Is the Southwest pay/contract sustainable at current market?

[XR650R]

All will be solved when SWA starts charging for bags. Bags fly free is on its way out the door.

True statement. As soon as our infamous IT dept actually develops a system where it's even possible to charge for bags!! I hear early 2014.

 

[igneousy2]

Gen, you've posted several times how having a single fleet type is SOO detrimental to a career. You somehow seem to imply that Delta is sooo much better because of all the different fleet types which causes soo much more pilot hiring. I see a lot of training cycles but aside from that it's all the same isn't it. A 747 CA at Delta retires...one pilot is hired as DC9-FO->737FO->767FO->777FO->747FO->DC9CA->737CA->767CA->777CA->747CA.

737CA retires at SWA new hire 737FO->737CA.

At the end of the day, you still have only one new Captain and one new hire First Officer under either scenario. What am I missing?

 

[BR715]

Lear,
Has something changed? Is everyone rebidding or something? I think your talking about guys who bid 73 back to the dark ages FO.

 

[canyonblue]

The general is right SWA has some serious issues to solve.

I agree! You will find plenty of SWA pilots who will agree with you that we haven't made some very good decisions in recent years.

 

[jonjuan]

All will be solved when SWA starts charging for bags. Bags fly free is on its way out the door.

The flip side of that is that they'll lose market share if they do that as has been stated by management all along.

 

[jonjuan]

Gen, you've posted several times how having a single fleet type is SOO detrimental to a career. You somehow seem to imply that Delta is sooo much better because of all the different fleet types which causes soo much more pilot hiring. I see a lot of training cycles but aside from that it's all the same isn't it. A 747 CA at Delta retires...one pilot is hired as DC9-FO->737FO->767FO->777FO->747FO->DC9CA->737CA->767CA->777CA->747CA.

737CA retires at SWA new hire 737FO->737CA.

At the end of the day, you still have only one new Captain and one new hire First Officer under either scenario. What am I missing?

I think she may have been implying that with many more people in training and not out on the line flying, manning will need to be greater than the leaner approach of SWA.

 

[Cruncher]

...lose market share...

:uzi: Maybe this will help us "shrink" to profitability! uke:

 

[GhettoBeechjet]

:uzi: Maybe this will help us "shrink" to profitability! uke:

Ding Ding Ding we have a winner. Watch for new phrases from management such as fleet count rationalization. We will be 70 airframes smaller and 1100 pilots overmanned. I suspect that GL is right and we will lose a significant number of pilots to DL.

 

[Ty Webb]

Ding Ding Ding we have a winner. Watch for new phrases from management such as fleet count rationalization. We will be 70 airframes smaller and 1100 pilots overmanned. I suspect that GL is right and we will lose a significant number of pilots to DL.

Both your reasoning and your math don't make any sense. Care to elaborate?

 

[wood pecker]

That 3 days for bid is for the Jan class I think or is it Jan and Feb?

 

[GhettoBeechjet]

Both your reasoning and your math don't make any sense. Care to elaborate?

Sure thing: We are losing 88 717s to DL. We have 86 deliveries coming form Boeing which is a net loss of 2 airframes. The real question becomes how many classics stay on property. I believe that they will only keep the 100 classics that they are retrofitting with the evolve interior which is a loss of 68 additional airframes. My opinion is based on the fact that we already have too much ASM capacity in the system which is why the pilots on the AAI side of the partition are suffering such a dirth of flying. In addition a 737 produces more ASMs per departure than a 717. Add into that a crappy economy, high fuel prices and demand will shrink. With a loss of 70 airframes that equates to 700 extra pilots. According to Lear Flt Ops has said even with retirements we would be 400 or so pilots overstaffed with a flat fleet because of the increased productivity on the WN side of the partition. Add the two and you get 1100 too many pilots.

 

[Lear70]

Sure thing: We are losing 88 717s to DL. We have 86 deliveries coming form Boeing which is a net loss of 2 airframes. The real question becomes how many classics stay on property. I believe that they will only keep the 100 classics that they are retrofitting with the evolve interior which is a loss of 68 additional airframes. My opinion is based on the fact that we already have too much ASM capacity in the system which is why the pilots on the AAI side of the partition are suffering such a dirth of flying. In addition a 737 produces more ASMs per departure than a 717. Add into that a crappy economy, high fuel prices and demand will shrink. With a loss of 70 airframes that equates to 700 extra pilots. According to Lear Flt Ops has said even with retirements we would be 400 or so pilots overstaffed with a flat fleet because of the increased productivity on the WN side of the partition. Add the two and you get 1100 too many pilots.

The real question is not IF, but "WHEN" the Classics go away.

