Point taken Bubba.....but why is your example a BAD thing? Until you lived it...it's easy to throw rocks at it. Next thing you are going to tell me is that the next startup or SWA will start taking the public bus because you think "it's stupid" to have a crew transport?
Seriously....no dig here....where does the toilet stop flushing?
I actually was not trying to throw rocks at anyone. When it happened, I was new to the industry and astonished, because I didn't know how much of this worked. I was trying to point out that although SWA started with a relatively poor contract when it was brand new and on tenuous survival status (as does every new airline) that our pilot group has always made steady progress on increasing our pay and bettering our contact, and more importantly for the industry (and of course, ourselves), we've never sacrificed our juniors for a quick buck. Nor have we sold out flying. That's actually a good example for the entire industry. Getting a large payraise at the expense of junior pilots may immediately look good on paper, but
ultimately is a very bad thing for every other airline in the country, when the inevitable downward stroke comes.
As far as that specific Delta example of the van, I'm guessing it's probably easy to ask for a lot of that stuff when your company is flush (along with attractive pay increases, of course), but I think that presupposes the cyclic nature of the profession, and I think that on some level, these guys must have in the back of their minds that "we'll get the money now, but some of us will be furloughed later."
When I was looking to get out of the military in late 2000,
all the majors were hiring bigtime. After doing MY research, I only applied to Southwest. At the time, I knew I would make somewhat less money, and work a little harder (not that anything we do is actually
hard), but the positives outweighed that. At least for me. More fun at the job, slow but steady pay increases, and most importantly, none of that cyclic crap where I'd have to
plan on a furlough or two in my career. My personal plan was to never have to look for another job in my life. Obviously no one could have forseen 9/11 & the meteoric rise in gas prices, and then the speed of the resultant downward spiral of the industry, but I suspect everyone knew that a downward movement was the next cycle for the industry regardless.
Not saying that Southwest was the right choice for everyone, but it was for me, not wanting to deal with the downs in addition to the ups. I was simply pointing out to PCL that Southwest pilots' steady progress has been a
good example for the industry overall.
Bubba