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BlueBlood

Well-known member
Joined
Apr 22, 2004
Posts
79
A classmate of mine from Delta is at SWA now and says Gary Kelly is losing the battle with the pilots. They are very frustrated with his "doom and gloom" message even in the face of a profit. All he does is tell the employees how they continue to fail financial targets and how they need to do better.

He claims that Kelly is already talking concessions and even furloughs if they don't give him the "help" he is looking for. WTF? Didn't WN just post a profit? Now he wants concessions?

If this is true, I really hate it for you guys. I wanted to work there for years because of the likelihood of never having to deal with this kind of BS. Suddenly I feel much better for interviewing twice with no success.

Good Luck!!!!

Can any of you corndogs confirm?

Blue
 
Gary just offered us a raise a few weeks ago. I don't know where your buddy is based, but most of the MCO guys I fly with trust Gary.
 
The SWA model is all domestic with zero international.....which is a vital resource for the legacy airlines. I really don't think he knows how this will all turn out ....so he is just looking more negative right now. They still are making money again....hopefully things will improve.
 
You mean that raise with an automatic reduction in 401k matching by more than half if Gary merely asks other groups for concessions. He doesn't have to get concessions, only ask and we "snap-back" to 2006 pay rates and 3.5% on 401 matching. As for the raise, he can keep the 2% and dismal bonus of 3%. I fly with folks that don't have a lot of confidence in GK, Mike VdV, or CM for that matter. I don't get all spooled up, but if someone knocks on my door for concessions, they'd better come with every other groups donations first.

BTW, if you read the memos from SWAPA and the company it is apparent that someome is full of $hit. Negotiations it seems.

Either way............
 
You mean that raise with an automatic reduction in 401k matching by more than half if Gary merely asks other groups for concessions. He doesn't have to get concessions, only ask and we "snap-back" to 2006 pay rates and 3.5% on 401 matching. As for the raise, he can keep the 2% and dismal bonus of 3%. I fly with folks that don't have a lot of confidence in GK, Mike VdV, or CM for that matter. I don't get all spooled up, but if someone knocks on my door for concessions, they'd better come with every other groups donations first.

BTW, if you read the memos from SWAPA and the company it is apparent that someome is full of $hit. Negotiations it seems.

Either way............


The 401k cut was part of one of two offers by the company.

The first was a smaller retro check followed by raises tied to profitability.

The alternate offer was a fixed 2% raise but a trigger to rollback to 2006 salaries with a cut to 3.5 matching in the 401k.

So, the company was offering a small retro check with raises based on profitability or they were offering fixed raises with the ability to cut back wages if consecutive negative earnings were encountered.

The 401k cut was only part of one offer package. Not defending or promoting either package, but that's what his letter said...
 
The 401k cut was part of one of two offers by the company.

The first was a smaller retro check followed by raises tied to profitability.

The alternate offer was a fixed 2% raise but a trigger to rollback to 2006 salaries with a cut to 3.5 matching in the 401k.

So, the company was offering a small retro check with raises based on profitability or they were offering fixed raises with the ability to cut back wages if consecutive negative earnings were encountered.

The 401k cut was only part of one offer package. Not defending or promoting either package, but that's what his letter said...

So, was Kelly's personal offer more or less pay than the TA? Can't tell from your post.
 
He claims that Kelly is already talking concessions and even furloughs if they don't give him the "help" he is looking for. WTF? Didn't WN just post a profit? Now he wants concessions?
no success.

Blue
Southwest has lost money 3 out of the last 4 quarters and can't even predict a profitable 3rd quarter. Yes Southwest made a little over $50 million in the 2nd quarter traditionally their best quarter. Southwest operating margin for the 2nd quarter was only 5%. Last year Southwest made over $300 million in the second quarter. This is the type of economic environment where low costs carriers should be doing well . Note Jetblue and Airtran were able to pull off operating margins over 10%.

That is why you are seeing Kelly keep talking about route structure optimization. They are trimming some frequency in some of their core markets to free up airplanes to startup the new cities of LGA, MKE, BOS, and MSP. Southwest is looking for new markets that will increase their yields. The excess capacity in their core markets is hurting their RASM performance.
 
A lot of pilots were of the atittude that "you never take the first offer", thinking that the second TA offer would necessarily be better and be coming a few weeks later. SWA does not want that thinking to become the norm at all the unions so it is sending a message that it will not be the case or be obtained easily and quickly and that there is a price to be paid in going down that road.
 
A lot of pilots were of the atittude that "you never take the first offer", thinking that the second TA offer would necessarily be better and be coming a few weeks later. SWA does not want that thinking to become the norm at all the unions so it is sending a message that it will not be the case or be obtained easily and quickly and that there is a price to be paid in going down that road.

Hate to break it to you but every single other union on property has not taken their first offer at one time or another.
 

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