Southwest Pilots Gather at SWA HQ

[MILF Hunter]

3-had such collective bargaining presented said parity, the process could have hypothetically followed alpa merger policy more closely. Additionally it would have helped had this been a merger not aquisition.

Bingo! He gets it!!

This isn't ALPA/ALPA. This isn't a merger. This is an acqisition. The numerous attempts to view this is the same light as the DL/NW merger just don't fly. This deal is different. Something tells me we will all see how much different in the near future.

 

[CaptainSpaz]

A fun thing to do with this article is to replace the words "Southwest Pilots" with "Hitler Youth". "CEO Gary Kelly" with "Hitler". "Southwest Managers" with "SS officers". "Southwest Airlines" with "The Nazi Party". And anything to do with "Airtran" with "Jews". Seriously, try it. It's kind of ironic how well it works.

You are an idiot. Have a nice day.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law

 

[redflyer65]

Spaz,

That's an awesome link! Thanks for the insight.

RF

 

[St. Nic]

But wait!!!!, DOH is the, "Gold Standard", right? Thanks for teaching them to disregard a binding arbitration ruling, too!

WTF? Where do you come up with this buddy? We didn't do any of that, the arbitration was illegal and nothing but ALPA sponsored fraud. Watch ALPA roll over and stick it to the Tranny pilots. Here it comes!

 

[CF34-3B1]

My prediction: A fair and equitable list. Now that the economics have been taken off the table, the argument that the Airtran pilots will receive a financial windfall due to this merger is moot. Any windfall the Airtran pilots get will be despite SWAPA/SWA, not because of them.

Kind of like when ASA merged with Delta?

Oh wait, that wasn't a merger, it was an ACQUISITION.

 

[Andy]

Andy- welcome back- I've heard Peru is a fantastic experience, and believe me I get the working for free for a while part of a business is not that appealing- I've missed the pool this summer-
You state it very well. Its good to have a non troll outsider give their perspective-ATN ALPA can never say they didn't influence their destiny. They cannot say they didn't have a good option on the table, with huge payraises to offset the logistics. It's amazing that ALPA convinced their membership to play hardball with us. That has never worked and theyre putting their future on the line thinking this would be the turning point where swa would stop acting like swa. It's funny, but we laugh and call ourselves the Borg all the time. It's not a bad analogy. Coming in humble and ready to serve and work is really not an option. Demanding an equal starting point as the company that bought you just lacks perspective.

Wave, thanks for the welcome back.
Peru was a nice place to visit. The poverty outside of Lima gives you a perspective on how petty we can be at times. Machu Picchu was great; I recommend going in May - great weather and you're a little ahead of the main tourist season.
My wife just got back from a medical assistance trip down the Amazon in Peru. The level of poverty in her pictures was much worse than I saw during my stay there.

Anyway, back to topic. I'm not a Southwest nor an AirTran fan. I'm not even a UAL fan; I'm at the point where I have a certain amount of dislike for every airline. And FWIW, my wife's an American Airlines Platinum Elite, not United or Continental.

I'm getting the feeling that AirTran's pilots have been given very poor legal counsel. They somehow think that this 'has to go' to arbitration. They are unable to formulate any scenario where GK pulls a Lorenzo and dissembles the airline as a separate subdivision of Southwest. Heck, I can think of two or three different methods of executing that plan.
A second problem is that AirTran's pilots think that there would be public outrage over such actions. I'm not a PR person (spent some time working closely with PR people a few years ago tho) but I would have no problem spinning this in an extremely unfavorable manner for AirTran's pilots. The pay raises alone that were on the table will turn 90% of the public against AirTran's pilots.
Third, AirTran's pilots view this as a merger of equals. Far from it. AirTran brings a large ATL presence and 52 737s to the table. That's it. The 717s are a liability, not an asset in this acquisition. Based on that and system efficiences from a Southwest style operation applied to AirTran's operation, Southwest will be overmanned with pilots for quite a few years. Southwest will absorb that overmanning with age 65 attrition and reduced flying hours per pilot. So there will be stagnation in the Southwest seniority list for several years due to this acquisition. Current SWAPA pilots will experience stagnation and less available flight hours for several years - these are material losses for Southwest pilots, whether or not AirTran pilots acknowledge these facts. I don't even think that many Southwest pilots realize these future adverse changes due to the acquisition.

At this point, the very best thing that AirTran's pilots could do is get some quality legal advice. I don't know how big the merger assessment is but AirTran's pilots should consider a fairly hefty one so that they can pay for decent lawyers because it looks like they'll be not only tangling with SWAPA, but also SWA management.
This reminds me of the AA acquisition of TWA. I was jumpseating on a TWA flight DEN-STL. F was empty and there were two other VERY senior TWAers jumpseating in F. They were discussing DOH integration among themselves. I kept quiet because I could tell that they were completely out of touch with reality. Had TWA ALPO brought in a good legal team which had laid out the best case/worst case/likely scenarios and odds of each, these two would have known that DOH had a .00000001% chance of happening.
SL9 offered huge pay raises (making it an easy PR thing for Southwest to look like the good guys) and seniority minus ~4 years. I think that they'll be darned lucky if they get seniority minus 4 years and no pay sweeteners on another offer. While I could spin this integration from both sides, the SWA case is much easier to make.

 

[redflyer65]

Andy,

Very nice post. Very well thought out. You've obviously been in or around the industry for years. History has a way of repeating itself, and the Airtran guys just refuse to to see that. There's a light at the end of the tunnel.

RF

 

[Esprit]

But for now, I just wanted to say THANK YOU from the bottom of my heart for your support today. I’m happy to say the Warrior Spirit is alive and well at Southwest Airlines.
Fly safe,
Steve Chase[/QUOTE]

I think I just threw up in my mouth. Is Warrior Spirit code for a$$-ki$$ing?

Esprit

 

[Andy]

Andy,

Very nice post. Very well thought out. You've obviously been in or around the industry for years. History has a way of repeating itself, and the Airtran guys just refuse to to see that. There's a light at the end of the tunnel.

RF

Thanks, my dad was a lawyer for CAB and then ATA long ago. I had a chance to see what takes place on the other side of the table. ... I was looking at GK's bio last night to see what kind of background he has and I noticed that he's Vice Chairman of the ATA BOD.

 

[ironspud]

The plane truth is the southwest guys have the numbers and they control the merger. Nuff said. Staple the Valujet guys or get rid of them if they don't like it. It amazes me how some of these LCCs like AWA think they deserve a seat at the big table. They never were supposed to be there in the first place!!

Neither was USAir.