737-800 question to gary kelly

[Tejas-Jet]

How many Captains at Southwest are retiring prior to 65?

Can't speak for the entire system, but in my corner of the world, had a Captain recently tell me he is going out in January. He is 61 ...I think.

Recently had one under 60 go out early...just because.

 

[737tanker]

Though the -800 would require another FA, therefore messing with the SWA - any crew can operate any aircraft - philosophy, if the price is right I am sure they would do it in a heartbeat.

The problem with the -800s is not the 4th F/A. When I upgraded in 2000 the VP of FltOps my upgrade class that the problem was interchangeability. That is if a full -300 or -700 broke and SWA replaced it with a -200 (we had them at that time) or a -500 you only upset 15 passengers. If SWA had a full -800 that was broken and replaced it with a -700 you would upset 50 passengers. He did say however that if SWA needed to grow at a city and was restricted due to slots (at the time he was talking SNA) or gates then SWA would get -800s for the needed expansion.
Another thing to consider is that Gary has been quoted as saying that you can't make money going to Hawaii in a -700, you need something bigger. The new CBA allows codeshare among then Hawaiian Islands, not to/from Hawaii. So to utilize he provision that allows codeshare among the Hawaiian islands then SWA needs something bigger than a -700, and that probably means SWA will get the -800.

 

[mt2]

FAA.gov says Southwest has 546 737s... I don't know how accurate that is.

Let's say they get 50 737-800s.

The average flight attendant there brings home 30/hr, x 110/mo is about $3300, let's not even throw in per-diem, or open time.

3300x12 is about 40,000

40k x 50 is 2,000,000

2,000,000 x let's say 4 per airplane is 8,000,000.

That's 8 million they save by not having another FA.

My numbers are all just a guess. Not sure if the 8mil would be covered by the increased revenue of having a bigger plane.

I know 8mil really isn't that much money in the grand scheme of things either for an airline as massive as Southwest.

I know it's not this simple but:
With @40 extra seats it shouldn't be too hard to make up for the extra F/A in a LGA or Hawaii market. I don't think they'd need 50 -800's but a smaller number might be a good move.

 

[Ky.BrownBourbn]

I know it's not this simple but:
With @40 extra seats it shouldn't be too hard to make up for the extra F/A in a LGA or Hawaii market. I don't think they'd need 50 -800's but a smaller number might be a good move.

Probably will not happen, They already have a "Bastard" of the fleet, the 25 -500's they don't know what to do with and can't get rid of because no one will take them!

Pilots were just told that the Boeing guys were gonna start showing up in Dallas to ride in the Sim and 5 guys from Boeing were approved by Feds to ride the Jumpseat and rumor has it it's to work on the 73 replacement.

Apparently, SW corporate has been courting the Embraer sales people in Dallas to see their products as well as another manufacturer! Looks like they want a replacement A/C sooner rather than later AND the 787 catastrophe may have SW getting antsy.

KBB

 

[Saluki Dawg]

That one's probably just a rumor, as Boeing published an Article the other day stating they would continue making the 737 into the 2020's. I have heard that Boeing may re engine the current fleet of Aircraft with a more fuel efficient engine until a viable replacement is developed, but that's all I've heard WRT a 737RS.

As for the -800 rumor, I've heard that they actually went and test flew a -900ER, and that's the airplane they're more interested in. I guess we will see.

 

[slaquer5]

There's a famous story about Herb having breakfast with some new hire pilots and stating that without a doubt he was NOT looking at buying Morris Air- Now way, Now how. Well, he left the breakfast and went to the pre-arranged press conference to announce the acquisition of Morris. Go figure....

That was Paul Sterbins (sp) the VP of flt ops at the time not herb.

 

[Mea25000]

900ER is a Joke... I don't think boeing has been able to give them away. CAL bought a few but I don't think they are even happy with them.

