SWA Growing

[airlinepilot]

Next Base will NOT be BNA....last month when one of the MX guys was working on our aircraft....I asked him what was going on in BNA. He told me there were in the process of "down sizing MX in BNA", offering transfers and early retirements. Cutting the BNA MX staff way down......something I have verified with other MX guys.....not something you would do if you planned on making BNA a new base in 6 months.....next base is either LAS (best bet or TPA)

 

[Alcatraz]

Vegas would be a good bet.

Ha! You're so punny!


My nearly worthless guesses on a pilot domicile:
-TPA is too close to MCO, and both would be affected at the same time by hurricanes.
-LAS would be obvious from a narrowsighted viewpoint, but wouldn't be good due to: high cost of living, poor public transportation, and high load factors for commuters.
-PHL would be interesting, especially if we announced service to LGA or EWR. They could try to build trips that would contain east coast delays to PHL crews. I don't really see this happening because of inefficiencies, but not much would surprise me.
-BNA and MCI are pretty small, but remain my [unreliable] prediction. They still have quite a few flights in many directions, lots of RONs (esp MCI), and are centrally located. Either would be nice to live in, too, as many MDW crew members who already live there will attest to. I think there's 350 pilots and FAs that commute from MCI to MDW alone! I also don't think a pilot base needs to be co-located with a mx base.


And I thought Ford Motor had a BBJ or two. Isn't that really a -700 (probably with ETOPS), or am I smoking crack?

 

[K-Mart]

Not only will they announce this as the newest city... it will be the next crew base - Lewiston, Montana.

Sunriver, Oregon!:laugh:

Honestly, I would bet Denver, Kansas City, or Las Vegas.

I would hope it is not Las Vegas. That would suck hard for some commuters.

 

[canyonblue737]

Ford doesn't have a 737-700!

ahhh... here it is... and from German too, so that explains the German/Ford confusion on this board.

[FONT=ARIAL, Helvetica, Geneva][FONT=ARIAL, Helvetica, Geneva][FONT=ARIAL, Helvetica, Geneva]http://www.airliners.net/open.file/0679985/L/[/FONT][/FONT][/FONT]

 

[canyonblue737]

And I thought Ford Motor had a BBJ or two. Isn't that really a -700 (probably with ETOPS), or am I smoking crack?

The BBJ isn't the same as the -700. It is the -700 fuselage with -800 wing structure and -800 gear. The Ford Motor Company has a true -700.

 

[canyonblue737]

With over 200 rooms a night in Vegas you'd have to think it's be Vegas? But, I've been wrong before.

They say there aren't enough flights that pass through mid-day in Vegas to make it a reasonable crew bases for the AM/PM change over from what I heard.

 

[learherkjay]

Great, not only do we have to put winglets on it and plug the eyebrow windows, but we need some extra time to strip all of the good avionics out of it.

 

[canyonblue]

......... but we need some extra time to strip all of the good avionics out of it.

Boeing makes them with avionics? Man now I'm really p!ssed.

 

[Skyboy722]

-LAS would be obvious from a narrowsighted viewpoint, but wouldn't be good due to: high cost of living, poor public transportation, and high load factors for commuters.

You mean it wouldn't be good for pilots: I agree. But I doubt the company is too concerned with this. Given the enormous amount of money spent on hotels, LAS is definitely in the running, but as was mentioned before, it really comes down to the company's ability to build efficient trips. To that point a CP told us that BNA was very close in the running...

 

[Aplus9]

I bet it will be KMCI....but lately the GO has been full of surprises. As for the current schedule through potential new bases, they practically start over when they open a knew base, don't they?