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

[Ty Webb]

Your purple enemas and mandatory frontal lobotmy have finally killed enough brain cells that you can't even read much less comprehend anything unless SWAPA tells you to.

Classic!

 

[madjack]

Someones been hitting the Green Koolaid they are handing out in ATL: It goes something like this: "you were pilots at a striving, great little airline, your selfish and greedy CEO sold you off to SWA, SWA "put a gun to your head" and with the help of SWAPA "stole" your captain seats"...classic David gets slain by goliath. You will forever be the underdog/militant/"we got screwed" segment of the SWA pilot group, even as you make much more money then you ever had in your life flying airplanes while enjoying the best work environment in commercial aviation at an airline built by "purple enema, orange koolaid" folks (and believe me I don't mean the pilots) who will not appreciate your attitude. Especially when you rise to the top of a seniority list far larger than you ever could have done at the soon to be defunct AAI and make as much as six times the average US salary.

Seriously, instead of whining about your lost AAI seniority, why not embrace the fact that you were bought by a company like LUV vs let's say DAL, or maybe working for DAL was what you always dreamed of, but could not make work for whatever reason.

 

[SWA Bubba]

Wave,

So you are saying GK has honored even one agreement with us. PA = lie. Transition bid = lie. 717's more cost effective after SLI 1 didn't pass and would stay a bit longer = lie. 717 base TBD = lie. Everyone awarded 717 would have to fill that seat before transition = lie. These are just a few off the top of my head. I can't think of one part of any agreement that has not been reneged on.

I know what you believe depends upon what side you view it from. You may feel it is okay for GK to do this. But we on the AAI side feel like we were wronged so off to DRC. Time will tell if the cases have merit.

There's a world of difference between something not going the way you thought/wanted/expected, and it being a lie. For instance, the oft-repeated claim that "Southwest screwed AirTran by not following the Process Agreement." Above you listed it as one of GK's "lies." Good God, Driver, have you even read that agreement?

GK said from the beginning that he wanted this to be done in-house, with every pilot getting to vote on an agreement. In the PA preamble (all the "whereas" stuff), it talks about M-B and the ultimate process of binding arbitration. However, it next mentions the "alternative ways" other than arbitration (i.e. negotiation) to accomplish this, and the next whereas states that all sides, including ALPA, "desire[d]" to accomplish an SLI using these ways other than arbitration. Do you think the AirTran ALPA MEC really desired this?

More importantly, in the actual meat of the PA, after it talks about how the sides were going to accomplish this negotiation to an agreement, it says that after such an SLI agreement is reached: "SWAPA and ALPA agree to submit the complete agreement to their respective memberships for ratification" (PA Section II (c) (ii)). Did that happen? No. Did ALPA live up to what they agreed to in the Process Agreement? Looks like 'no' to me. A SLI agreement was reached through negotiation, and one side failed to honor their PA commitment by not sending it to their membership for ratification.

In fact some AirTran ALPA members have intimated that they wanted arbitration from the beginning. One even was actually quoted on this forum as saying that he didn't want the AirTran pilots voting on the agreed-upon first deal; he was afraid they would vote yes, and he wanted arbitration because he thought he could get more. That is clearly against the spirit of the PA, where everyone agreed that they "desired" a negotiated agreement. More importantly, it specifically violated the letter of the PA, where both sides agreed to send a negotiated SLI agreement to their members.

You might want to think about that, before you blindly pass off what happened with the Process Agreement as a "GK lie."

Bubba

 

[redflyer65]

He doesn't want to look at the agreement. It's much easier for him to pound his fist on the table and continue to rant about how they got screwed. ALPA played more of a hand in that from the beginning.

 

[DonVerita]

Why were pilots leaving AAI for SWA?

Give up that tired excuse already. Were there some that left? Yes, a few, but they were junior and didn't have much time invested.

Then there is the fallacy of all those supposed hundreds of applications on file with SWA from current AAI pilots. Well, when a guy is in the regionals at Eagle, Comair or whomever, he mails out a lot of applications to various majors, including AAI. If he is lucky enough to get picked up by one of them, does he call back every other major and say, "rescind my application?" No. It sits on file forever, even if it was filed 15 years ago.

I hear from the Delta guys that DAL has been getting quite a few online apps lately...from current SWA pilots; mostly junior I would imagine.

 

[dicko]

I hear from the Delta guys that DAL has been getting quite a few online apps lately...from current SWA pilots; mostly junior I would imagine.

I heard the same thing.

Unfortunately they might have some difficulties. DALPA will have a hand in the hiring process. They're not impressed with the behavior of SWAPA membership during the AirTran ALPA SLI.

 

[Tripower455]

I heard the same thing.

Unfortunately they might have some difficulties. DALPA will have a hand in the hiring process. They're not impressed with the behavior of SWAPA membership during the AirTran ALPA SLI.

