SWA delaying new planes, adding used Westjet birds --article

[canyonblue]

No, I just expected to keep what I already had. You weren't happy until you stole everything that we had.

Welcome to the United States Geronimo. I know you didn't go to College, but did you even go to High School?

 

[General Lee]

Welcome to the United States Geronimo. I know you didn't go to College, but did you even go to High School?

Get off this board and attend to your FAMILY! They might be crying just thinking about you leaving for a couple days...... They forgot that you are a pilot, and a lot of pilots leave home for a few days and then RETURN.....remember to tell them what you do for a living...


Bye Bye---General Lee

 

[canyonblue]

....not the 15% that I lost, or the 32% that most of our captains lost.

Still using "relative seniority" as a measuring stick? What about the close to 1000 of our pilots who were at Southwest before ValueJet even existed? Relative seniority would never ever ever of happened. Two completely different airlines in every possible way. Sell crazy someplace else, we're all stocked up here.

 

[canyonblue]

... They forgot that you are a pilot...


Bye Bye---General Lee

At least one of us is a pilot. How much do you make again for getting FI hits? Just STFU and start a Deldo thread. Oh yeah, nobody reads those. TOOL.

 

[canyonblue]

Posts: 17,623


Nice life, get one. That is so pathetic.

 

[General Lee]

At least one of us is a pilot. How much do you make again for getting FI hits? Just STFU and start a Deldo thread. Oh yeah, nobody reads those. TOOL.

Wow, don't get so emotional......oops, nevermind...


Bye Bye---General Lee

 

[SWA Bubba]

Was the airline going to keep ATL the same size? What if they shrunk it down to bare bones? (like now) Would those CAPT slots have been protected to go elsewhere had the flying been brought down? That would have been nice. MEM was brought down, but those senior guys took their seniority over to ATL on the MD88 and 320.


Bye Bye---General Lee

Actually, General, the "loss of captain seats" isn't as dire as you make it. The overall seniority list is what determines who is a captain and who isn't, after Jan '15. That means those AirTran captains who are holding out at AirTran until the last possible moment will come over shortly before that date, and if they're senior enough to be one, the will "re-upgrade" almost immediately. In fact, it will be nothing BUT former AirTran guys upgrading for quite a while after that date. There are some very senior FAT captains who already came over, and are quite happy being super-senior FOs for now, with Southwest captain seats waiting for them just 18 months from now. And, like I mentioned, the ones holding out (like Ty Webb and others) are still captains now (AirTran ones, at AirTran CBA rates), and will only be over here for a few months before they can re-upgrade (assuming they're senior enough to do so).

In MY OPINION, what should have been done, was make the overall seniority list with whatever DOH adjustment was deemed "fair" (like the average 2.5 years on the accepted list), and when an AirTran guy transitioned, he would be a captain if his seniority could hold it, and an FO otherwise. (Rather than wait several months to 1.5 years first, depending on when he came over.) And I'd also pay-protect anyone who has a new payrate lower than his old one. That doesn't really affect many guys (if any), and being an FO for some months before regaining one's captain seat isn't THAT far from what I described as fair above.

If you're REALLY arguing that they should have kept their captain seats forever, just because (and it seems that IS what you're arguing), then I disagree that it's fair. Nobody on this board has ever given me an answer to why they think that six years' AirTran service is more deserving of a Southwest captain seat, than ten years' of Southwest service is. Do you have one a justification for that, General? In MY OPINION, that wouldn't have been fair to orig Southwest senior FOs who couldn't upgrade.

If a FAT junior captain is now a senior Southwest FO, making the same money, and has better seniority for bidding, base, vacations, etc., then what's the harm? I mean, the guys who bitch say it's not about the money, but downgraded junior FAT captains actually have BETTER QOL as senior Southwest FOs, assuming they make the same money. And eventually, they can trade in that QOL for a 50% payraise when they have the opportunity to upgrade to Southwest captain. Just like anybody else. Some guys stay senior FOs for QOL, and some chase the captain seat.

And to actually answer the question you posed in your post, General, YES. In the first package (the one vetoed by AirTran's MEC), every AirTran captain was given a "captain retention slot" by name. He would be a Southwest captain no matter what base he went to. Forever. (junior base if he was junior, and more senior bases as he could hold it). The only way for him to lose his captain seat was in the even of an overall reduction of captains companywide (or for him to leave the company, or to voluntarily downgrade). Their junior former AirTran captains would probably be on Southwest Captain reserve for years, due to them being junior to many of our FOs, who, when they upgraded, would start off as captains senior to them. They bitched about that, but the only way to change that (since it took less time to upgrade at AirTran than Southwest) would be to give them captain seats, and THEN give them a large INCREASE in seniority over what they had at AirTran. Does that sound fair to you?

Anyway, I'm not saying that these guys don't have anything to bitch about (mainly the change in their careers from the 717s going away, and they way they're being transitioned), but the deal they got (and the one they turned down) is not as bad as you're making it. I don't know if you honestly don't know this, or you're just doing this for SWA-bashing sport. But, there's some facts for you.

Bubba

 

[PCL_128]

Pretending? No. You could have tried to go to arbitration. Gary could have just run you as a stand alone for as long as SWAPA would have allowed it. It's anybodies guess if he would have pulled that card.

He wouldn't, because it would have been illegal. He sure fooled a lot of people, though.

So arbitration was down the road after a few more hurdles, but it didn't workout that way and I think you wouldn't have been happy with the results if it had gone that far. (We'll never really know at this point)

The beauty of arbitration is that even if you don't personally agree with the result, it's a lot easier to accept when a neutral third party looks at the facts presented by both sides and comes to a decision, rather than a CEO holding a gun to your head and telling you to sign on the dotted line or else. So, even though I think the AirTran pilots (myself included) would have been happy with an arbitrated result, even if we weren't, it still would be a lot easier to accept and move on.

 

[PCL_128]

Let's revisit SIA 1.....

Captain retention slots for 10 years

I could be wrong, but wasn't there a fence around ATL?

Sorry, but stapling almost every FO and an average loss of seniority of over 20% with a peak of 32% for most captains was not acceptable, even if those retention slots and that fence were iron-clad (which they weren't).

 

[redflyer65]

Bubba,

Great post. Especially paragraph two. The focus should have been on the combined list, not the CA seat. If you seniority could hold it...then fine.

PCL,

Enlighten me why Gary couldn't have run Airtran seperately. I can name almost a dozen airlines that are either run that way now, or within the past 5 years. Are they breaking the law?