SWA F/A Contract

[lowlycfi]

It passed.

82% voted yes and 89% of eligible F/As voted. Thank you to all the pilots out there who have supported us the last two years. Off to fly a trip at my new pay rate. Now who wants more peanuts?

 

[apdsm]

Congrats to the SWA F/A's!!!!

 

[Ponchus pilot]

where can you see the benefits and pay. Do you have a link?

 

[SWAInflt]

It's available on the TWU 556 website but the site is password protected. I'll ask around on the WN F/A boards and see if anyone knows of any other links.

In the meantime...if you have any specific questions, I'll be glad to try to answer them.

 

[Ponchus pilot]

Are you curently hiring and if so what is the best way to apply? Also, do you have job fairs for FA's? I have a few FA friends here at Continental Express that are working for less than $20K. Unfortunately these girls are young and dont know anything about the rest of the industry or SWA ( mostly rumors) Here are my questions:

What are the 1-5 year pay?
Min days off?
Health/retirement package?
Duty rigs?
What are the junior/senior bases?

Thanks for the info.

 

[SWAInflt]

Are you curently hiring and if so what is the best way to apply? Also, do you have job fairs for FA's? I have a few FA friends here at Continental Express that are working for less than $20K. Unfortunately these girls are young and dont know anything about the rest of the industry or SWA ( mostly rumors) Here are my questions:

What are the 1-5 year pay?
Min days off?
Health/retirement package?
Duty rigs?
What are the junior/senior bases?

Thanks for the info.

We are hiring...in fact there is a class starting today and another scheduled for 8/30. However, there is a fairly large training pool already waiting for a class date and an active push to get internal transfers from ground operations.

We no longer have job fairs. Interested persons must submit a resume on Southwest.com and wait for an invitation to a group interview.

1-5 year pay is tough to pin down under the new contract because each payscale will receive a raise every year throughout the life of the contract. In other words the starting pay will be a couple of bucks higher next year than it is this year and will continue to go up each year. Here is the current 1-5 year scale effective 6/1/04-5/31/05

$17.46 First Six Months
$17.70 Second Six Months
$21.10 Second Year
$22.28 Third Year
$24.43 Fourth Year
$25.61 Fifth Year

Min days off is around 13 depending on how the lines are built our pairings are never longer than 4 days.

Health benefits are the typical HMO/PPO type plans there are several to choose from and are quite reasonable. As a single person on the PPO plan, I pay zilch out of pocket except for co-pays. There is no retirement per se. However, we do have 401k, profit sharing and we can use accumlated sick time to purchase addtional health coverage after retirement.

Duty RIGs are .70 per hour with an ADG of 6.5

BWI is far and away the junior base, next in line is OAK, followed by MDW, then MCO, PHX, HOU, and DAL.

I'm rushing to meet a buddy for lunch so I'm giving reader's digest answers...let me know if you need more detailed information and I'll be happy to elaborate.

 

[Ponchus pilot]

The pay you listed, is it per trip or per hour? if its per trip how do you convert it to hourly pay or even better what would the yearly salary be. What is the average pay increase over the life of the contract? thanks

 

[lowlycfi]

Pay is per TRIP which works out to 243 nautical miles. You can figure that the average line, regular or reserve will pay 90 to 95 TRIPS per month. Raises aren't the same for each payscale but seem to average about 30 percent over the life of the contract. Hope this helps.

BTW, from what I've been told, we are not hiring off the street right now for F/As. Customer service and reservations are being downsized throughout the company, and those internal employees are getting incentives to go to F/A training. The classes are primarily being filled with them and people who were already in the hiring pool.

 

[SWAInflt]

The pay you listed, is it per trip or per hour? if its per trip how do you convert it to hourly pay or even better what would the yearly salary be. What is the average pay increase over the life of the contract? thanks

As CFI already pointed out....we are paid by the trip. There is a formula floating around that converts trip pay into hourly pay...perhaps one of our pilots will chime in.

Yearly salary is tough to pinpoint because we have not seen any pairings, schedule or reserve lines built under the new contract language. We don't even have an implementation schedule yet. For reference sake...newbies are currently making in the high teens to low 20s their first year depending on how much they fly.

Average raise through the life of the contract is around 30%. At maturity(2007) top will be $50.50 at Step 13.

