Southwest looking to contain costs - article

[Scoot 11]

You guys are hilarious.


Furloughs coming? Still hiring and we've never hired to furlough like USair, et al.

Product sucks and can't compete? We've been competing for 40+ years and still make profits quarter after quarter.

Slots? We've received more and more, thanks to you guys.

Expensive '130' seat planes? Do some homework first will you? Most of our planes have 143 and are paid for......completely. So we are flying planes around that really don't cost anything. So, quite a ways from expensive. (and bonus, the -800's have 175 seats).

How's the hedge at USair? Oh wait, you never did hedge....ever.

I hear ya red. I was going to respond, but I couldn't stop laughing.
You have to wonder with his grammar if he's even old enough to drive...

 

[LoveGun]

We all love it when the mighty stumble. SWA may not be the nimble shark of years gone by but they are on stable footing. All this talk of cost control is nothing more than managing employee expectations. It's management vs labor business as usual. The only surprise is we're finally seeing happy-go-lucky SWA being put through the mill. And, everyone knows SWA bought AT because AirTran was wining. SWA had to buy them before AT got too big to contain. So some see this as long overdue justice.

SWA was the first airline in the US to embrace the idea that a seat is nothing more than a commodity. They masked this ugliness behind their culture of love but you can never completely paper over the truth. SWA's extraordinary fuel hedge of the early 2000's saved them from facing the music for a decade longer than the rest of the industry and gave them the money to buy their fiercest competitor. However, when your company lives by the idea that a seat is a commodity it forces you into a lot of ugly decisions. It's a race to the bottom at that point. And we all know who the winner is in this league of airlines: Spirit. Now, SWA has to decide between improving its product or lowering costs. Or, maybe they'll try to do both at once. But, I don't know how you can improve your passenger's experience when asking for employee concessions at the same time. Moving away from the seat as a commodity business model you realize that the airlines are a service industry powered by human labor. It's going to be interesting to watch how Virgin America stacks up if they get those two gates at Love Field.

 

[scoreboardII]

And Virgin Am made money when exactly?

If you don't think all the airlines consider the seat a commodity, then I have a bridge to sell you.

 

[HowardBorden]

If you don't think all the airlines consider the seat a commodity, then I have a bridge to sell you.

Good, it wasn't just me thinking the exact same thing.

 

[scoreboardII]

I'll even go so far to claim SWA hid the seat as a commodity with their great employee customer service which other airlines have had to step up and emulate.

Last in on time performance, last in baggage claims, yet lowest in customer complaints, and load factors North of 85%. How does that even begin to happen if not for the employees?

 

[Ops check good]

SWA needs to partner up with a regional airline. They would be unstoppable if the pilots allowed RJ's painted in blurple

 

[scoreboardII]

We've offered, unfortunately, SWA decided to sell the RJ's they just bought to Delta.

 

[Ops check good]

Well done sir^

 

[scoreboardII]

Sad but true. Going to be hard pressed for SWA to declare to pilots they need codeshare when they just sold off their best opportunity to try the RJ gambit.

 

[johnsonrod]

Sad but true. Going to be hard pressed for SWA to declare to pilots they need codeshare when they just sold off their best opportunity to try the RJ gambit.

You guys could go find some of your old 737-100s in corndog colors from the 70s/80s and reactivate them. Same overhead panel....

 

[Sluggo_63]

Last in on time performance, last in baggage claims, yet lowest in customer complaints, and load factors North of 85%. How does that even begin to happen if not for the employees?

Dumb customers?

Kidding (sort of)... maybe not so much 'dumb' as loyal and uninformed. You have passengers who will go to southwest.com, book their tickets without even doing a value comparison, and assume they got the best deal. Maybe they did, maybe they didn't. But they'll never know, nor will they care.

 

[humveedriver]

Dumb customers?

Kidding (sort of)... maybe not so much 'dumb' as loyal and uninformed. You have passengers who will go to southwest.com, book their tickets without even doing a value comparison, and assume they got the best deal. Maybe they did, maybe they didn't. But they'll never know, nor will they care.

I have witnessed this. But can only speak to the DAL customers. I almost always find a better deal on USa or AA out of DFW. That will hopefully change in Oct. Not sure how SWA stacks up on the east coast or west coast.

 

[scoreboardII]

Dumb customers?

Kidding (sort of)... maybe not so much 'dumb' as loyal and uninformed. You have passengers who will go to southwest.com, book their tickets without even doing a value comparison, and assume they got the best deal. Maybe they did, maybe they didn't. But they'll never know, nor will they care.

Because....... of the employee's.

You can be three hours late, bad weather, no drinks, but if the employees treat you nice, you'll be back.

Have a perfectly on time flight, and get some lip from an employee, you'll never look on their website again.

 

[Dan Roman]

Because....... of the employee's.

You can be three hours late, bad weather, no drinks, but if the employees treat you nice, you'll be back.

Have a perfectly on time flight, and get some lip from an employee, you'll never look on their website again.

This is spot on......employees can even turn a delayed flight into an opportunity to make a positive impression. A flight can be delayed and good communication from the cockpit along with good cabin service will make a better impression than an on time flight and mediocre service.

 

[waveflyer]

What I find ironic is the timing of going after the pilot contract. They didn't press in '09 when they had a much better case in a worldwide economic meltdown, and other legacies hadn't upped the ante yet.

Now we have a worldwide pilot shortage brewing and they think they can get cuts now. Makes me wonder if they're dumb enough to think other groups will accept less if they're convincing enough that they're going after cuts for the pilots?
I hope there's a bigger master plan, bc it all seems like dumb strategy from here.

 

[fr8doggie]

I hope there's a bigger master plan, bc it all seems like dumb strategy from here.

After another year of the concessionary beat down you will be happy to accept a 'flattish' contract and call it a win. It's standard negotiations for the airline industry.

What are you going to do? Strike????

Regards,
Fr8doggie

 

[HowardBorden]

What are you going to do? Strike????

Strikes unfortunately a thing of the past. No major player will be allowed to strike ever again. Southwest flies the majority of domestic passengers in the US and if SWA was ever released by the NMB to the 30 day cooling off period, the President (any President) would step in with a Presidential Emergency Board and block the strike before it began. With all the consolidation as of late, all pilots at any of the large airlines are in a similar situation.

 

[Skyboy722]

Last in on time performance, last in baggage claims, yet lowest in customer complaints, and load factors North of 85%. How does that even begin to happen if not for the employees?

While I agree with you here, that employees make a big, big difference, let's not forget that customer complaints are a LAGGING indicator. As in, a loyal customer who has been with us for years won't complain the first or even second time they have a bad experience. They just think we "had a bad day". But the third or fourth? They finally file a complaint and try a different airline.

That's why I'm so concerned when people (especially Gary!!) points to our customer satisfaction scores when they tell us everything is ok. It DOESN'T mean we're not disappointing people. And by the time it starts to show up in our customer satisfaction scores, it's already too late; those people are GONE!

 

[Ty Webb]

Strikes unfortunately a thing of the past. No major player will be allowed to strike ever again. Southwest flies the majority of domestic passengers in the US and if SWA was ever released by the NMB to the 30 day cooling off period, the President (any President) would step in with a Presidential Emergency Board and block the strike before it began. With all the consolidation as of late, all pilots at any of the large airlines are in a similar situation.

I wouldn't be so sure . . . timing is everything. Depends who is in office, and what part of the election cycle you're in. Not saying that I think we'll see it get to that point, but I think your surrender is a bit premature, sir.

 

[madjack]

Strike vote at SWA, let's do it...