What, exactly, did SWAPA membership do during the SLI that would prevent SW guys from getting hired at DAL?

 

[madjack]

I have heard the same thing regarding SWA apps in at DL, don't know how many. Is DL hiring?

 

[madjack]

Not sure that DALPA is involved in the interview selection/hiring process...at DL

 

[Tripower455]

I know several junior SW guys that are weighing their options after the AT debacle doomed them to a years long cross country commute to reserve.

 

[27 driver]

There's a world of difference between something not going the way you thought/wanted/expected, and it being a lie. For instance, the oft-repeated claim that "Southwest screwed AirTran by not following the Process Agreement." Above you listed it as one of GK's "lies." Good God, Driver, have you even read that agreement?

GK said from the beginning that he wanted this to be done in-house, with every pilot getting to vote on an agreement. In the PA preamble (all the "whereas" stuff), it talks about M-B and the ultimate process of binding arbitration. However, it next mentions the "alternative ways" other than arbitration (i.e. negotiation) to accomplish this, and the next whereas states that all sides, including ALPA, "desire[d]" to accomplish an SLI using these ways other than arbitration. Do you think the AirTran ALPA MEC really desired this?

More importantly, in the actual meat of the PA, after it talks about how the sides were going to accomplish this negotiation to an agreement, it says that after such an SLI agreement is reached: "SWAPA and ALPA agree to submit the complete agreement to their respective memberships for ratification" (PA Section II (c) (ii)). Did that happen? No. Did ALPA live up to what they agreed to in the Process Agreement? Looks like 'no' to me. A SLI agreement was reached through negotiation, and one side failed to honor their PA commitment by not sending it to their membership for ratification.

In fact some AirTran ALPA members have intimated that they wanted arbitration from the beginning. One even was actually quoted on this forum as saying that he didn't want the AirTran pilots voting on the agreed-upon first deal; he was afraid they would vote yes, and he wanted arbitration because he thought he could get more. That is clearly against the spirit of the PA, where everyone agreed that they "desired" a negotiated agreement. More importantly, it specifically violated the letter of the PA, where both sides agreed to send a negotiated SLI agreement to their members.

You might want to think about that, before you blindly pass off what happened with the Process Agreement as a "GK lie."

Bubba

Bubba,

You will not get any argument out of me about our MEC's responsibility in this fiasco. They lied to and screwed us.
Are you saying that the PA did not guarantee arbitration if the unions didn't come to an agreement. So GK threatening the AAI group didn't subvert that. You guys say it was a bluff or negotiating tactic. It may have been but your jobs were not threatened. Ours were. My family counts on my income so I had no choice but to vote yes. Next comes the transition bid. Are you saying that the awards were adhered to. Because I can post the message that says that SWA will not honor it. It wasn't very long after the transition bid closed that GK announced the 717 would be gone basically negating our transition bid. Then SWA said they would not honor the transition bid. Then they said they would. Now they changed their mind again and said they won't. It probably has been posted on here already. Will there be a SWA 717 TBA base? Thats what we bid on. Are you saying that SWA management didn't say that because the first SLI didn't pass that the economics of the 717 were a bit better and they would stick around for a while? Because that's what we bid on. I realize that your cheese hasn't been continuously moved so you probably can't or won't see our point of view. That's fine. We don't have to agree. I know both pilot groups were lied to. I understand why some SWAPA pilots are pissed. But for you guys to say we weren't lied to is just BS. You refuse to walk a mile in our shoes. From where we stand the only part of any agreement that has been kept is our pay scale. You seem like a reasonable guy Bubba. Try to see it from our side dude. Either way it will all work out. Cya in 2015.

 

[27 driver]

He doesn't want to look at the agreement. It's much easier for him to pound his fist on the table and continue to rant about how they got screwed. ALPA played more of a hand in that from the beginning.

Red,

I'm not pounding my fist. I have accepted my reality. If you can disprove anything I have said please do. If you believe the PA didn't say arbitration was part of the equation then fine. That's your opinion and you are entitled to it. You guys simply refuse to admit GK lied to us. I guess an arbitrator will decide.

Peace out bro.

 

[dicko]

Not sure that DALPA is involved in the interview selection/hiring process...at DL

Considering that all of the pilots on the interview board, and in the hiring team are DALPA pilots ? I think you're wrong

 

[27 driver]

Considering that all of the pilots on the interview board, and in the hiring team are DALPA pilots ? I think you're wrong

I can only hope you are wrong. Many senior to me need to bail for me to ever have any QOL.

 

[canyonblue]

They're not impressed with the behavior of SWAPA membership during the AirTran ALPA SLI.

Not the DAL pilots I've talked to. In fact, they assumed I got a bigger seniority bump. They seem pretty shocked when I let them in on the "details" of the SLI.