 

[canyonblue]

Trip conversion is $##.## x 1.1393 = Hourly

IE) $50.50 TFP equals 57.53 /hr

I am glad the F/A's are happy with the contract. We do have a great bunch of F/A's. Recently however, I have seen a general decline in the service from many of them. I hope this was due to the contract being a long dragged out process, but that is still not a reason to do a terrible job. SWAInflt and lowlycfi I know you guys do a great job day in and day out but please have your fellow F/A's get back to the days of policing each other. It is rare now that I see a F/A at the exit row during boarding helping customers, or ever rearranging bags to help a customer to not have to check a carryon. On my last commute I followed the families down the jetway only to see the 2 F/A's sitting at the bottom of the jetway talking. Once onboard I quickly realized that the B F/A was not in the back, but was off the plane smoking.

 

[SWAInflt]

CanyonBlue,

Thanks for the TFP formula...I knew it was something like that.

As for the declining performance of some of my co-workers....that's a tough one. I do have a few theories though. First off, hiring standards are in the toilet. Even with the new contract, we are still almost $3 behind the starting pay at jetBlue. That might not sound like alot but believe me...it's adds up and it does impact our ability to recruit quality candidates. In years past SWA was the job for the wannabe stew..that is no longer the case. jetBlue is where everyone wants to be now. They pay better, they offer a superior inflight product and their "buzz factor" is off the charts. Couple that fact with the reality of our explosive growth over the past few years and you get a bad combination. In short, we lost our ability to be selective. We needed warm bodies to put out on the flight line so we started taking whoever and whatever we could get.

Second, there are just too many of us. I think the Inflight Sups have given up trying to police what goes on out there. With over 7,000 flight attendants and close to 3,000 flights a day they would have to fly more than FAMs to see even a fraction of the stuff that goes on out there. When it gets written up and crosses their desk, they deal with it but I just think the sups are too overwhelmed.

For now at least, the slackers are largely in the minority. Hopefully, settling the contract will boost morale and we'll see some positive change. Let's hope so.....

 

[canyonblue]

The Inflight Sups don't need to be near the plane, I doubt that many of them could identify a 737 3 out of 4 times. The Old guy captains tell me that when a F/A was slackin', that they would get a talking to from the other F/A's. As far a the starting pay I had hoped that the Union would keep the pay rate at what the company offered last summer, $18.55 TFP. That a very good rate, more so now since it is about the highest paid 1st year rate. But the new contractual rate of $17.46 to start still equates to 19.89 /hr. (the $18.55 would equate to $21.13) That rate would be higher than jetBlue's $20.00 /hr. It is my belief that the Union could have given less to the top outs and more to the newbie's. Also as far as jetBlue goes, In the book "The Southwest Airlines Way" Ann Rhodes former SWA'er who came over with Neeleman stated, and I quote

"We believe in taking care of people. But we do not believe in staying there forever. We believe firmly that some jobs are short term. We've designed the flight attendant job to be from 1 to 5 years in duration".

Maybe some JB'ers can chime in here but is that still the philosophy? Is there a pay scale that exceeds 5 years and have any F/A's stayed on. If I were a F/A looking at a career and had the choice between JB and SW, well that $57.53 /hr would look pretty good to me at 13 years.

 

[ScRaMJeT]

Where are the pilots echoing there support?

I'd like to say Congratulations on your contract also.



The in-flight group never had a strike, which sent a very strong message to all.



I noticed only one of the pilots has responded with support to your post. It’s nice to see that at least one of the pilots supports you, and if they don't call them a scab.



Scramjet

 

[canyonblue]

Where do you get the information that the SWA pilots don't support them? Man, some people on this board are morons. Go bother some other board.

 

[Mu2Driver]

Isn't that 57.53/hr more than Delta F/As make at the max pay?? I think Delta maxes out at 48 and change an hour.

 

[SWAInflt]

I'd like to say Congratulations on your contract also.



The in-flight group never had a strike, which sent a very strong message to all.



I noticed only one of the pilots has responded with support to your post. It’s nice to see that at least one of the pilots supports you, and if they don't call them a scab.



