SWA Growing

[northstar]

Ford doesn't have a 737-700!

Yeah, they do. We bought a -700 from Ford. It's in Dothan now. It shuttled Ford employees around in Europe. It currently holds 128, but will be converted to 137 soon. N471WN has been repaired in Chicago and is now N286WN. Also, where do you guys hear all this crew base stuff? What meeting were you in at the GO? Just curious.

 

[canyonblue737]

Yeah, they do. We bought a -700 from Ford. It's in Dothan now. It shuttled Ford employees around in Europe. It currently holds 128, but will be converted to 137 soon. N471WN has been repaired in Chicago and is now N286WN. Also, where do you guys hear all this crew base stuff? What meeting were you in at the GO? Just curious.

Apparently the chiefs have been saying it at the GO to new hire / upgrade classes the last week or so. Are we keeping 471/286 or trying to sell it, I heard mixed things... I do know the repair is finally underway or near complete.

 

[jball2]

Just heard today that we are getting 21 -700's from Mexicana and they are slated mainly for DAL and DEN growth.

Mexicana doesn't have 700's but AeroMexico Does!

 

[roughneck]

They are merging and going to an all airbus fleet.

 

[Deacon]

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?

EWR and LGA??? Didn't think SWA wanted to fly to big airports (that are prone to delays)

 

[FlyBarneyJets]

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.

The original incarnation of the BBJ was identical to the -700. The BBJ1 (the most current version of the -700 fuselage variant) is the one that has the -800 wing and center section. This aircraft is the basis for the -700ER.

Read here.

 

[FlyBarneyJets]

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.

What is WITH the eyebrow plugs?? I got onto a -700 the other day that only had the captain's side done...and done badly. I swear it looked like the mech's used a 6" wide paintbrush to slap the desert gold onto the patches!

Talk about pounding it to fit and painting it to match!

 

[Juvat]

Talk about pounding it to fit...

Reminds me of a trip to Thailand many years ago...

 

[SWA/FO]

This might be the first time I have ever been wrong? I thought, I knew all of Fords' airplanes... I guess not.

 

[northstar]

This might be the first time I have ever been wrong? I thought, I knew all of Fords' airplanes... I guess not.

Rest asure SWA/FO... you weren't wrong. You just didn't know. You used poor judgement... much like the mistake you made not pursuing your fedex dream.