Is the Southwest pay/contract sustainable at current market?

[General Lee]

Ahhh. The stink of the Delta bankruptcy. It just never really goes away. It's still in the air.

Let's hope you are not next. I think we will see you charge for bags before that happens, though. (like AT does) Good luck!


Bye Bye---General Lee

 

[General Lee]

Oh I believe this one in THIS thread is full of substance and facts:



NEXT!!!!!!!!

Read your top line again? You sound drunk.


Bye Bye---General Lee

 

[redflyer65]

Let's hope you are not next. I think we will see you charge for bags before that happens, though. (like AT does) Good luck!


Bye Bye---General Lee

Next? Your Mom must have put something in your midnight brownies General.

41 years of profits. We own around 75% of our airframes. Billions in the bank. You think we are close?

 

[General Lee]

Next? Your Mom must have put something in your midnight brownies General.

41 years of profits. We own around 75% of our airframes. Billions in the bank. You think we are close?

I hope you never have to go there, but you never know. GK sure hasn't been upbeat lately. And, your Mom actually gave me brownies. I told her it was inappropriate, and to leave, now.


Bye Bye---General Lee

 

[humveedriver]

Next? Your Mom must have put something in your midnight brownies General.

41 years of profits. We own around 75% of our airframes. Billions in the bank. You think we are close?

I believe you are going to see a campaign from management, claiming serious concerns about making a yearly profit for 2013. And I think it is a legitimate claim/concern. What I believe is the root cause of what will be a tough 2013 and 2014 will be the integration of the route structure between AT and SWA. Currently there is a disclaimer on the AT website that tickets are only being sold as far out as May 2013. They aren't telegraphing what the transition routes will look like this summer, and I'll bet a cold beer that they are still trying to figure out how to shrink AT, without losing a ton of money. I can only imagine the trepidation management feels towards implementing a new reservation system. I hope the first AIP from the SWAPA section 6 negotiations isn't complete until 2015 and we are on the backside of the transition. I think they are going to lose some synergy revenue before they fully achieve what they want from merging operations.

 

[Dan Roman]

41 years of profits. We own around 75% of our airframes.

Just food for thought, but owning your airframes can go from being great for the bottom line to terrible once they become inefficient or old. A few hundred old 737 that no one wants and have to be replaced to compete with Neo's and next Gen aircraft can be a huge liability.

 

[scoreboardII]

I believe you are going to see a campaign from management, claiming serious concerns about making a yearly profit for 2013. And I think it is a legitimate claim/concern. What I believe is the root cause of what will be a tough 2013 and 2014 will be the integration of the route structure between AT and SWA. Currently there is a disclaimer on the AT website that tickets are only being sold as far out as May 2013. They aren't telegraphing what the transition routes will look like this summer, and I'll bet a cold beer that they are still trying to figure out how to shrink AT, without losing a ton of money. I can only imagine the trepidation management feels to wards implementing a new reservation system. I hope the first AIP from the SWAPA section 6 negotiations isn't complete until 2015 and we are on the backside of the transition. I think they are going to lose some synergy revenue before they fully achieve what they want from merging operations.

Good points but preaching to the choir. We banged the drum, yelled from the tallest buildings. Shame CEO's don't listen to the folks who actually make the money for them and shareholders.

 

[humveedriver]

Good points but preaching to the choir.

I'm sure I am. Just be sure to tell Gary and company that when he bought an airline, leased a majority of their aircraft to their biggest competitor and then asked for concessions to pay for their self created mess; that Humvee and the rest of the AT brothers told him to suck it (with a big fat no vote).

 

[scoreboardII]

Dude, get in line, we told em the day the announcment was made. This CEO will not be allowed to writeoff this pruchase on the backs of the very employees he claims to value. ******************** him.

 

[Mach 80]

Yeah...too bad SWA has had to compete with the bankruptcy laws instead o0f allowing business Darwinism to take place. I love these guys at DL, etc who are so proud of being so profitable, which would be something to be legitably proud of had DL and others not screwed debt holders, shred contracts, shred retirements, laid off thousands, quit making paymnets on airplanes.

Run a place into the ground and then get a free do over. Nice way to run a business. And other well run businesses have to compete with that. Yeah, that's fair.

 

[General Lee]

Yeah...too bad SWA has had to compete with the bankruptcy laws instead o0f allowing business Darwinism to take place. I love these guys at DL, etc who are so proud of being so profitable, which would be something to be legitably proud of had DL and others not screwed debt holders, shred contracts, shred retirements, laid off thousands, quit making paymnets on airplanes.

