flyingitalian
Well-known member
- Joined
- Mar 26, 2003
- Posts
- 143
lowecur.
you sold this as being "good" for the pilot group. Im simply stating that its not. I love it when outsiders look at WN group and say "yea they get along and have built an 800 lb gorilla." That does not mean we bend over and take it. We do work together and have a good relationship but make no mistake our biggest asset is the fact that we do ALL the flying, we are all paid the same, we can all fly all aircraft (except for 200, but its your choice not to fly it) and we have good scope protection.
We make money with a 60% load factor. We will not "replace" 500s, or 200s with similar seat aircraft because we would rather not have anything other than 137 seats. We have those aircraft because of buying opportunities in the past, and we started with the 200.
727s ran east west with pilots based in Dallas, starting and ending all trips with a DH. The put 149 seats so they would only have 3 FAs, but would put 4 in on fri and mon. Engineers were mechanics that were trained as engineers, and when they ran out of them they hired engineers with no other promise of employment. When they decided to get rid of the 727 they offered every engineer the opportunity to be a part of the pilot work force even if they were not qualified. Some took a leave for a year to get pilot training and then came back to WN and the company typed them in the 737 and they were on their way.
Everyone wants to point to seat mile cost, but ignores the real cost of running two types of aircraft. When you add the second type you have to have a second pilot force, second bidding process, second scheduling process, train pilots between two aircraft types, second training process including simulators, instructors, fleet manager, second maitenance training, parts inventory, ground training for workers, second jetway procedures, second set of FAA requirements..... and the list goes on and on. Here is an example of our simplicity. Jetway operators pull the jetway straight back about 4 feet. When I first got here I thought geeze thats not very far. Think about it if you have one type of aircraft and the ramp and pilots work together to put that same aircraft in the same spot all you do is pull straight back and forth of dock and un dock. A small example, but there are thousands of them that add up to WNs success.
The fact that WN has non of these is why we make money. It would have to be quite a good deal for WN to stray from the 737.
you sold this as being "good" for the pilot group. Im simply stating that its not. I love it when outsiders look at WN group and say "yea they get along and have built an 800 lb gorilla." That does not mean we bend over and take it. We do work together and have a good relationship but make no mistake our biggest asset is the fact that we do ALL the flying, we are all paid the same, we can all fly all aircraft (except for 200, but its your choice not to fly it) and we have good scope protection.
We make money with a 60% load factor. We will not "replace" 500s, or 200s with similar seat aircraft because we would rather not have anything other than 137 seats. We have those aircraft because of buying opportunities in the past, and we started with the 200.
727s ran east west with pilots based in Dallas, starting and ending all trips with a DH. The put 149 seats so they would only have 3 FAs, but would put 4 in on fri and mon. Engineers were mechanics that were trained as engineers, and when they ran out of them they hired engineers with no other promise of employment. When they decided to get rid of the 727 they offered every engineer the opportunity to be a part of the pilot work force even if they were not qualified. Some took a leave for a year to get pilot training and then came back to WN and the company typed them in the 737 and they were on their way.
Everyone wants to point to seat mile cost, but ignores the real cost of running two types of aircraft. When you add the second type you have to have a second pilot force, second bidding process, second scheduling process, train pilots between two aircraft types, second training process including simulators, instructors, fleet manager, second maitenance training, parts inventory, ground training for workers, second jetway procedures, second set of FAA requirements..... and the list goes on and on. Here is an example of our simplicity. Jetway operators pull the jetway straight back about 4 feet. When I first got here I thought geeze thats not very far. Think about it if you have one type of aircraft and the ramp and pilots work together to put that same aircraft in the same spot all you do is pull straight back and forth of dock and un dock. A small example, but there are thousands of them that add up to WNs success.
The fact that WN has non of these is why we make money. It would have to be quite a good deal for WN to stray from the 737.