Hey Dan,
The problem here is that you DO have emotion invested here. You've even mentioned it. You work for a smaller carrier that has the potential to be acquired, putting you in Airtran's place. That's why you always take the Airtran side of any Airtran-Southwest argument.
For example, your post above. All you see is Airtran pilots being victims while Southwest pilots being belittling. That's ALL you can see, every single time. Does that happen sometimes? Sure. There are insensitive, and arrogant people on all sides of any argument. But Airtran has its share of hotheads as well. Airtran people are just as likely to say stupid or hurtful things annonymously as Southwest people are. You just don't see it, because you see yourself in their place. All you see, as you said above, is the Southwest blowhards and no one else.
You see that "the Airtran pilots to just be making a case that they wanted to be treated fairly..." (Actually, the jist is that they're saying that they weren't treated fairly, because they didn't get enough) Well, who says they weren't treated fairly? Besides pretty much every pilot with an opinion, that is. Folks on both sides disagree with that statement. That's pretty much the case with any SLI list. Everybody wanted more than they got.
Anyway, you're entitled to you own opinion as well, just like every Airtran guy, every Southwest guy, the General, Bill Lumberg, and every other guy and gal on this forum with an annonymous name. Just don't pretend that you're the perfectly impartial outside observer. Outside observer you may be, but perfectly impartial, you are not.
Bubba
