Lewbronski

According to SWAPA, the choke point in terms of being able to field pilots is training capacity. The company has said the same thing. It’s not a dearth of pilots willing to work at SWA under our current contract nor an excess of pilot turnover.

Assuming SWAPA and SWA are correct, SWA would be better served, absent the credible threat of a strike from our pilot group, lavishing money upon the training center and training-related items if they want to fly at full capacity sooner.

The reason, as you have read on the Delta forum, the credible threat of a strike is rarely a thing with pilots is the mindset of pilots with respect to the RLA process. To begin with, nearly everything pilots seem to believe about the RLA is rooted in myth rather than reality. Poll how many pilots believe the President can stop us from striking. Get a pulse on how many pilots believe the mediator can hold us in mediation indefinitely (“forever”). Can more than half of our pilots explain to you the difference between arbitration and mediation? Find out how many of our guys think the President will just shut us down “like Clinton did to American in the 90’s.” Determine what percent of our pilot group believe what happened to Alaska back in the mid-2000’s with their arbitration award could also happen to us.

Second, because the RLA process is by design, long and drawn-out, pilots almost always lose patience due to negotiating fatigue and over fears of the lost time value of money even though, historically, TA2’s have often delivered significantly better value than TA1’s. And that’s if the pilot group allows a first TA to be voted on vice simply pressing their RLA advantage all the way from the beginning.

In late 1996, American pilots voted down their second TA, which delivered more than twice as much of a pay increase as their first TA did. In 2015, we voted down our first TA that makes the lagging turd we’re currently working under look like a beautiful thing. Same thing with Delta’s most recent contract. It’s the result of voting down their first TA. How much do you wanna bet United’s TA2 will be better than their TA1? IOW, patience has a history of paying off when it comes to airline contracts but pilots can’t seem to get beyond their own shortsightedness.

By far the main thing standing in the way of pilots being able to execute an effective RLA strategy is pilots. It’s not the RLA itself. It’s not the NMB. It’s not the company. It’s pilots.

To your point in your previous post, though, SWAPA sucks at communications and education. It’s as if they’re run by boomers who think Facebook is still the latest and greatest and that podcasts are the shizz. If I could get SWAPA to do one thing, it’d be to outsource their communications department (overseen strategically, of course, by pilots) to a cutting edge digital marketing firm with proven very recent results. I’m thinking perhaps a group like The Lincoln Project or some other very clever and cutting edge group that has made a serious impact - because SWAPA is like Dana Carvey’s grumpy old man when it comes to social media marketing and outreach. It’s almost comic how bad they are at it and how thoroughly Luddite they are. They are hopelessly done in by themselves and outmatched by who they’re up against: the company and firms like FordHarrison.

Lewbronski

Until SWAPA has a thorough change of guard and a revolution of some sort occurs there, I would be vomited out by SWAPA like five-day old, left-out-in-room-temperature truck stop sushi. If they were on board with any of that, they’d be doing it. One person can’t change an entire organization.

symbian simian

not at SWA. Would definitely vote for you

Teamroper

Listening to the podcasts, and their reports on negotiations, you get a sense of this. They need more horsepower.

waterskisabersw

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I agree it's a red herring, for the most part. There is a shortage of pilots, but pilots are not born pilots, nor are they forged in supernovas billions of years ago. They are trained. It's a simple calculus to pay enough to balance out the cost benefit equation that young potential pilots, and balance it well enough to keep the pipeline of new pilots mostly full.

There's often been a saying: there's not a shortage of pilots, there's a shortage of willing pilots. I consider a high school or college student who is considering a career as a pilot to be a "potential willing pilot."

I also agree the tangible costs of attrition are, at least at face value, not so high as to warrant a mega contract at face value. However, there are intangible, or at least less tangible costs associated with attrition, mostly because you can't vet, interview, hire, and train a pilot overnight, and you can't necessarily anticipate an attrition schedule.

So what higher cost is the company willing to carry in order to not give us what we want in the name of pilot attrition or a shortage? They have to be willing to essentially carry the cost of entire training pipeline along it's entire timeline from start to finish in order to not be "understaffed" during attrition waves. So if we can acquire a pilot from application to oe in 4 months, the total cost of a pilot is the entire training/acquisition cost of each pilot along with the cost of each pilot(only minimally offset by revenue generation during that period since they're an overstaffing solution) in order to prevent cancellations due to understaffing.

So if we're losing 200 pilots a year (2% attrition, so very low), the total cost of that is actually much higher than what one might expect because we don't know when they're going to quit. So it's the cost of training/acquiring 200 pilots plus the cost of caring 200 pilots of overstaffing in preparation for 200 pilots to quit unexpectedly.

So yes, not as significant as some might want to attribute to pure shortage reasons, but still around the tune of tens of millions of dollars per year per percentage of attrition. I did the rough math of $150k in cost to carry a pilot and 100 training events at $75k each for a wag, at it works out to around $22m per percentage of attrition, and that's overstaffing matching attrition perfectly.

Caveman

The usual response to critics of SWAPA is wagon circling and unity virtue signaling, and not to directly address the topic or issue being elevated.

Path to cush committee job is to high five within as much as is possible, avoid conflict, and attach yourself to a SWAPA political superstar flavor of the year.

Majority of BOD positions are elected unopposed .
BOD>Committee>Company Consultant

SWAPA 3.0 isn't going to cut it either. Just as the Company has changed, SWAPA we I'll need to transform in equal fashion to be relevant.

Both SWAPA Leadership (they know the #s) and SWA Leadership know there's virtual no real credible threat of a SAV vote with any amount of strength. And so here we are. And will remain. Until that changes

Lewbronski

Very well said. I can’t put it much better than that.

Very true about SWAPA 3.0 not cutting it. If SWAPA in 2015 under Jackson was SWAPA 1.0. And SWAPA under JW was “SWAPA 2.0,” as they described themselves. Then, current SWAPA is like 2.1.

We need something along the lines of SWAPA 10.0 to have a fighting chance. Don’t hold your breath.

Burton78

The only one preventing this is yourself. From what I’ve seen of your posts, I’d definitely vote for you as would countless others. Put your word out. Your defeatist mindset is also part of the problem here at SWA. We need more people like you to step up

I think you would garner more support than you give yourself credit for. Stir the pot on a broader audience and people will listen and rally. You seem educated enough on the RLA to make an impact in the much needed education of this pilot group. Pontificating on APC does little to nothing to move the needle other than fill your bucket of self importance. I’d gather not even 5% the pilot group even frequents this site.

Lewbronski

You’re presuming quite a bit about me. As if I don’t have solid reasoning for where I post what I post.

I think you’re right that not even 5% of the pilot group comes here. Probably not even a fraction of that. My hope is that the very few who do read what I have posted here and who find value in it will carry the word forward. Maybe one day, it’ll make a little bit of a difference.

If you think my reasoning regarding the RLA and a few other topics is solid, branch out and do your own research. Learn the subject. Then, go get elected at SWAPA. Try to get them on board. Would love to hear how that goes.

Burton78

Im unclear on your meaning in your first couple sentences here.. What do you think I’m falsely presuming?