 

[Saluki Dawg]

CAL wasn't happy with the original -900 series. The -900ER is the newer version with a higher MATOW and much better range than the original -900 series. CAL loves the -900ER, and is taking quite a few of these deliveries over the next few years. This is the model that SWA test flew and what they were looking at.

 

[nimtz]

CAL wasn't happy with the original -900 series. The -900ER is the newer version with a higher MATOW and much better range than the original -900 series. CAL loves the -900ER, and is taking quite a few of these deliveries over the next few years. This is the model that SWA test flew and what they were looking at.

It's a shiner turd then the original with some cooler instruments. As for performance, nothing like touching down in MCI for gas on a transcon in the summer. Did I mention 2K less thrust per side then the 800? Rough to get those intersection take offs that SW likes in places like Vegas. Well crafted by bean counters at Boeing to meet needs of bean counters at CAL...

 

[StopNTSing]

CAL wasn't happy with the original -900 series. The -900ER is the newer version with a higher MATOW and much better range than the original -900 series. CAL loves the -900ER, and is taking quite a few of these deliveries over the next few years. This is the model that SWA test flew and what they were looking at.

I don't know what model it was (hopefully not the ER), but in LAS this past summer one could often see a lonely CAL 737 holding short of 7L waiting (...and waiting...and waiting....) for ATC to build them a hole in the arrivals while everyone else was launching from 25R. Reminded me of the bad old days trying to get a -200 out of there in the summer.

 

[The Victors]

Gary doesn't have the balls to make an aggressive move. He's too busy coverng 6.

But on a brighter note....... 35 more captains got downgraded yesterday.

Gup

This is the most accurate statement of this whole thread.

 

[HalinTexas]

Maybe this guy is tired of every ATA guy blaming SWA for the fact that the ATA CEO did not have a good business plan that eventually led to the demise of ATA. It is not the SWA pilots fault that ATA went out of business.

An accurate statement, but not every ATA guy is throwing it in SWA's face. However, SWAPA didn't want us flying parallel routes with them, so we didn't. We were also told SWAPA didn't want a merger, because they didn't want to deal with an ALPA carrier of size. (We were 1100 foolish at the time)

John Tague, now at UAL, was/is an idiot. George Mikelsons had too big of an ego, and knew nothing, nor was he willing to learn, what to do with ATA in sched. service. John Dennison was brought in to mislead the employees into thinking ATA had a future, block Airtran from creating bigger headaches for them, and flip the turd that ATA was. He did so to Mattlin-Patterson, who used it to form Global Aviation Logistics that merged ATA, NAA, and WOA under one holding company. You can add more here. Dennison, the former CFO of SWA, picked the successor CEO in Subod Karnik, formerly of NWA and DAL. Another real winner, in over his head.

So, yeah, you're right there. I only speak up when someone inaccurately portrays the facts. SWA had the chance to already be flying 3 or 4 continents, but passed. Basically, for $120M in loan guarantees with a 25% equity, they got the competition out of the way, learned a few things about int'l/ETOPS flying, and sold it all off. SWA made $$$ on the deal. Last year, all the airplanes went to the lease holder/creditors except the L10's. Two of them. (I heard some ME charter company got 3 L10's for $5M for haj trips.) SWA bought the cert. to get the LGA slots for $3M. Again, SWA wins, but they don't get the ETOPS/MNPS approval, because they didn't take the planes, manuals, and procedures and turned in the cert. immediately.

If Airtran had succeeded in buying ATA in Nov. 2004, 800 pilots would have been on the street within six months. We were told that explicitly by them. They wanted MDW and slots. The rest of ATA would have retreated into IND and probably been down to 5 WB's. If the AWA deal had gone through, I'd probably still have a job, with a little bit happier group than USAir is now. The synergies there were pretty damn good. For some reason, that fell through and the next day SWA came in to "save" us. So we were told.

Sour grapes? Yeah. I have them. Didn't use to, but history keeps getting thrown in my face as if I, and/or the pilots of SWAPA and ATA had anything to do with it.

BTW, still looking for work here.... 8)