Pay Comparison Misnomer

[Big Slick]

I'm just being the devils advocate. I have been posting on this forum under different names for 6 years. Lately, this forum has become a SWA love-fest. For some reason, there is a group of SWA zealots who dominate every post on here. I'm just presenting the other side of the coin.

SWA F/O, any response?

Mamma, I agree with you about upgrading faster today at SWA. The question is how much longer can SWA, jetBlue, Air Tran, Virgin America, etc. continue to grow? Once the growth slows, so do the upgrades.

I'm am, however, disagreeing with all the folks on this forum who always state that SWA pays the most. They don't.

 

[HalinTexas]

I don't usually post replies but I had to ask a question when I read this. What about flying until you time out is attractive? I would prefer to have a pay cap so everyone can advance instead of one person flying the trips of 1 1/2 people. Then more people upgrade and you can make the bigger money without having to work extra until you "time out". I like to fly but I enjoy my family and time off more.

I'll tell you why.

We're in a concessionary environment.

I've been displaced and taken an 18% paycut off of 2003 rates. ATA now has an 85 hour credit cap. Also, you can't add anymore than 5 credit hours to your line. Our guarantee is presently 75 hours; line values are consistently below that. Average days off for this month, B737 MDW, is 14. Many lines include "Midway Appreciation Time," sits of 3 hours, with a too many trips having excessive RON's over 16 hours. Quite a few with 30+ hours. Rarely do you fly more than 5 hours in a given day. No duty or trip rigs. No crew meals on flights less than 4 hours.

I bought a reasonably modest FO home based on what I was making in 2002. I'm making about 10% less than that on an hourly basis. I'm a displaced captain, and I won't see the left seat again for at least 4 or five years, and that's only if we grow. I will not see the 2002 payscales in the next 5 years. (I'm looking elsewhere for income/careers.) There are very few places I can go and make what I'm making now within two years. (See Airline Pilot Central) My family needs that money. ATA has upgraded FO's, formerly FE's, to CA since the displacements began last year. They have also upgraded FE's to FO while we've furloughed FO's. These people were senior to me on the master list. My wife has had to work harder, and start her own business to make up the difference. It ain't working out that way, yet.

My union, with their lovely job protection issues, sold my family down the river.

Nearly all the ATA pilots I've ever flown with wish we had the productivity that SWA has. They can get 80 hours plus in pay and not work more than 15 days per month pretty easily, regardless of seniority. As a result, they have a better QOL than most airlines out there, ALPA or not.

If DALPA hadn't been the first to scope out RJ's back in the mid '90's, I doubt we'd all be in as much of a fix. Now, go look what NWA is voting on. I bet it passes, and they'll all blame WN, B6, and FL for their troubles.

Don't believe this union brotherhood cr@p. It's all lies. ALPA exists to promote and protect its existence. Not to protect labor.

 

[Big Slick]

HalinTexas, sorry to hear about your tough times. Believe me, I feel your pain.

I'm just tired of all these junior SWA guys who REALLY believe all the stuff that they feed you at the G.O.

Like I said earlier, I have several friends who fly for SWA and they are unhappy. 20 minute turns are not exactly fun to do 6 times a day.

I know two guys who quit SWA to go back into the military. They just said it was too hectic.

All you young guys who have the dream of flying for SWA, make sure your expectations are realistic. One SWA FO I know described it like this - he flew C-141s in the first gulf war and really busted his tail to hack the mission. He told me working at SWA was the same tempo. Plus, it never lets up. He wants to go to law school.

SWA is successful because they work their employees harder than anyone else. Period. And folks like radar love are happy to do it. Weird.

 

[Sluggo_63]

Ridiculous

...I'd rather fly eight hours, three days per week and be done than sit on my thumb at the hub flying my 3.5 hous [sic] per day.

That's what they mean by being "productive"...

Folks always bring this up, and it kills me. This is the most ridiculous statement I've heard.

I'll tell you why I don't mind sitting in the hub (on my thumb) 3 1/2 hours during the night... because if I turned the airplane in 30 minutes, it'd be empty. I actually want the boxes on board when I takeoff.

