, if they get pulled, the very first person that they're going to talk to is you to say, "Why do we get here?" So from the very first time you notice something, you're not doing anybody any favors by looking past it. If you have a concern, it's a valid concern. If they are your friend, you owe it to them. If they're not your friend, if they're just a crewmate, you owe it to them to take the time to just make the statement.

Matt McCants:

We want to thank Tom for stopping by to talk to the membership about HIMS, a program by pilots for pilots.

Tony Mulhare:

The Wingman concept is as old as aviation itself. Part of being a professional pilot is providing mutual support, and the HIMS program is there to keep you, your career, and your personal life flying with airspeed and altitude to spare.

Matt McCants:

Look for the Mental Health Minute in the RP every month as we point to all of those resources out there and how they can help with whatever you're dealing with. In closing, today's bonus number is two. That's the number of DOT-positive pilots that we have reinstated thanks to the HIMS program.