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

[dalad]

Wow, that is great. Reminds me of the crews stuck in Europe due to that Icelandic volcano blowing up. Many got huge bucks for overtime, and got an extra week in Europe, with per diem.


Bye Bye---General Lee

Wrong. I was there, no reroute pay for that trip as it was beyond the company's control. Yes, I got a lot more time for my trip, but there was no premium pay. Being stuck at that crap hotel in AMS was no fun. Being stuck in SEA for Sandy was better, I got premium pay for that because they flew us one leg to MSP, so it constituted a reroute. Half the crap you post on here is flat out wrong.

 

[redflyer65]

Wrong. I was there, no reroute pay for that trip as it was beyond the company's control. Yes, I got a lot more time for my trip, but there was no premium pay. Being stuck at that crap hotel in AMS was no fun. Being stuck in SEA for Sandy was better, I got premium pay for that because they flew us one leg to MSP, so it constituted a reroute. Half the crap you post on here is flat out wrong.

And no one here is suprised by that factual post. But thanks for the actual inside info instead of the ramblings of a FI village idiot.

 

[Crash Pad]

How long do you have to work at SWA befor you break 80K?

 

[redflyer65]

Second year.

Fifth year and beyond you can make 170+, depending on how hard you want to work. It's nice to have the option if you need some extra coin.

 

[waveflyer]

Made $73k first year

 

[DonVerita]

Of the two FAT captains (now Southwest FOs) that I've flown with, one said he makes about the same, and the other said he makes more now as a Southwest senior FO. At the time, he was the number one FO in Las Vegas, so he came over from being a pretty senior AirTran guy He said he made about 5% more money now than he did at the Tran (tweaked his line, but didn't fly more than 15 days per month)

Does he commute to LAS? If so, he can subtract 4 days off that 15 to account for your non-commutable on one side AM/PM trips. If he lives in base then it's a non issue...until he re-upgrades; at which point he can look forward to commuting hell. At ATN, approx. 95% of our trips are commutable on both ends.

I could care less what the figures are for the pay credit kings on one end or the max QOL guys on the other end. It is the center of the bell curve that really matters; the average line pilot. The only constant is the hourly rate using the same metric. I hear what you're saying about east/west, over-rides, etc., but those don't occur for everyone on every trip.

Another subject that hasn't been discussed is the difficulty of the job. I have to admit that we have it pretty good over here at ATN in that department. Advanced aircraft and systems, 100% glass - no Classic(s) BS, a lot of automation, etc. all makes for a easier job each day.

 

[Tripower455]

I could care less what the figures are for the pay credit kings on one end or the max QOL guys on the other end. It is the center of the bell curve that really matters; the average line pilot. The only constant is the hourly rate using the same metric. I hear what you're saying about east/west, over-rides, etc., but those don't occur for everyone on every trip.

The only constant is pay per day worked. The average pay per day worked is pretty darn close between AT Capt and SW FO.

Another subject that hasn't been discussed is the difficulty of the job. I have to admit that we have it pretty good over here at ATN in that department. Advanced aircraft and systems, 100% glass - no Classic(s) BS, a lot of automation, etc. all makes for a easier job each day.

Really? Most of our airplanes are NGs, identical to roughly 30% of the AT fleet, without the "Christine" issues that the FAT 700s are plagued with, at least every time I fly one.

A classic is no more difficult to fly than an NG, unless moving throttles is a chore for you.

 

[PCL_128]

Your agreement said no such thing. The document in place at the time of constructive notice said the following:

E. Merger Protection:
1. In the event of a merger between the Company and another Air Carrier, where the surviving air carrier decides to integrate the pre-merger operations, the following procedures will apply:
a) The Company will provide for the integration of the seniority of the two pilot groups in a fair and equitable manner, including, where applicable, agreement through collective bargaining between the Air Carrier and the representative or representatives of the pilot groups involved.

You can argue 'till the cows come home that a new contract signed after the date of constructive notice would ultimately be enforceable, but the case law is simply not on your side. SWA agreed to purchase an entity that would remain substantially unchanged from the date of constructive notice through corporate closing. Small insignificant changes aren't an issue but completely changing your scope clause and adding additional hurdles to an acquiring carrier are simply not allowed. Adding an 18 month window to facilitate the totality of an acquisition scenario is laughable when no such requirement existed at the date of constructive notice. ALPA knew that their contract at the date of constructive notice was woefully inadequate at protecting their interests in the event of an acquisition and scrambled to get better protective language in the document after they learned of an impending acquisition. Unfortunately for ALPA they couldn't fix the language prior to an acquisition scenario being revealed. Legally you are stuck with the exact language that was contained in the document when SWA made the offer to purchase.

