scambo1

SWA has said publicly that it will take them about 2 years to get everything sorted and straightened out. That sounds about right. From a business perspective, having the SL done and the employee piece done (while not necessarily pretty from the perspectives of individual employees), SWA is ahead of the power curve compared to other companies. That part alone is huge and will enable swa to continue to be a player for emerging opportunities.

So, I am not a regular basher and agree, SWA is generally ahead of the game.

CRJAV8OR

The alternative to the plan that is in place is to decide to NOT purchase AirTran until a later date when all the needed infrastructure is in place to provide an immediate and seamless transition of all AT flying to the SWA side. With this scenario a competitor is allowed to compete and win profits therefore denying Southwest the ability to earn those profits. If you think that is a more solid plan then more power to you and I suggest you start your own airline and operate it as you see fit. What you see as Kool-Aid drinking I see as understanding and supporting the company's business plan.

CRJAV8OR

See the post above. Are you seeing it now?

newKnow

I fixed your post CRJ. (all in fun)

upndsky

No one is arguing the merits or the reasons for the merger. Considering what is going on with the legacies and the regionals, consolidation within the LCCs was inevitable.

What is being argued is that the process itself is not going as smoothly as your management had hoped and what they have you believe. Will those issues get resolved? Of course... eventually. But having gone through our own merger -- with its own issues -- and from the outside looking in, it appears that the management you flaunt so proudly has made some missteps or at least some miscalculations that, in the near term, will hit your bottom line.

That's the way I and some of the others who have posted here see it. You obviously have a different perspective, but don't discount what others outside your sphere have to say.

shoelu

Mistakes on the part of SWA have obviously been made in the past as well as the present and will most definitely continue in the future. Nobody is infallible and SWA is not and never immune to that undeniable fact. However, the tone of this thread is that SWA has completely dropped the ball and is in way over their head in this case. The speculation has been that they have bitten off more than they can chew and never saw the potential pitfalls of a merger scenario. There is the possibility that they saw all the potential problems going forward but weighed that with the opportunity costs of.not going forward.

V169

Every merger is different--in this case there are some pretty large differences in the two brands. In the earning call today, Gary made it clear that each side would run by it's own rules rather that trying to mix the streams and wind up with a confusing customer experience. (Business class/no business class, assigned seating/no assigned seating, bag fees/no bag fees, etc) Let's face it--some current AirTran customers will hate flying Southwest and a short-term "Southwestification" of the AirTran experience might only hasten their exit to other airlines. It seems the plan is to keep people happy with what flavor they like rather than mixing the two and winding up with a flavor that even less people like.

Will it work? Gary Kelly has spent his whole career at SWA and was a CFO before becoming the CEO. He has a staff of bean counters at his disposal to look at data points from 4,000 flights a day. At most I see the world from the soda straw of 6 flight a day. I'll put my money on the tall guy from UT to figure this thing out.

MatthewAMEL

SWA completely dropped the ball. Not having a reservations system that can handle:

1) 'overnight' flights
2) assigned seats
3) international operations

in 2012 is laughable.

Having a home-built res system that runs on home-built PCs in 1990 is 'pioneering'.

Now it's incompetence.

blakman7

I happen to agree with Shoelu here guys. Not everything will go as planned and obstacles will have to be cleared. Even though I'm not a fan of the way that SWA has gone about a few things in this acquisition, I think that it is going rather smooth compared to some other mergers that we have all seen....gee.....some are still not making progress.

shoelu

Well, I really hope your ready to learn how to attempt to do more with less, 'cause if you're not, you are setting yourself up for some serious disappointment. At times, it is annoying, at others it's comical!