New AT to SWA training plan out

[funnyman12]

Why did SW hire 140 or so guys earlier this year? Block hours from last summer were down, yet they hired more pilots. Heck more guys below all of us is better, just never made much sense to me.

 

[texman]

Why did SW hire 140 or so guys earlier this year? Block hours from last summer were down, yet they hired more pilots. Heck more guys below all of us is better, just never made much sense to me.

It doesn't make sense to me either. Supposedly it was for the increase in vacation weeks by the pilot group becoming more SR. We have 150 plus retirements for 2013. No hiring for the year though. I heard it was because you guys are overstaffed per our model. So they need to offset the manning using our retirements. If true, then the SL10 upgrade projections were a lie.

 

[Ty Webb]

"Could be wrong"

Lear, no way...as you said in another thread you are never wrong...

If you can't counter a statement you don't like, insult the messenger. . . .

Genius . . . . pure genius! :laugh:

 

[Lear70]

It doesn't make sense to me either. Supposedly it was for the increase in vacation weeks by the pilot group becoming more SR. We have 150 plus retirements for 2013. No hiring for the year though. I heard it was because you guys are overstaffed per our model. So they need to offset the manning using our retirements. If true, then the SL10 upgrade projections were a lie.

We weren't overstaffed if we kept the 717's by more than 100 people, which could easily have been absorbed within our own 717 ranks just like it is now (low line values, high reserve coverage).

We were only overstaffed by about 50 or so on the 737 compared to your staffing ratio, which was MORE than offset by the retirements just in the first half of next year.

However, the number of 717's being sub-leased to Delta isn't offset on a purely hull-for hull basis by the retained 737 Classics plus deliveries. As a result, bringing over all our people is going to overstaff SWA by 450-500 people which, as i mentioned earlier, I agree with you that retirements are going to be used instead of growth to even out that number over the next 4-5 years.

That said, I disagree with you that it makes the SL10 upgrade numbers a lie.

The SL10 upgrade numbers were based on all our 737's coming across. They still are, and because our 737 CA's can't stay CA's and will be F/O's, your senior F/O's are still going to upgrade into those airplanes in the same staffing rate that they were promised in SL10.

Additionally, if nothing is done to offset the unplanned loss of our 717 Captain slots, you will also now be retaining the 737 Classics, which will yield you even MORE Captain seats.

With the Classics staying, you have to keep CA in those seats. With our 737's coming, you have to put CA's in those seats. You're going to get more upgrades than SL10 originally promised. That's just simple math of how many 737's are on property at the end of 12/31/2014.

Our overstaffing being brought over isn't going to come at the expense of CA seats, it's going to come at the expense of the F/O's, since we're ALL coming over as F/O's now. What is to be determined is whether or not it is considered a displacement for our people who were awarded 717 SWA TBD.

So basically your senior CA's were untouched with all this. Your mid-level
CA's won't feel it until after 2015 at which time enough people senior to them will have retired and they basically won't see any difference to what they were expecting to see in terms of seniority progression pre-acquisition. Your Junior CA's BEFORE the announcement get a seniority bump as all the senior F/O's there upgrade earlier than planned.

Your senior F/O's who upgrade through this will upgrade sooner and make an extra $250-500k than they expected, but will stay on reserve until basically 2020 in all likelihood as our senior CA's upgrade ahead of them after the 1/1/15 fence drop.

Your mid-level F/O's will stay about the same as your previously-senior F/O's upgrade, BUT our CA's come in above your previous-mid-level F/O's on each bases' seniority list and take the place of your senior F/O's.

Your junior F/O's will get bounced around from base to base as our CA's and senior F/O's come in above them and the normal monthly base size flexes up and down.

Your new-hire F/O's mixed with our mid-level, junior, and new-hire F/O's will form a very large reserve "plug" on the bottom for about a decade.

We've flow-charted the seniority progression out for the combined master seniority list and how it moves for the next 20 years and the above is, on a macro scale, about as accurate as it gets.

 

[roughneck]

What is to be determined is whether or not it is considered a displacement for our people who were awarded 717 SWA TBD.

A 717 displacement can't occur on the SWA side because we don't have a 717 to be displaced from. That displacement will occur on the AT side. The SWAPA contract doesn't apply to the AirTran side of the partition.

 

[madjack]

"If you can't counter a statement you don't like, insult the messenger. . . .

Genius . . . . pure genius! :laugh: "

Pot meet kettle

 

[madjack]

"Early already owes me $100 and Beisheim owes me a bottle of Johnny Walker Blue, but neither of them are anywhere to be found. "

Lear is the smartest guy in the room, just ask him!