Scramjet

Throughout the the negotiations many, many pilots voiced their support for the Flight Attendant Group...some even had stickers on their brain bags that said just that....something like...."Our Flight Attendants are "behind us" and we are behind them."

Honestly, I think the majority of the WN pilots on this board simply have better things to do than reply to a F/A related thread that seems to have found itself sitting smack in the middle of a pilot interview board.

 

[VmaxFlyR]

Perspective

It is my belief that the Union could have given less to the top outs and more to the newbie's.

It's a done deal, with an overwelming vote, but from someone with an intimate knowledge of your operation:

CanyonBlue, I'll bet you won't be sharing that philosophy when SWA pilot's contract comes up for renewal...you'll be flying a lot of long, silent trips with Senior Daddies, if you do vocalize it.

The "top-outs" have barely gotten back to COLA from the two previous contracts, and let's face it, a good part of SWA's past growth and success is due to those gals' (and later, guys') hardworking efforts. At a 12 year top-out, in a few years, a lot of folks may be rethinking the fact that a F/A's income/lifestyle can actually decline as their seniority increases, but the pay scales are likely designed to assure 50+% passage (remember your past contract's provisions assuring that "pre-retirement" affirmative vote?)

Approx. 22% total raise over 8 years (last pay raise for those "top outs" was in 2000...) compared to the 20+% over the last 2 years for your pilot group, is hardly being over generous to those topped out F/As...

Don't we all miss those long past "Golden Days" of commercial airline employment & travel (Think: "Catch Me If You Can"...), rather than a potential race to the bottom.

Fly Safe!

 

[dink]

Congrats on the pay raise! it was a long time in comming.

Is there language in the new contract that sets a minumum amount of flying for the month? Like forcing the FA's to fly at least a turn a month or some other minimum?

thanks...

 

[canyonblue]

CanyonBlue, I'll bet you won't be sharing that philosophy when SWA pilot's contract comes up for renewal...you'll be flying a lot of long, silent trips with Senior Daddies, if you do vocalize it.

I have already vocalized it, and still do. Any F/A cares to ask me I tell them. I don't care who built this company, we are ALL employed here now. My opinion is that the senior F/A's could have taken a smaller raise (they were already 2nd highest paid behind Delta) and passed it on to the Mid-Level F/A's. You don't know what you're talking about on this issue. I have supported the F/A's, ALL of them.

As far as "you'll be flying a lot of long, silent trips with Senior Daddies". Get off the crack pipe.

 

[VmaxFlyR]

A loss of perspective

QUOTE=canyonblue]I have already vocalized it, and still do. Any F/A cares to ask me I tell them. I don't care who built this company, we are ALL employed here now. My opinion is that the senior F/A's could have taken a smaller raise (they were already 2nd highest paid behind Delta) and passed it on to the Mid-Level F/A's. You don't know what you're talking about on this issue. I have supported the F/A's, ALL of them.
As far as "you'll be flying a lot of long, silent trips with Senior Daddies". Get off the crack pipe.[/QUOTE]



CanyonBlue, I never said that you didn't support your F/A's, but you might want to check your facts, if you have the access, before assuming who really knows what they're talking about on this issue:

The largest raises DID go to the "non-topped-out" F/As, in terms of both percentage and total dollars, over the life of the new contract. Other than brand new hires, for each year that a F/A is "topped-out" under the new contract, the smaller the total raise, whether as expressed as total dollars or a percentage of dollars between 2000 (date of last raise for those already topped-out) and 2008. The Mid-Levels in fact got the largest percentages and total dollars raises. That's a fact.

Regarding supporting ALL the F/As: how much smaller than a COLA should "topped-out" F/A's have taken? A $9.24 raise over 8 1/2 years is all they got. A buck and a dime per trip extra per year on average (it's actually back-loaded)should have hardly hurt the position of those who will receive (and also deservedly so) as much as a $22.39/trip raise over a 6 year term of the contract...

Be assured that the senior captains (as I referred to earlier as "Senior Daddies"), many of whom DID build the company and are now already topped-out, will be expecting a COLA as a minimum next time around. When you fly with them, I'm sure they'll be "thrilled" to hear what you feel THEY do or don't deserve regarding future compensation..."silence" may then be a blessing to you.

As for the crack pipe, I probably wouldn't know a one if I saw one, would you?

Enough said...