Something brewing at Luv?

[airlinepilot]

Question for the Alaska guys and gals. How many pilots do you have and how many are on the street? How many airplanes do you have. How many dom's do you have?

 

[Fubijaakr]

http://www.airlinepilotcentral.com/airlines/legacy/alaska.html

 

[Max Powers]

Fubar,

I do not think a staple is appropriate in the case we are talking about.

However I have to call you out on what career expectations mean. If a pilot at brand X may end up on a 747, while a SWA pilot may end up on a 737 does that mean he has a better career expectation? What if the 737 pilot makes 80K more than the 747 pilot. Equipment type makes very little difference in this case, we work for pay. While I realize at most airlines bigger equipment is more pay I think career expectations are a much more complicated thing to define than equipment type. People used this argument to say that if we bought Sun Country those pilots have the same career expectation as SWA pilots because we fly the same equipment. I don't mean to be argumentative, but I see this "logic" on this board a lot and want to point out the problem with it.

Alaska is a much different deal, they really do have a much more comparable career to SWA pilots and I doubt anyone seriously thinks a staple would be appropriate. Not that it really matters, I think this rumor is BS.

SWA pay is good but won't go much higher in upcoming contracts. ALK is set to make a profit of 3-4 dollars per a share, for their size they are much more profitable and make a much higher revenue per seat mile. Market cap at ALK is over a billion which is very good for a company their size. You may ask what does this mean long term?.....It means they will eventually catch up to or surpass SWA in pay. I think in ALK's most recent contract they got a 20-30 percent raise, this did not happen at SWA.

 

[airlinepilot]

Even with there increase in pay I make about 30% more after looking at their pay scales

 

[Mea25000]

Yes, but you don't have an A plan. I don't think that closes all the gap but it does a little. My upgrade is about 10 years yours is about 16.

 

[airlinepilot]

upgrade is like the weather....it can change in a moments notice....additionally it is only 2 more years till we have guys hitting 65

 

[Mea25000]

Yes LUV has a market cap of 8.5 and ALK has one of 1.3 and yes the stock price does matter. Since ALK stock is trading in the mid 30's it would take an offer of about $48-$55 to buy the company. That would be around 2 billion dollars. Yes, there are a couple of companies that have that kind of money but I don't think they are ready to spend it. So yes the stock price which equals the market cap does matter.

 

[airlinepilot]

upgrade is like the weather, it can change pretty quickly. we have guys hitting age 65 in two years......

 

[SRMairlines]

Yes LUV has a market cap of 8.5 and ALK has one of 1.3 and yes the stock price does matter. Since ALK stock is trading in the mid 30's it would take an offer of about $48-$55 to buy the company. That would be around 2 billion dollars. Yes, there are a couple of companies that have that kind of money but I don't think they are ready to spend it. So yes the stock price which equals the market cap does matter.

Yes our price is high, but the SWA or anyone else could offer a stock swap to buy the company. (Offer the cash equivalent in SWA stock to the shareholders to buy the company)

ALK is only profitable at present because they codeshare with everyone and have a tailored operation to the State of Alaska. This can change and would change if we were acquired. The ALK BOD is made up of several Alaska/WA biz folks who benefit in other ventures by keeping ALK in the PACNW and by slow growth. Their asking price is likely to be high and it would require a lot of stock at a high price to get enough votes to re elect the board in the event of a hostile takeover attempt. Right now, we are not a "hot deal" and not a likely target for an acquisition.

 

[Whataburger]

I don't think you'd see an airline with first class codesharing with SWA. Even the contract regionals are trending toward first class sections.

ATA had first class.

Maby ALK is buying us.