Run a place into the ground and then get a free do over. Nice way to run a business. And other well run businesses have to compete with that. Yeah, that's fair.

Are you in favor of kicking people who go BK out of the country for good? Sounds like it. This is a country of second chances. Get used to it Stalin.



Bye Bye---General Lee

 

[scoreboardII]

second chances after you pay your debts.

 

[HA25]

second chances after you pay your debts.

spoken like someone who has never experienced a hardship.... yep, I've got mine, get yer own!

probably a "Christian" too, right?

 

[General Lee]

second chances after you pay your debts.

That is why you go BK, you can't. If you can, the BK judge won't allow it. The PBGC didn't allow AA to dump their pensions. It isn't a free for all.


Bye Bye---General Lee

 

[Lear70]

I don't have a problem with the Bankruptcy process.

I have a problem with multi-million dollar payouts to the corporate executives who ran their companies into the ground and MULTIPLE trips through bankruptcy.

3 strikes you're out sounds pretty fair to me. Corporations should be required to run profitably or be forced out of the business. The country was NOT designed to use bankruptcy as a strategy to compete.

 

[HA25]

I don't have a problem with the Bankruptcy process.

I have a problem with multi-million dollar payouts to the corporate executives who ran their companies into the ground and MULTIPLE trips through bankruptcy.

3 strikes you're out sounds pretty fair to me. Corporations should be required to run profitably or be forced out of the business. The country was NOT designed to use bankruptcy as a strategy to compete.

totally agree on that aspect of BK law..

A priest at my church once said something very brilliant... "Americans want socialist risks and capitalist returns"... it's true. Banks, Airlines, all of them.... cry when the government taxes them, but when they need the government to bail them out, they're all of a sudden "socialists"

 

[General Lee]

I don't have a problem with the Bankruptcy process.

I have a problem with multi-million dollar payouts to the corporate executives who ran their companies into the ground and MULTIPLE trips through bankruptcy.

3 strikes you're out sounds pretty fair to me. Corporations should be required to run profitably or be forced out of the business. The country was NOT designed to use bankruptcy as a strategy to compete.

The process does suck, and management often gets an "atta boy" for a "successful re-emergence" and the BK lawyers get rich. I think there is a limit to how many times a company can go BK, and only a couple airlines I can think of have gone BK more than once, CAL and AWA? Being through the process once already, I really didn't enjoy it, and I hope the rest of you never have to either.


Bye Bye---General Lee

 

[Lear70]

The process does suck, and management often gets an "atta boy" for a "successful re-emergence" and the BK lawyers get rich. I think there is a limit to how many times a company can go BK, and only a couple airlines I can think of have gone BK more than once, CAL and AWA? Being through the process once already, I really didn't enjoy it, and I hope the rest of you never have to either.


Bye Bye---General Lee

More airlines than that.

Either way, yes, it sucks, and yes, I've been through it, except my company just closed the doors and shut down while pilots were still out on the road in the hotel wondering why Scheduling and Dispatch weren't answering the phones...

That said, I *KNOW* that many companies used it as a tool post 9/11, a rather effective one, and it's going to take our entire career lifetimes just to get back to where we were in the 80's when corrected for inflation.

 

[scoreboardII]

spoken like someone who has never experienced a hardship.... yep, I've got mine, get yer own!

probably a "Christian" too, right?

If you experienced personal bankruptcy, you would be subject to extreme limits on what you could do. Not so for corporations, just the opposite in fact.

You as an individual in bankruptcy cannot go back into debt buying another house you can't afford, yet as noted, thats exactly what happens to corporations or more importantly the people who want their money, the prime creditors. Look no further than GE capitial as the prime reason airlines keep coming back, GE wants their engines turning and burning at all costs down to zero profit.

Maybe you didn't read my signature:

 

[scoreboardII]

More airlines than that.


and it's going to take our entire career lifetimes just to get back to where we were in the 80's when corrected for inflation.

My take is the glory days of a days pay for a days work are over. Look how far the legacies have fallen: to that of lowly SWA payscales, a payscale that dollar for dollar is within 1% of what SWA pilots made back in 1970's.

Think about that, every major airline pilot has the ability today to make what a SWA pilot did in 1975. Thats a pretty low bar in my opinion, one that based on world economies will never be raised. Try and raise it and the companies will outsource to a foreign provider. The customers will demand as much or more accurately, as little, that or they drive.