Here's the SWA version of your statement... If you really wanted to be productive, why do you sit around at 5 different airports every day for 30 minutes at each one? The way I look at it, 5 stops at 30 minutes each is 2 1/2 hours. You can fly 3 more legs if, when you got to an airport, you would just land, taxi back, and take off again. Imagine how productive you'd be without all that pesky waiting around at the terminal. What? You need to deplane passengers, and pick up new ones. That's crazy... what a waste of time. How unproductive of you.

That's why we sit around for 3.5 hours every night. To make money.

 

[canyonblue]

The dream that SWA is this happy, perfect fantasy land is 180 degrees from the reality.

It's a death camp, don't apply.

 

[radarlove]

And folks like radar love are happy to do it. Weird.

"Would" be happy to do it.

 

[IAHERJ]

First of all, there is no pay cap at Continental any longer. It went away with the concessions. You can fly to the FAR's if you really need to for some reason however most do not. SWA is by far the highest paying 737 airline flying the small 737's. It is a great gig and they have a lot of fun working there.

I have a lot of fun flying 737's at CAL. I can do a 5 hour leg to Central America from EWR and layover for 20 hours and fly 1 leg back to EWR enjoying a first class meal with great desserts. We have some fun FA's and nice layover hotels for longer stays. You can also fly domestic 3 leg days on the 300/500 or anything in between. As a 737 pilot you can have the best of both worlds but get paid a bit less (hourly) than SWA. If you want more money early on then you do what I just did and bid the 757/767 and sacrafice schedule for more money and a tour of the world on the company's dime. A mix of 757-200/300 domestic along with 757-200 trans-atlantic and if you're lucky some 767-400 trips on reserve. A year or a bit longer with CAL and you're holding the 777. Enough said. The 787 will arrive in a few years making the jother aircraft seniority move quicker and I forsee guys holding lines in the right seet of the 777 in 3 years or less once people jump to the new equipment.

Going back to the origional question. I'd recommend the 737 to new hires. It is fun to fly and you get to see 5 models (the -900 is l-a-r-g-e). You can bid up to a larger fleet at enytime with no seat lock. You can only downbid after a 2 year seat lock.

IAHERJ

 

[pedropcola]

First off for the freight guys, sitting at your hub while the jet is loaded is not the same as sitting at the jetway while pax load. It is a given in your business, you accept it because thats just the way it is. In the pax business, you can sit for hours at a jetway also, but it is not a built in part of our model nor should it be. All those stories of military guys going back to the AF because they couldn't or wouldn't hack the tempo at SWA, BS. This job ain't tough, and I've never met anyone at the post 6-8 month mark who couldn't have the FO side of the job done in 5 minutes. Now before anyone jumps me, that isn't arrogance or baloney, its just a matter of doing multiple turns for 12-15 days a month and you get fast at it. As for pay, it isn't so much that we got all these pay raises as much as everyone elses pay eroded. Contrary to what you might think most SWA guys don't like being at the (or near) the top of the pay scale, and most think that concessions may happen in the future. Our pilot group will do the right thing for the company and ourselves and make concessions if and when we need to. Anyone who flies for SWA earns their money, we fly alot on a duty day and lots of us block alot of hours during the year. So what? If you just want to fly your line or even give up some flying lots of guys do just that. To each his own. I just wanted to comment on some extremely obvious bull that has been thrown around as fact on this thread.

 

[Big Slick]

For the last several months, all of the posts on this forum have sung the praises of SWA. When someone is furloughed or about to lose their retirement, it’s not very nice to see a post talking about how SWA is going to “Put the Legacies out of Business.” Several SWA zealots like SWA/FO and Radar Love have been downright nasty.

I am presenting the other side of the argument.

Some people enjoy working at SWA. The dudes I know don’t enjoy working there - they are just happy to have an airline job.

 

[pedropcola]

I can't respond to those who would ever enjoy the thought of putting someone elses family out of a job. There is no reasonable response to that type of person. However, I was responding to your quote that some air force buds were comparing SWA ops to the tempo and stress of flying in desert storm. That is a ridiculous overstatement. I have flown both seats at SWA and have some military time. This is the easiest job that I have ever had, including my paper route. For those who are here just to have a job, they are in the extremely small minority. SWA is not "all that", but it is a very good job and almost every pilot that I have ran into from all ranks of life, consider this I very good place to end up. Not for everyone, such is life.