My bet is that they don't start going away until 1st quarter 2015 and coincide with the deferred deliveries starting to come on property, pretty close to 1 for 1. If that happens, no serious over-staffing to worry about - they can absorb 5% overstaffing just by flattening line values on the SWA side and covering most open time with reserves (which they've already told us is coming).

If they go away BEFORE that, then yes, we have a problem.

As for the 400 overstaffing, that is FLT OPS forecast on 1/1/15 taking into account attrition between now and then for age 65 (2013 and 2014), or at least that's the number they're throwing out there.

Lear,
Has something changed? Is everyone rebidding or something? I think your talking about guys who bid 73 back to the dark ages FO.

No, I was responding to you talking about having the opportunity to go fly the round dials soon and "go back to 1975..." That bid opens on Thursday and yes, WP, that's for the January 5th class date at SWA. 8 MCO 737 crews who bid 737 F/O at SWA plus some 8 MKE peeps I think, don't have the table in front of me.

As far as I know, there's not going to be a re-bid, but then again I haven't heard what (if anything) we gave up in order to get the "schedule improvements" the new NC was "able" to obtain. I say that TIC simply because the changes don't really affect many of us - most of us already have 15 days off or more, and some of the other changes help scheduling just as much as us.

 

[scoreboardII]

I'm not seeing the classic go away until the MAX shows up in 2018-20. It was as Ghetto said pre-Boeing fix of the classics, but now that Boeing has fixed or is fixing them at cost to them, those things will fly till some other event occurs such has extremely hi fuel costs. Classics are cool, sort of like your grandpa's old 50's pickup truck.

 

[Tripower455]

Classics are cool, sort of like your grandpa's old 50's pickup truck.

Classics may be fine pieces of aviation memoribilia, but cool, they are not.....

Now, the -800 is a cool airplane! 114F on the ramp in LAS, and the FA's tell you they're freezing in the cabin!

Oh, and the damn ATs never work on the classics either....

 

[General Lee]

Gen, you've posted several times how having a single fleet type is SOO detrimental to a career. You somehow seem to imply that Delta is sooo much better because of all the different fleet types which causes soo much more pilot hiring. I see a lot of training cycles but aside from that it's all the same isn't it. A 747 CA at Delta retires...one pilot is hired as DC9-FO->737FO->767FO->777FO->747FO->DC9CA->737CA->767CA->777CA->747CA.

737CA retires at SWA new hire 737FO->737CA.

At the end of the day, you still have only one new Captain and one new hire First Officer under either scenario. What am I missing?

Each step up is a pay raise because not every position pays the same. So, a senior DC9 FO can bid to A330 FO, and get a huge raise. So many combos, so much variety. Let's look at actual numbers of projected retirements too. In the next few years, up to 10 years, DL is looking at huge retirement numbers. Some years have more than 700 pilots reaching age 65. That means incredible upward movement. The same goes for the other legacies. As far as SWA goes, I think I read about 150 a year or so would be it through this decade. I'm not making fun of that, rather stating what I read. What will that mean for the junior guys? With the younger AT group coming in, how will that affect future upgrades? These are things junior SWA pilots will be looking at when the legacies start hiring in big numbers.


Bye Bye---General Lee

 

[GhettoBeechjet]

I'm not seeing the classic go away until the MAX shows up in 2018-20. It was as Ghetto said pre-Boeing fix of the classics, but now that Boeing has fixed or is fixing them at cost to them, those things will fly till some other event occurs such has extremely hi fuel costs. Classics are cool, sort of like your grandpa's old 50's pickup truck.

Scoreboard I would like to buy your argurment but if we keep all these airframes we have to have flying for them that meets or exceeds managements profit targets. This would mean a gain in ASMs vs where we are today. We can't make our target ROI and management is now blaming our labor cost. When your costs are too high and your revenue is too low you pull back not expand.

 

[scoreboardII]

or you merge and or buy someone else...

 

[GhettoBeechjet]

Getting back the title of the thread the Southwest contracts are sustainable but management isn't satisfied with our results. I know it was posted in another thread but look at this

http://www.dallasnews.com/business/...s-the-advantage-in-southwest-airlines-2.0.ece

Note that this was in the Dallas Moring News which is typically very friendly to SWA. Also note that the above article was posted on the employee website by SWA senior leadership. Management is clearly table setting and will be looking for concessions in the upcoming contracts.

 

[Whataburger]

I heard that we will be handed a 75% paycut just before Christmas, and the doors will be shut two weeks later. Herb and Gary suck at business. They simply got lucky for 40 years, and now their luck has run out.

It was a good ride fellas! Good thing Delta is hiring...

 

[redflyer65]

I'm just hoping the Delta guys will buy us coffee or lunch when they see us in Atlanta. Things are looking pretty dire here at Good Ole' Southwest.


Will the Double Breasted guys help a brother out?