 

[texman]

We weren't overstaffed if we kept the 717's by more than 100 people, which could easily have been absorbed within our own 717 ranks just like it is now (low line values, high reserve coverage).

We were only overstaffed by about 50 or so on the 737 compared to your staffing ratio, which was MORE than offset by the retirements just in the first half of next year.

However, the number of 717's being sub-leased to Delta isn't offset on a purely hull-for hull basis by the retained 737 Classics plus deliveries. As a result, bringing over all our people is going to overstaff SWA by 450-500 people which, as i mentioned earlier, I agree with you that retirements are going to be used instead of growth to even out that number over the next 4-5 years.

That said, I disagree with you that it makes the SL10 upgrade numbers a lie.

The SL10 upgrade numbers were based on all our 737's coming across. They still are, and because our 737 CA's can't stay CA's and will be F/O's, your senior F/O's are still going to upgrade into those airplanes in the same staffing rate that they were promised in SL10.

Additionally, if nothing is done to offset the unplanned loss of our 717 Captain slots, you will also now be retaining the 737 Classics, which will yield you even MORE Captain seats.

With the Classics staying, you have to keep CA in those seats. With our 737's coming, you have to put CA's in those seats. You're going to get more upgrades than SL10 originally promised. That's just simple math of how many 737's are on property at the end of 12/31/2014.

Our overstaffing being brought over isn't going to come at the expense of CA seats, it's going to come at the expense of the F/O's, since we're ALL coming over as F/O's now. What is to be determined is whether or not it is considered a displacement for our people who were awarded 717 SWA TBD.

So basically your senior CA's were untouched with all this. Your mid-level
CA's won't feel it until after 2015 at which time enough people senior to them will have retired and they basically won't see any difference to what they were expecting to see in terms of seniority progression pre-acquisition. Your Junior CA's BEFORE the announcement get a seniority bump as all the senior F/O's there upgrade earlier than planned.

Your senior F/O's who upgrade through this will upgrade sooner and make an extra $250-500k than they expected, but will stay on reserve until basically 2020 in all likelihood as our senior CA's upgrade ahead of them after the 1/1/15 fence drop.

Your mid-level F/O's will stay about the same as your previously-senior F/O's upgrade, BUT our CA's come in above your previous-mid-level F/O's on each bases' seniority list and take the place of your senior F/O's.

Your junior F/O's will get bounced around from base to base as our CA's and senior F/O's come in above them and the normal monthly base size flexes up and down.

Your new-hire F/O's mixed with our mid-level, junior, and new-hire F/O's will form a very large reserve "plug" on the bottom for about a decade.

We've flow-charted the seniority progression out for the combined master seniority list and how it moves for the next 20 years and the above is, on a macro scale, about as accurate as it gets.

So are you saying being overstaffed by 400-500 pilots, is due to less airframes on property after 2015? Thus the retirements will help ease the staffing levels? If we shrink this does mean the SL10 is bunk.

 

[Lear70]

So are you saying being overstaffed by 400-500 pilots, is due to less airframes on property after 2015? Thus the retirements will help ease the staffing levels? If we shrink this does mean the SL10 is bunk.

No.

The vast majority of SL10 was designed simply to incorporate another pilot group with regard to seniority, training, no probation, etc, as well as give you our 737 Captain seats. It wasn't designed to dictate staffing levels.

Yes, in 2015, it appears that the combined total number of airframes on property between both airlines will be LESS than it is now (not including the 717's that will finish transitioning that year). This is due to more 717's being assigned to Delta than there are Classics that were going to be retired and now will be retained plus deliveries of new aircraft including the ones that were deferred.

There will still be the same number of net CA seats required for our incoming 737's, which is what you were projecting to gain from SL10. None of those 737's are going anywhere else.

The extra Captain seats you will gain is that you're not retiring the Classics for now, so instead of our 717's coming over with their CA's in their seats, you keep over 50 airplanes that were supposed to go away, and you keep those CA seats too, while our CA's have to all go back to F/O.

The overstaffing problem will all be on the F/O end, with attrition being used to balance that out. A little under 200 per year the next few years, with your F/O's STILL continuing to get those CA seats, bypassing our former CA's, until 1/1/15, then our guys start upgrading instead.

Eventually that will even out the CA/FO staffing ratios, and hiring will start again, my best guess 2016-2017...??? Unless they pull the lever on growth, then all bets are off.

 

[Lear70]

"Early already owes me $100 and Beisheim owes me a bottle of Johnny Walker Blue, but neither of them are anywhere to be found. "

Lear is the smartest guy in the room, just ask him!

Hey, money talks... Never said I was right all the time, contrary to your mud-slinging claim, but the fact that those two owe me money over my predictions isn't changing.