This was also posted this morning on Yahoo Finance " Mootly Fool"comments. It like some guys pulled the pin on a grenade but forgot to throw.
Nsacaptain
I am a pilot for Southwest and was once a very happy employee. After this merger and ridiculous pilot seniority list integration, I am now a disgruntled employee for life. This was a huge mistake on the part of the airline. There are many of us that lost the "warrior" spirit that made the airline successful in the past.
Nsacaptain
The fact is that "those guys" got the huge windfall. Starting with pay 2 MIL ++ over a 15 year career. Up to five weeks paid vacation which in "Kool Aide Land" equates to 15+ paid weeks off in a year. The most generous sick time accrual in the industry.Extremely generous and virtually no cost health insurance. One of the top 5 401k and profit sharing plans in the WORLD with 9.3% dollar for dollar matching. The most flexible and efficient flight schedules in the industry. Virtually limitless overtime availability. Tell me how often at AirTran you can go to work for two and a half days and make $12000 because that's the way it is in "Kool aide land" all before the culture was ruined. As for "those guys will be great to work with" many of us will never know because when they show up at many planes, they will be sent marching. What was it that was given to Southwest pilots? The fact is that many of them about 1800 of them in fact will be forced to give up their weekends with their families in order to work, they will be forced to commute cross country to report to work, they will loose out to holding the vacations over holidays or having that time off.*****
One final note, the author o this article was dead on in his evaluation of "Tran Wreck" I have traveled on them many, many times and can tell you countless stories about their lack of organization, their incompetence,, and outright rudeness. That is not the Southeest way.
