Relevance of 717 to Southwest continues to diminish

[boeingdriver213]

Can't all just get along? Since nobody is taking my idea of seniority being based on your age (older being better) This is all just a bunch of young type A studs ruffling their peacock feathers to show us all who's prettier. Lighten up. Seniority is important, but so is continued employment and good health, which you all seem determined to mitigate with your schoolyard banter.

 

[freightdogfred]

GK bein a smart guy an all, lookin at the AAI books for 6 months before the deal was announced, him havin a MBA from UT Austin and yet now ya tell me he's havin second doubts about the profitability of the 717.

GK is no fool, the rest of you, well not so much.

 

[Empennage]

OYS,

Hose is right. How good would your seniority be if you were on the street. Answer honestly please...

Oh the irony

 

[OldManPilot]

I guess I read it wrong. The way I read it is that there will probably be a parking of the 717 aircraft as leases expire.

 

[texman]

I guess I read it wrong. The way I read it is that there will probably be a parking of the 717 aircraft as leases expire.

I have a question with your new pay rates at AT. The plane is not profitable in GK's eye's. How was AT going to survive in the long run with out SWA?

 

[OldManPilot]

I'm the wrong person to ask. I fly them and that's it. You question is above my pay grade.

 

[Fly-By-Cable]

I have a question with your new pay rates at AT. The plane is not profitable in GK's eye's. How was AT going to survive in the long run with out SWA?

All of this is aimed at pressuring Boeing to come-up with a deal for future orders and options. Has nothing to do with 717's role for SWA or AT.

Look at some Busses, look at some RJs, talk about some leases that you'd like to taken off books. Blah, blah, blah...

Boeing's order book is way behind Airbus'. Oh, yeah, and sending some mixed messages to AT pilots would not hurt either.

Simple negotiations 101.

We are gonna buy a bunch more planes, some big ones too, wanna be part of that?.... how about some 717s?

 

[Bake]

OldMan, that was a very good answer. Who knows where the 717 is going? Who knows when? We can all speculate and drive each other nuts or we can try and make SWA a better place to be. It's our choice.

Baker

 

[texman]

OldMan, that was a very good answer. Who knows where the 717 is going? Who knows when? We can all speculate and drive each other nuts or we can try and make SWA a better place to be. It's our choice.

Baker

Bake your response is level headed, did you go to counseling (just kidding). Like I have said before this is all in GK's hands. But GK knew this question a year ago.

 

[Wolf King]

The fact is, GK doesn't want the 717. You can read in to that what you want, but it will never make money in our model, on our pay rates. He will not keep it on the property bleeding money. He also wants as many 700's as he can get to replace the 300's and get rid of them too. This being the case, he also doesn't need 1700 more pilots, and when he does need more, there are thousands of qualified applicants pounding on the door, willing to do it cheaper and happy to do it, as all of us were.

We can talk SLI's, arbitration, we are better than you, you are better than us, you name the argument de jour.... He was never going to fully integrate them into our CBA at our rates, and probably not even at lesser ones. They would be a booger on his finger that would have been nearly impossible to get rid of once we integrated and he had to fight all of us to do the things that make for a profitable operation. Even if we had offered a pure staple, you guy had happily agreed, and we were all singing kumbya by the fire, he would have been left with hoards of aircraft he didn't want, and expensive labor he didn't need, certainly in light of the fact that the combined operation will be much leaner than the sum of both.

So I suppose we can continue with the back and forth arbitration type arguments (On Your Six, please chime in immediately...Godspeed!), but he is going to have to do something with people and planes he doesn't need. Southwest is a business and not a government welfare program. So you take all these facts, apply a little logic, and you will see where the excess water is heading.