Southwest looking to contain costs - article

[Ty Webb]

Their descriptions of life prior to the acquisition jibed with just about every other AT pilot I know or spoke to prior to it. The vast majority of the folks I ran into on the prison bus, in airports, on layovers, as well as several friends who work there felt the same way. I guess I just encountered the minority opinion..........

I'm not sure what purpose this debate serves, but you can be certain that every time you try to tell us what a great deal this is for us, someone will serve it back at ya.

What do you care, anyway? You were lucky enough to not be impacted by it. If life is so great as a SWA CA, why don't you go enjoy it?

:laugh:

 

[Dan Roman]

So if we bought Virgin or Allegiant you'd fight to offer them relative seniority??

It's my take that whatever flying an airline brings to the table in a merger, they should still do after the merger. The attitude of a lot of SWA folks on here was that they should be getting flying/seats from AirTran.

 

[Dan Roman]

He just another idiot like GL. Just ignore morons like him. Yes I do mean that. No I don't care to be nice.

Let's see...you ran a pretty steady attack on the AirTran folks on here during the merger. Then you say, hey let's put that behind us now and all be buddies! I call you on it and all you have in response is name calling? And I'm the moron??

 

[madjack]

AirTran didn't bring airplanes, DL got them....certainly not their idea but that is the reality

 

[Tripower455]

I'm not sure what purpose this debate serves, but you can be certain that every time you try to tell us what a great deal this is for us, someone will serve it back at ya.



What do you care, anyway? You were lucky enough to not be impacted by it. If life is so great as a SWA CA, why don't you go enjoy it?



:trust,laugh:

I didn't say it was a great deal for anyone. In fact, I truly believe that the entire debacle was a mistake on pretty much every level. I find it disingenuous to portray AT as the pinnacle of an airline career when by most pre 9/27 accounts, it was far from it. To everyone but the FI brain trust, SW was considered a more desirable airline to work for than AT.

Exactly how was I not impacted by it? It must be a coincidence that my QOL and pay has deteriorated markedly since the SLI began. In 2013 I made almost $30k less than previous years, and It wasn't for lack of trying..

Life as a SW Capt is still pretty good, but I am fast becoming a member of the 520 club.

 

[madjack]

Ty, why do you waste time on this forum? I think u enjoy the acrimony, and you, like the SW posters feel the need to defend your soon to be former airline and the way of life it brought you and your family...Tripower, like u has, every right to engage on here, and unlike almost all your post he does not stoop to personal attack to prove a point...

 

[PCL_128]

AirTran didn't bring airplanes, DL got them....certainly not their idea but that is the reality

That happened after the fact. The 717s were all planned to be integrated when the SLI was being done. It was many months later when the announcement came that Gary reached a deal with Delta. And you're also forgetting our 737 fleet and the many dozens of scheduled deliveries that we brought to the table.

 

[madjack]

That sounds like a technicality, a point, though correct, does not reflect how things turned out, and we had plenty of delivery options also...now we are buying used -700s and The Max in 2017...truly the AAI pilots brought international, Atlanta and a good product to the deal, but not seats....and I will acknowledge SWA is busy bringing your product down to our level...

 

[PCL_128]

Sorry, but it's completely asinine to claim that we didn't bring seats to the merger when we were bringing around 140 airplanes when the SLI was taking place.

 

[madjack]

But where are the seats?

 

[27 driver]

AirTran didn't bring airplanes, DL got them....certainly not their idea but that is the reality

You are full of ********************! We had over 60 firm orders for 737's on the cheap the SWA has already exercised some of. Most if not all convertible to 800's. You have no Idea what you are talking about. Not to mention the 55 700's on property right now. By the way we did bring 717's. You management paid DAL to take them, not us.

 

[PCL_128]

But where are the seats?

They were all here when the SLI took place. Business decisions that take place post-SLI have nothing to do with it.

 

[humveedriver]

As for "proof" I can only go by what I've been told by folks in the GO, and by personal experience.

I have personally flown with (at least) 5 or 6 FOs that were former FAT (pre acquisition). I'm betting that I haven't flown with every guy that came over from AT before the acquisition, but even if I have, that's still 5 or 6 more than left SW to go to AT.

None of them painted nearly as rosy a picture of day to day life at AT as the usual FI suspects do and were much happier here, well, at least until the acquisition announcement. Most of the FFAT guys I've flown with since would've all done better, seniority wise, had they stayed at AT.

It's amazing how much better AT was....... after the acquisition announcement............

It's equally disturbing how much crappier SWA has turned out to be. For those who got to experience the good old days. I'm jealous.

 

[madjack]

I've been saying that for years...

 

[madjack]

27, your primary airplane, the 717 was sold to DL, you had 50ish 737s, and you had orders, as did SWA, SWA also had 10 times the number of 737s AT had....the deal netted very few seats....but it did net 1700 FAT...this is not a who was better than who, you came from a smaller airline and the majority of the seats went elsewhere...