Is the Southwest pay/contract sustainable at current market?

[redflyer65]

Heck Red....

I'll just start HONESTLY by writing on a cocktail napkin and then HONESTLY beg to only fly within the terms of the Wright Amendment then HONESTLY ask to later drop those rules, then HONESTLY undercut my competitors by paying my employees peanuts and have them stripped of all benefits and HONESTLY tell them to bring their own training, then HONESTLY ......

It goes on and on.....your honest competition is gladly invited by you guys when all is good and carriers that have been around for DECADES longer than you and were the actual birthers of the airway system as you so well know it go and use a LEGAL HONEST system to restructure their debts, you cry foul....

I hope you never have to see the day.......obtw, you got your big paycheck on the backs of the Uniteds and Deltas who jammed it through in 2000, so you are welcome!

Pretty weak arguement Bill.

Southwest has fought tooth and nail year after year when the larger carriers tried to sue them into oblivion. Southwest succeeded with every roadblock thrown it's way.

Your throwing up the Wright Amendment? It was yet another political ploy by Jim Wright to stifle an airline that American was concerned about. Even then, we succeeded by using thru flights for our passengers to reach other cross country destinations.

Undercut employee benefits and peanuts? There have been plenty of SW pilots retire multi-millionaires because they were included in the success of the company, but that doesn't fit conveniently into your arguement. Delta was the one that raped their pilots by striping the pensions. Those that were close to retirement and elected to not take an early out (maybe because they still believed in Delta as a company) were left with nothing thanks to going into bankruptcy.

 

[jonjuan]

You mean after everyone of those competitors ran through bankruptcy to cut their cost, because they were run so poorly there was no other option? Then where's the honest competition?

Are you in management or just an employee who is a cog in a wheel who does what he's told? What would you be telling us here if SWA said "No Thanks, Red, you have bad breath" and you were somehow able to be hired by UAL or CAL?

 

[Ty Webb]

Hey, Enigma-

Good to see you posting again.

Regards,
Ty

 

[scoreboardII]

So, Dal, AA, etc don't have price competition on international routes? Please show your data that intl fares fund domestic routes. Or are you just playing the blame game?

sure, go to Expedia, click us air and Fresno to Frankfurt for tomorrow. Air fare is $2400 one way, now click sfo to Frankfurt, airfare is $2400 one way, now click Fresno sfo, airfare is $280. So you see, using math, we can show that the international traveler flying to Frankfurt from Fresno pays zero for his Fresno sfo leg, yet the poor sap who only needs to get to sfo pays $280.

 

[Data]

Huh? Back to the BK trough? Oh come on. The debt is being brought down by $2 billion PER YEAR, and it will have gone from $18 Billion to $10 billion within 4 years.

Bye Bye---General Lee

Delta's off-balance-sheet liabilities increased more than the reduction in on-balance-sheet debt. From 2010 to 2011 pension liabilities increased $2.8 billion and stand at roughly $14 billion. American went into bk with $8 billion in pension obligations. Keep up the record profits though, you need it to get your retirement.

http://blog.newconstructs.com/wp-co...edStatusPensionsAndPostretirementBenefits.pdf

 

[jonjuan]

Delta's off-balance-sheet liabilities increased more than the reduction in on-balance-sheet debt. From 2010 to 2011 pension liabilities increased $2.8 billion and stand at roughly $14 billion. American went into bk with $8 billion in pension obligations. Keep up the record profits though, you need it to get your retirement.

http://blog.newconstructs.com/wp-co...edStatusPensionsAndPostretirementBenefits.pdf

I dont think delta has a retirement pension anymore, at least for pilots. They have a 15% of w-2 contribution dumped into a 401k. How does that compare to what you get?

 

[Lear70]

Delta's pensions got frozen in the bankruptcy.

Payments will continue on that debt, but the debt will slowly reduce to zero as retirees stop drawing benefits (death. sorry to be morbid, but it's a balance sheet fact).

As long as the other debt is paid down, Delta should be fine, pension debt will flux up and down yearly until the last of the covered retirees no longer draws a pension, but as long as other debt goes down at the same Dollar amount that pension liabilities go up on a long-term scale (not just yearly, but over a 7-10 year snapshot), they aren't any worse off. Definitely something to watch for...

 

[BILL LUMBERG]

Pretty weak arguement Bill.

Southwest has fought tooth and nail year after year when the larger carriers tried to sue them into oblivion. Southwest succeeded with every roadblock thrown it's way.

Your throwing up the Wright Amendment? It was yet another political ploy by Jim Wright to stifle an airline that American was concerned about. Even then, we succeeded by using thru flights for our passengers to reach other cross country destinations.

Undercut employee benefits and peanuts? There have been plenty of SW pilots retire multi-millionaires because they were included in the success of the company, but that doesn't fit conveniently into your arguement. Delta was the one that raped their pilots by striping the pensions. Those that were close to retirement and elected to not take an early out (maybe because they still believed in Delta as a company) were left with nothing thanks to going into bankruptcy.

So not paying your people a commensurate wage or offering them a pension is honest competition? I just want to see if I got that straight. Because airlines promised their people a steady retirement, they shouldn't get court help when that adds up to billions?

It's easy to claim success and "be the price leader" on a route when you don't have to pay Billions in promised employee benefits established before you guys were a scribble on Herb's Wild turkey fueled business plan.....

If another competitor comes in and pays nothing and tries to undercut the warriors, don't blame them......again, I wish a strong Southwest for the good of the industry and it's people. We don't need to race to the bottom and both of our airlines have contributed in one way or another.

 

[Scoot 11]

Delta's pensions got frozen in the bankruptcy.

Payments will continue on that debt, but the debt will slowly reduce to zero as retirees stop drawing benefits (death. sorry to be morbid, but it's a balance sheet fact).

As long as the other debt is paid down, Delta should be fine, pension debt will flux up and down yearly until the last of the covered retirees no longer draws a pension, but as long as other debt goes down at the same Dollar amount that pension liabilities go up on a long-term scale (not just yearly, but over a 7-10 year snapshot), they aren't any worse off. Definitely something to watch for...

Wrong. Delta's pensions got TERMINATED in bankruptcy. NWA, however, is a complete different animal.

 

[Lear70]

Well, since they're merged now, I was speaking in terms of their general balance sheet, but if you want to get technical about it.