10% growth of 6000 pilots is 600 new hires and upgrades. 10% growth of 8000 pilots is 800 new hires and upgrades. Sound pretty good to me.
The fault with this statement is the assumption that SWA sets a growth target and then blindly grows that ammount. Rather the process goes like this:
- GK to Revenue Management (RM): "Got any new routes we can make money on? Any routes we need to cut?"
- GK to Schedule Planning (SP): "RM says we need to add these routes. Do we have the aircraft and facilities?"
- GK to training and People Department: "RM and SP says we can grow by x--can you train/hire enough?"
- GK to acquisitions: "Go buy/lease some airplanes!"
It's been that way for years. If the company wants to grow, it finds airplanes or doesn't retire airplanes that were scheduled to be gone.
Hence, a percentage of 6,000 or 8,000 doesn't matter a bit. With the merger, training will be tied up transitioning AT pilots--even though ATL will offer some possibilities. The whole operation will be dealing with the merger. Hence, SWA pilots are missing out on 2 years of possible organic growth to bring the AT pilots on board. Hadn't even thought about that last point until writing this post.
That's one reason SWA pilots don't so much care if the deal falls through. SWA pilots recognize there will be organic growth once the economy improves since the company will have to find another way to grow.