Southwest Plans Mexico Codeshare

[Whataburger]

Do you honestly believe no one has heard this before? Or is WN too good to be drug thru the mud?

Esprit

I'll back up to this post. When I said I dont want to air dirty laundry on this website I was referring to PERSONAL dirty laundry regarding another person's post on this website regarding firings of pilots.
I don't give two sh!ts if you badmouth SWA. I was referring to discussing pilots' personal situations.

 

[Whataburger]

Why not...

You need to step away from the KoolAid pitcher and take off your rose colored glasses and see this for what it is.

I take advice from friends and my parents and my spouse. So therefore, you can go ******************** yourself. Good day.

 

[BVT94]

Whataburger,

If these codeshares go thru, we'll still be flyin' together and drinking beer at the Karolinka after trips in 10 years. Fun for me, not so good for you. :beer: We should be the ones flying into Toluca, Vancouver, and Toronto dropping off our connecting pax. I don't expect to go to all of their destinations in Canada and Mexico overnight, but at least get some of the growth from these arrangements. We're going to see our rampers loading Westjet and Volaris airplanes in our biggest cities..not good. With the way the codeshare language is, pax could use Southwest.com to buy a ticket and never touch one of our airplanes, hence zero growth. Volaris is planning their launch into the US using our route network. We will most likely never operate these flights. Why would we? It will be a lot cheaper for Volaris to operate them. This is a major outsourcing of labor and will leave you in the right seat for years to come.

 

[B727Driver]

Until Volaris gets their operating certificate pulled or goes BK like Aero California, Azteca, Taesa....the list goes on. God forbid Volaris dumps one. Sometimes it is wrong to pay too little, I hope you are listening GK.
SWA pilots should be doing Intl ops, period.

 

[The Prussian]

FWIW...(admittedly my opinion isn't worth a lot)...I tend to side with Whataburger, and trust management. To automatically assume that our management is like all other managements, whose express goal is to outsource our livelihoods, is to automatically cave in on our cooperative spirit and to become just like all the other airlines in mindset. Who then first betrays the trust?
I prefer to assume that most pilots who are hired here, believe that there is something worth working for here, that has been lost at most, if not all the other airlines...a shared interest (management/employee) in producing a great product through hard work, which benefits us all through a more secure livelihood, pay and benefits, profit sharing and self esteem.

That being said, there's always a time and place to go into the "distrust" mode, if and when management demonstrates that they aren't to be trusted. I feel that our management is all too well aware of the dangers of losing the trust of it's employees, and knows that once that trust has been violated, it would be impossible to retrieve.

 

[waitin]

I posted this on the other SWA thread...

Having flown a bit in Mexico, I think we need to keep in mind that those stops wouldn't all fit into the present SWA business model. There are not many places were you will get a 30 min or less turn. Things just don't happen that way.
Don't yell Philly, because alot of times you do get a decent turn there (and sometimes you don't), but I don't see ANY short turns in Cabo, Mazatlan, etc...
How will that fit?

No flame, just something to keep in mind.

 

[shagadelic]

Waitin, it's not all the little stops we're talking about. GK doesn't want us to do ANY of the cross border flying. North or South. That is clearly unsatisfactory. Judging by what is being said on the SWAPA forum, I wouldn't be surprised if we are about to ramp up the rhetoric considerably and take them to the mat over this.

 

[waitin]

All I'm saying is that we need a lot more info about intl destinations. How much customer base is there...vacation travel only...etc, etc. Just because it is an intl dest does not mean it will make the company money.
We will make money off of codesharing...why not develop MSP, start other CONUS destinations (SE, FL panhandle) while we examine intl.
Intl dests will have to fit into the SWA business plan, just like CONUS dests, or we benefit more from drawing codeshare profits.
Not saying we should never fly intl, but there is a lot of $ left to be made in the CONUS, and I think it is "easier pickings."
Sorry, gotta go fly...

 

[instructordude]

I have to agree with Whataburger also. Codeshare is a good cash cow for you guys.

Plus if it goes good then Southwest can probably look into RJ's filling its smaller cities like LBB, RSW, or even ONT to name a few. It will save money for the company. I'm suprised Southwest hasn't worked out a deal with Riddle to start a Southwest training academey. The future looks bright!

 

[Whataburger]

Whataburger,

If these codeshares go thru, we'll still be flyin' together and drinking beer at the Karolinka after trips in 10 years. Fun for me, not so good for you. :beer: .

Actually sounds pretty nice after flying with my last Captain. Okocim anyone?

Truthfully though everyone here expected 4yr upgrades, guaranteed holidays off, 21 day off lines.

If anyone expects anything to stay the same in aviation, they are fools or have no prior 121 experience. If you want guaranteed weekends off - teach school. If you want $250,000/year - start a business. If you want 21 days off - good luck. If you want an aviation job that sucks the least, come to SWA.

This path we take will be interesting, but if we make mgmt our enemy or think Carl is the Messiah, we are the fools. How did it work for UAL when they got pilots on the board?

We definetly do not need to farm out all our future endeavors. However, I'm not against letting mgmt explore options. Does anyone think that mgmt's M.O. is to piss-off all of us? They know we control the fuel and effenciency. They would be fools to screw with 6000 pilots that fly 950 hrs a year.

PS. No I'm not mgmt. Actually have served multiple terms on an ALPA MEC and attended BODs.