Consider Taking Off The Rose-Colored SWA Glasses For a Moment and Discuss...

[JumpJetter]

.....and trying to increase the annual 1000 FAR limit.

AA767AV8TOR

Prove it. What's your source?

 

[satpak77]

Real quick - can a SWA pilot purposely bid reserve and purposely fly as little as possible ? Maybe due to a non-flying side business?

Say he lives at his base and is a CPA, Lawyer, computer technician, etc and wants to fly "part-time" for SWA

what kind of salary/earnings can be expected for someone who purposely bids reserve and purposely does not fly much?

 

[klr1395]

Real quick - can a SWA pilot purposely bid reserve and purposely fly as little as possible ? Maybe due to a non-flying side business?

Say he lives at his base and is a CPA, Lawyer, computer technician, etc and wants to fly "part-time" for SWA

what kind of salary/earnings can be expected for someone who purposely bids reserve and purposely does not fly much?

I can't speak for the CA's but for FO's system-wide reserve utilization rate is 93-96% so almost guaranteed to be used on reserve. It is NOT a seniority based reserve system here at SWA meaning that the most senior guys on rsv do not have the option of 'passing' as some others do. Reserve at SWA right now for FO's means lots of flying and NOBODY (can't figure why!) wants to pick up your 4-day block of reserve duty. Salary for Reserve is either 90 or 96 TFP depending on the month and like I said you will fly. Cheers, klr

 

[satpak77]

I can't speak for the CA's but for FO's system-wide reserve utilization rate is 93-96% so almost guaranteed to be used on reserve. It is NOT a seniority based reserve system here at SWA meaning that the most senior guys on rsv do not have the option of 'passing' as some others do. Reserve at SWA right now for FO's means lots of flying and NOBODY (can't figure why!) wants to pick up your 4-day block of reserve duty. Salary for Reserve is either 90 or 96 TFP depending on the month and like I said you will fly. Cheers, klr

ahh ok. thanks

 

[FlyinScotsman]

elegant solutions

Considering that not too long ago UAL was the "holy grail set-for-life" pilot job, and most people thought that nothing could change that...I have a topic for discussion about SWA.

Please don't turn this into a SW hating thread, or a "we'll always be on top thread" from the opposite side.

I'd like to hear from some people who feel they might have a bit of financial sense (of which I have absolutely none) which might explain to me HOW SWA can succeed in THIS economic climate (and worsening), especially once the effects of no longer benefiting from smart fuel hedges kicks in.

The only rational-seeming way for airlines to survive, seems to be to clear out the negativity that makes them so hated in the eyes of the general public, AND raise prices and pass costs along to customers, not cheap tickets from employee subsidies....

Which brings me to SWA... just HOW will they be able to continue (in THIS economic env & worse) to pay employees the way they do (well) and keep tickets dirt cheap? I just don't see how people are talking one minute as if these low cost carriers will survive (in THIS climate) and then how fares need to raise exponentially another minute (which seems to be the solution I see).

I could understand if SWA was on a Wal-Mart type road (cheap/mass product/PITIFUL wages)...but I don't get how they can continue to be on top with their current model (as the economic climate worsens, and the effects of loss of great fuel hedges kicks in).

What makes people think that SWA won't find itself in the same position as a UAL (recently the holy grail, now the polar opposite)? Yeah, maybe they have much better management than UAL...but HOW do they survive (and continue to survive) in these unprecedented conditions and remain "low cost"?

Again...break it down for the financial knowledge impaired... I am genuinely curious as to how to gauge this and not get in the mode of jumping from ship to ship (remaining at the bottom at each ship) following a good job that may not exist anywhere transporting passengers in any venue (that doesn't involve the following : being away 7 or 8 days at a time for your entire careers, justifying your flight plans to some (fractional) CEO you're flying that think he knows it all, or
going to a foreign country and fly for an Emirates type operation)....

They find the elegant solutions.

The spend their time and effort working with their employees instead of against them. By doing so they find the elegant solutions, the golden nuggets that would have never been found if each side continued with the traditional airline employee, management relationship.

http://www.negotiatingsolutions.com/kayesbook.html

 

[waveflyer]

nice mike myers there!

 

[ASADFW7]

Most people do not understand why certain companies are successful. It is like going to a square dance, they are a little hokey, but they are fun. You may not want to be seen at one but heck it won't kill ya. The funny thing SWA was that company for a long time, but you know what, the majority of the people flying prefer hokey. And will pay to take that square dance over and over.

It is not the fuel hedges people, and it is not luck, it is our fun loving attitude, our warrior spirit, our positively outrageous service, it is all of these things. Things that make most readers on here feel that they are at a bleeping square dance and roll their eyes in mockery. But you know what, I love that square dance. It is actually a lot of fun, and you can make fun of me all you want, I prefer it.

 

[XR650R]

Since LUV pretty much sets domestic prices, they prevented the rest of the airlines from correctly pricing the cost of air travel to aid in the recovery from 911 and left the rest of the industry in a very vulnerable position for any run-up in the price of oil which is now the case.

AA767AV8TOR


I agree with your assessment. But let me ask you this- If you had been Gary Kelly for the past six years, would you have done anything differently? Also by your statement you allude to the fact you support price collusion or some sort of oligopoly- even if it's intent was magnanimous. Do you really think Carty/Arpey wouldn't have done the same if they were in a position to hedge and then turn the screws to whom ever they could? I simply believe this is free market capitalism (or Darwinism) playing out for better of for worse.

 

[LivestockTony]

Home heating oil (and gasoline, etc) follow crude because everything is a derivative product from Crude. If crude is high, so is heating oil. Etc.

Home heating oil tracks Jet-A because it essentially is Jet-A, there's some post refining aditives that are slightly different. I fly for a company that moves a large amount of fuel by air-- we have to purge our tanks when switching from a diesel product to a gasoline product, but not from one diesel to another.

The nymex unleaded gas contracts don't track Jet prices nearly as well as the heating oil ones do for that reason- there's more of a difference in the refining cost, and that cost is variable. (Just like the CBOT corn contracts are based on #2(?) corn (livestock feed), but a #1 corn farmer hedges with that contract rather than a wheat contract even though his land can produce both and either is _somewhat_ of a derivitive of his production. The #2 tracks better, is all.)

What I've always wondered about the hedging is, if some unexpected factor (some genius figuring out how to get Jet-A from sewage using algae say) knocked oil back to 1980's levels-- doesn't SWA or other heavily hedged players get stuck because now they're effectively paying far more for their fuel than it's worth? So although SWA's management looks brilliant now, perhaps not so brilliant in 2012...? When a farmer hedges his output price, he's getting rid of his price risk. When an airline hedges an intermediate cost, and can't (because of competition) be assured of being able to pass that cost on to customers if the hedged product goes down in price, it's just trading one type of risk for another. Of course, so far it's worked out really really well for them.

There's always a counter party in a futures transaction. The firms that take the other side of those contracts have bright boys too. No one would be taking the other side of these contracts (esp. no one with a fiduciary responsibility to shareholders) if someone out there didn't think oil's current price is somewhat temporary-- SWA's 2010+ hedges would be at $150 or more otherwise...

-T

 

[Skybus]

Having begun my career with BN I seem to remember a little period in say 1981-2 involving Fang and his gang over at DFW. Anybody remember the phone call involving he and Howard Putnam?? Funny how the Justice Dept. didn't find that "curious"??