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SWA downgraded due to "lucrative pilot contract and dwindling fuel hedges"

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Pilot141,

I also refuse to answer your ridiculous allegations about pilots demanding huge salaries and getting them; welcome to the post-1970s world!

Do some research on teh Intarweb first, and then come to us for comments.



What are your trying to say my good man? Did or did not UAL and DAL get some nice raises in the late 90s and/or early 2000/2001? The summer of discontent as some call it. I think so. That would not make it an allegation, but a fact. Now that those raises are gone, and then some, don't you expect the unions to come back with a vengence as they have every time the market turned around in the past? And why get into a tissy seeing I have not slammed anyone, but simply defended my own firm?

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/transportation/july-dec00/skies_12-21.html

This link might need to be cut and pasted. I got it from my 5 minutes of research on the internet from a Dec 2000 article that showed UAL pilots getting a 30% raise, making them top dog. Sorry if the facts throw a wrench into your arguments. Gotta go fly now.
 
Nope, I was including the UAL/DAL contracts in my discussion: they were the watershed moments for the big-boys contracts.
In your first quote you bad-mouthed the legacies for "DEMANDING" raises even though the industry had turned down. The contracts were signed pre-9/11. Are you saying that a SWA contract signed on 9/12/01 would have had provisions for pay cuts?

Look, no one can re-write the past. We can only learn from it, and adjust. The legacies adjusted too slowly (with the possible exception of AA), and SWA simply reduced growth to meet demand. Good on the companies who responded well, but they are not saints or beacons of hope; they are just companies.

The quote from your long post that most people (including me) take exception with is this: "Pilots elsewhere need to figure out how to work hard to keep their own companies profitable as opposed to try to make ours sound like it is in trouble."

Have you ever heard of a contract? If I was a Delta guy in July of 2001, how exactly could I have "worked harder" over the past 4 years so that Delta avoided bankruptcy?

In reality, nothing that an individual pilot does matters, and we are all subject to the whims of the industry. Yes, the SWA guys look like geniuses now, but so did the Pan AM guys in 1980, the UAL guys in 2000, and many other groups before them.

Don't gloat; it's unbecoming on anyone. Be happy for your success, and never, EVER shove it in another pilot's face; you never know if you could be asking that same pilot for a job in five or ten years.

Fly safe!
 
Wow i looked at that link. Looks like the guy who picked "JetGreen" as his name didn't fare as well as a different colour.
 
pilot141 said:
The quote from your long post that most people (including me) take exception with is this: "Pilots elsewhere need to figure out how to work hard to keep their own companies profitable as opposed to try to make ours sound like it is in trouble."

I did not read it that way, I read it as a current response to the other airline pilots out there, and not about the past. I also read it as a response to many who always find a way to shove a little rain on an SWA parade. It happens here a lot, you don't have to go to far to find it, just read any thread about SWA and you will find it.

Don't gloat; it's unbecoming on anyone. Be happy for your success, and never, EVER shove it in another pilot's face; you never know if you could be asking that same pilot for a job in five or ten years.

Try reading some of the Cargo pilots posts on this board. Talk about being humble.:rolleyes:
 
canyonblue said:
Try reading some of the Cargo pilots posts on this board. Talk about being humble.:rolleyes:

I completely agree with you.

I once had an old captain tell me "everyone has their turn in the barrel". At one time it was NWA, or DAL, or AA (can you say B-scale?), and even SWA, FDX and others. Stick around long enough and the airline you thought "had it all" is the one "in the barrel".

Humility is a hard thing to come by in this business, and most pilots are reluctant to admit that their career success has nothing at all to do with their flying skills and everything to do with the timing and luck that brought them to the right carrier at the right time.

Fly safe out there!
 
just remember Pan Am, in bed with the CAA, was a bulletproof airline. Both Pan Am and TWA introduced jet service with the 707 in the late 60's/early 70's

For discussion say you are 15 year old kid, who wants to work for the bulletproof, intercontinental, Pan Am.

It is 1970, and the bulletproof Pan Am just flew into Heathrow with a new 747. They obviously are doing something right.

You pay your dues via military or civilian, finally getting hired by Pan Am at age 32, Kit Darby's official airline new-hire age. It is now 1987. You pass new-hire probation and in 1988 you and your wife have your first child.

Flash forward to 1991, if you weren't already furloughed, you are now. Pan Am liquidates completely and shuts down.

Who we work for (like said before) is sometimes left to who is hiring and the luck of the draw.

The above scenario can be replayed at ANY airline.....
 
FL717 said:
Your attention grabbing thread title complete with a big "stoplight" is an example of someone who needs to get a life.

I don't think it's a stoplight. If you look closely and don't jump to conclusions (as you so fatherly pointed out) it appears the "big stoplight" is actually quite small and that the yellow light is lit which is more indicative of "caution".

As someone more knowledgeable than I once said..."those who fail to learn the lessons of history are condemned to repeat it". Just an interesting article FL717...nothing more, nothing less....jacka$$.
 
SeaSlam said:
I don't think it's a stoplight. If you look closely and don't jump to conclusions (as you so fatherly pointed out) it appears the "big stoplight" is actually quite small and that the yellow light is lit which is more indicative of "caution".

As someone more knowledgeable than I once said..."those who fail to learn the lessons of history are condemned to repeat it". Just an interesting article FL717...nothing more, nothing less....jacka$$.

LOL! Jacka$$ huh?! LOL!!

First off... I'm not sure where you are from.... but in America its IS called a stoplight regardless of which light happens to be illuminated at the time

Second.... there is no real lesson in the ridiculous article you posted. In fact the article actually is quite contradictory in its illustration, but the reporter and obviously you can't figure that out.

Regardless, Southwest is in fact profitable.... and all you are doing by linking the article, is allowing some pinhead reporter to use YOU to further their agenda.

The article really tells us NOTHING, and perpetuates that labor costs ruin airlines... which simply isn't true. But you can't see that therefore YOU become the tool for the problem.

Finally, while I may not like what you posted, and you may not like what I posted, I never once resorted to name calling as you so quickly chose to do after objecting to my point, but hey thats the internet... so cower away behind the keyboard name calling...LOL!
 
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