Lewbronski

I 100% agree with you on all of that. This contract is very possibly the one shot in all of our careers to attain a true "generational" contract that rewards us for our professional skills.

For me, our contract must include everything you mentioned and then some. That means, along with industry-leading everything else, our 12-yr CA rates must exceed the high $400's per TFP in order to provide us with industry-leading career compensation, period and reflect the fact that we fly so many more block hours and deal with so much more complexity in our operations than The Big Three.

glacialfury1906

Hey Lewbronski, I’m not throwing shade, hate or trying to pick a fight. I’m just genuinely curious, what is so much more complex about SWA’s operations than AA, DAL, and UAL narrow body flying? I get the block hour comment.

I’m rooting for you folks at SWA…..

Cyio

Just taking a guess but I would think it has to do with the volume of airports, airspace and ATC we deal with. Four legs up and down California for three days straight exposes you to a lot more complexity than a one leg Boston to LAX. Not throwing shade either, just the inherent greater risk of multiple up and downs in varying sized airports. I will say though, from what I have read, AA is at least starting to have more of this type of flying as well on their NB side as the regional model falls apart some. Not sure about UA or DL thought.

Crockrocket95

Complex, nah.

Tiring. Yeah.

hoover

more risk tho. More block hrs, more take off and landings equal more risk.
I think we all have about the same amount of liability at ~2billion

Lewbronski

Yes, thank you Cyio, that is mainly what I'm talking about.

Also...as a check airperson here at SWA recently explained: over the course of a typical 3- or 4-day, and over the course of their careers, partly because we fly so many more block hours and partly because we keep adding cities with low frequencies, a SWA pilot will typically be exposed to more cities and more, for lack of a better term, "novel" operating environments than pilots at most other "major" airlines. A SWA pilot, he said, on any given trip might have to operate to some city they haven't been to ever or for years and that they are not really familiar with at all, like HDN or CUN or PNS or FAT or LGA or you name it. So, in a way, he was saying the average "complexity" faced by SWA pilots over the course of their careers is higher than that faced by other major airline pilots. He wasn't saying it in a "SWA exceptionalism," throwing shade at other airlines sort of way. He was saying it like it's getting more and more challenging out there as a SWA pilot.

So, in a way, he was saying the average complexity faced by SWA pilots over the course of their careers is higher than that faced by other major airline pilots. He cited a few things as his reasons for making that statement: 1) SWA pilots fly many more block hours and more legs than pilots at other major airlines, 2) SWA pilots are all qualified to operate in/out of all of our cities (except for Hawaiian cities), 3) Many (most?) pilots at other major airlines will eventually migrate to WB flying where the number of cities/environments they have to fly in/out of and be familiar with is much smaller (reducing the overall "career complexity" faced by them) than the number of cities/environments all SWA pilots operate in/out of for their entire careers, and 4) He also specifically referred to Chicago-Midway as adding to SWA's complexity given the weather/runway challenges often encountered there and the volume of our operations at MDW, many of our pilots have to cycle through there fairly regularly but not quite regularly enough to be super-proficient there, and that several of our most high-profile mishaps have occurred there.

He said back in the day, when SWA only flew to a small number of cities in the -200, our operation wasn't complex and it was fairly simple to keep up with everything we needed to keep up with. You'd see the same cities on every trip and you'd become super-proficient in operating out of all of those cities. It's a very different story now, though.

Maybe "complexity" isn't the best word to describe all of the above. But that's the word the CKA used. It seems as good as any other to me to describe whatever all of the above is.

In a nutshell, though, what Cyio said. I'm terrible at being succinct.

calmemployment

*This is a timely downgrade prior to Investor Day on 5/17

“The long term relationship between Discounters and the Big 3 has inverted; it’s now the larger airlines that control the high ground, and we believe this newfound relationship between operating models can persist,” wrote J.P. Morgan analyst Jamie Baker in a note to clients

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/am...tings-a1f4f8ac

Whoopsmybad

DAL has been doing that flying for YEARS.
Mad Dogs pre COVID, and the 717.
Now it’s all the NB fleets, even the 757 doing 4 leg days out of ATL into FL all day (or ORF/RIC/etc……).

I mean, the bus is more comfortable than the 737, but a 4-5 leg day is still a 4-5 leg day.

calmemployment

There goes our Profit Sharing for the year!

https://apnews.com/article/airlines-...qis1zoxulg6vgi

WHACKMASTER

All the more reason to get TFP rates that will make you f++k++g blush!!!