You just plain don't have a clue what you're talking about. Date of constructive notice is only relevant to seniority integration issues, not to any other contractual issues. Which is exactly why Mike Van de Ven signed a letter stating that SWA was indeed bound by AirTran's new scope language after the new CBA was signed, including the 18 month limit. Are you calling Mike a liar and an idiot?

 

[HowardBorden]

It wasn't allowed to happen, even though EVERY other merger in the past 5 years allowed it. You see, in MOST mergers the management wants to stay out of pilot politics, so as not to seem favoring one group over the other, and therefore not gaining an upset chunk of pilots. It's never good to have a pretty good sized chunk of pilots upset. When you do arbitration, nobody except the #1 pilot wins, and everyone has someone in common to point the finger at---the arbitrator(s). Then management moves along with the new group and everyone tries to get along. That is how MOST airlines do it. Your group is the exception, and that might not be a good thing....

As far as arbitration awards, look at CURRENT awards (within this last round of mergers) and see what happened. If the airlines are close in size and both bring like sized planes to the table, some Capts keep their seats on BOTH sides. AT wasn't a 5 plane operation, it was significant in size, and brought ATL and DCA slots plus 737s and orders. You may call that insignificant, but an arbitrator would NOT. Welcome to the new World Howie, and I can see why some are upset at the deal. That is allowed, right?


Bye Bye---General Lee

ENGLISH!-Do you speak it? Stop tap dancing and admit you were wrong. You made a completely false statement in order to bolster your argument. We don't need to discuss how arbitrated awards have played out because all parties agreed they preferred to reach a negotiated list and that is what transpired. But, if you do want to express an opinion about what might have happened please refrain from lying when you do it, it doesn't help your argument. "But, zero arbitration awards have NOT included Capt slots at BOTH sides, especially when both bring current planes or orders to the table." You can talk all day about current or non current and relevant versus irrelevant but you cannot represent the highlighted statement as true because it is demonstrably false. You seem to be so fond of pointing out inaccuracies in others statements yet when someone points out yours, you are simply unable to admit you were wrong.

 

[SWA Bubba]

Does he commute to LAS? If so, he can subtract 4 days off that 15 to account for your non-commutable on one side AM/PM trips. If he lives in base then it's a non issue...until he re-upgrades; at which point he can look forward to commuting hell. At ATN, approx. 95% of our trips are commutable on both ends.

No, he lives there. Or at least he lives there now; I don't know if he moved there after transition or not. When he re-upgrades, he'll still be right there in LAS, I assume, since he's senior to me and I'm a LAS captain. He's actually senior enough to be a captain in any base (although I suspect that he'd be on reserve in Dallas, our most senior base). And you're right about commuting being a bitch, but that's true anywhere. About half of our guys do it, and I think I heard that even a higher percentage to it at AirTran.

I could care less what the figures are for the pay credit kings on one end or the max QOL guys on the other end. It is the center of the bell curve that really matters; the average line pilot. The only constant is the hourly rate using the same metric. I hear what you're saying about east/west, over-rides, etc., but those don't occur for everyone on every trip.

I don't really care about those extreme ends either; just pointing it out. I agree that the average line pogue is what you have to compare, but it's NOT just the hourly rate that matters, no matter how many times you say it. Since the way we work is so different, it doesn't really show anything about how much money the average captain vs FO makes, which was the original point of the discussion. Monthly credits, or average workday credits (as Trippower suggests) is better, since that's what you actually make. If the average AirTran line pays 80 hours (I'm guessing here), and the average Southwest line pays 100 TFP (I'm NOT guessing here), then APC's computed "hourly" comparison doesn't mean jack squat.

Look, not trying to get into a pissing contest here, just pointing out factual information about a discussion on real pay. The two companies work differently. That's undeniable. If you like the way it works at AirTran, and don't like the way it works here, then no amount of discussion is going to change your mind. All I'm saying is that the guys I've talked to over here who have made the transition have also made the adjustment, and are happy about it. Will that be true for everyone? Of course not. Hopefully it will be true for you, since there's really nothing you or I can do to change how Southwest works. You guys are over there; I'm just telling you how it is over here. That's important, because we're ALL gonna' be "over here" in the next 18 months.

Bubba