What is SWAPA Hiding?

Southwest Airlines Pilot Association (SWAPA) wants sexual-assault victim, Captain Christine Janning punished for suing them—but they also want to keep their recent filing from public view. Should SWAPA’s 12,000 members see what their union is doing? I think so.

AUGUST 2026 TIMELINE

• August 11: SWAPA filed a Motion for Sanctions, seeking to punish Janning and her attorneys for filing a suit agains them, and make her pay their legal fees—while asking the Court that their own filing remain confidential and out of public view.
• August 14: The Orange County Florida Clerk rejected the confidentiality designation, determining the information “is not subject to confidentiality.”
• Today: The filing remains out of public view for 10 days while SWAPA defends its position that the information and evidence should remain confidential. Otherwise, it becomes public.

What is SWAPA Trying to Hide? 

Janning alleges SWAPA knew about Michael Haak’s sexual misconduct long before she entered his cockpit in August 2020. Yet she says her union never warned her before Haak allegedly stripped naked, watched pornography while masturbating, ejaculated and struck her with a napkin containing his seminal fluid. Haak later pleaded guilty to a federal crime. Read the U.S. Department of Transportation Office of Inspector General report on Haak’s guilty plea and sentencing

Janning’s Fourth Amended Complaint may explain why public scrutiny matters:

213 “Instead of failing to go to bat for Ms. Janning…SWAPA actually made knowingly false statements to a United States Magistrate Judge…by attempting to influence Judge Coulson towards leniency for Cpt. Haak who had sexually assaulted Ms. Janning midair.”

Janning’s complaint says SWAPA Vice President Mike Santoro told Haak’s sentencing judge that Haak had a “spotless employment and training record.”

Spotless Record? Not according to Janning. Her Fourth Amended Complaint alleges:

33 “In 2008,four of Cpt. Haak’s crew members reported multiple acts of sexual harassment, sexual assault, sexual battery and exposing his genitals to SWAPA Orlando Professional Standards representative Steve Osmer.”

What happened to those earlier victims’ complaints—and why didn’t SWAPA reveal what it knew about Haak to the FBI and DOJ during their investigation of him?

Now SWAPA says Janning’s conspiracy claim is so baseless that she and her attorneys should be punished for pursuing it and forced to pay SWAPA’s legal fees. Why keep its own members in the dark? What doesn’t SWAPA want its 12,000 pilots and 20,000 flight attendants to see?

During her 105-day involuntary removal, Janning says contractual violations mounted. She suffered: lost pay and benefits, non-currency, dequalification and revocation of her Captain upgrade.

Janning alleges SWAPA did not merely fail to represent her, but her union acted against her interests, reinforcing characterizations of her as mentally unstable and assisted Southwest in keeping her grounded. The union who is entrusted to protect her contractual rights helped build and sustain the narrative used to keep her out of the cockpit and threaten her with a psychological evaluation.

That same union now wants Janning and her attorneys financially punished for suing them—while fighting to keep its sanctions filing from public view. Of course they want this hidden. Of course they want to pretend her claim was baseless.

SWAPA is an organization whose purpose is to represent professional pilots, thus this entire debacle leaves one question: What message does this send to the next pilot deciding whether to report serious sexual misconduct by another union member?

If you missed what started all this, watch the Maximus Video here. You’ll see that SWAPA sent a letter to the judge in support of Haak’s behavior. Technically the letter was to support Haak’s exemplary behavior over his 28 year career, despite SWAPA’s knowledge otherwise.

I do not believe any judge will call Janning’s a frivolous lawsuit. Perhaps this is just a legal tactic to scare Janning. I’m thinking that she should file a Duty of Fair Representation (DFR) with this most resent action against SWAPA. Thankfully the judge denied them. We’ll see what they come up with in ten days as to why they want their actions hidden to the public. Standby, that, too, will be posted.