For us outsiders. Which parts of section one that do not require BoD approval will cause growth to stop? Can you give an example of an airline partnership would be allowed?
Thanks
Still working on it... The issue is that PDEW (Passenger DAILY Each Way) has two different metrics.
I see it as a way for the company to establish new service, get it up and running with 3-4 daily flights, then sub-service it to another carrier running only one flight every 3 or 4 days (there's no minimum service level to still say we fly there mentioned in 1.F.1.f), then go develop other markets, then come back seasonally. Essentially allowing the company to grow and develop other markets without increasing the number of our pilots or planes. A LOT of those S. American and Caribbean destinations are seasonal... We grow for the next 2 years into those markets so we can say we "service" them, then growth stops while they use this to explore route options.
First, Southwest must already serve the city, and no pilots may be on furlough.
Second, once we have service, they can sub-contract up to 900 passengers EVERY DAY to that city without triggering the "circuit breaker" (Negotiating Committee term - clearly they're trying to dumb it down for those who can't be bothered to read the CBA for more than 5 seconds).
That's 900 passengers, PER CITY, PER DAY. About 6 -700's or 5 -800's or 4+ max flights.
Then it has to drop to 75 passengers per city per day as seen by a 12-month look-back. This would allow the company to essentially service a station in high volume seasonally (Cancun during Spring Break and the peak Fall/Winter travel months when people in the U.S. want to escape the cold), then sub-contract it out the rest of the year, freeing the aircraft up to develop new markets elsewhere, rather than having to buy additional aircraft for our pilots to fly those routes during the low-season. Rinse, wash, repeat.
If they do NOT comply with the above limits, they have 12 months to continue doing it before they pull down the traffic below those limits or stop completely, AND,,, there is no restriction on how LONG the pull-down must take place before they exceed it again, then they have another 12 months to re-comply. (F.2.D.ii.a)
There are a couple "feel-good" paragraphs about the Company agreeing that this is primarily SUPPOSED to be to develop SWA routes so that we can grow (with no metric tied to actually forcing one of our planes on the route), more feel-good language about the Company demonstrating, upon request, that it really IS being used for growth - with no metric or open books requirement beyond showing them the ticketing volume... Heck, they could say that it's stimulating DOMESTIC travel to US cities they're codesharing out of and it would fall under "growth", as there's nothing in there to require them to prove it's International growth, or even how much "growth" is considered "growth". Are we getting 1 more passenger per week on those planes? Hey, that's revenue growth.
We fell for the same old thing I've been cautioning people about for years... NO backstop "cease and desist PERMANENTLY, or until we can come to a new Agreement" language. NO metric on growth. Some undefined terms like "U.S. Trans-border segment", among others.
Oh, and did I mention that, in the language, if you go to a discipline meeting, you HAVE to sign the letter of warning? You can no longer grieve it? That is the first step of progressive discipline. The RLA requires the company to use PROGRESSIVE DISCIPLINE on a pilot. First, a Letter of Discipline, then a suspension, then termination. You essentially just gave away the first step of discipline with no way to challenge it or grieve it.
The more I find, the more it's just unbelievable this went to the membership. The rebuttal is going to be REALLY long. The page of give-backs is up to two pages now with about 12 things in the "gains" section, most of which are pretty small.