Zard

I’ve been playing FUD drinking games here and on the other forum. Rip a shot when you read furlough, chug a beer if you read Elliott, and I guess take a sip if you see the letters PBS.

I’ve been blacked out time traveling for about a month now.

rickair7777

Instead of that, just get more vacation (and contractual available slots!). With PBS, there's no need to try to play games with trip/vacation positioning. Unnecessary work.

In this day and age, no union should agree to PBS without strong contractual rules and parameters to prevent company abuse. It will still be good for the company, just not as good as they would like. Also good for 98% of pilots, but if you're neophyte you'll probably need to use it for 3-6 months to fully appreciate that. I've used multiple version of PBS and line bidding over the years. PBS hands down (with good rules).

NuGuy

Well, not precisely. While vacation, mil leave and training makes up some of the produtivity that PBS provides, it's the month to month transition that provides the lions share of gain. When you have line bidding, the interface between months is a train wreck from a company perspective because there is no way to figure out who's bidding what and how it will affect the lines in the subsequent month. Not to mention people can and do target the transition to cause trips to drop out. This means the bulk of what falls into open time is during the first 3-4 days of the month, which means the company has to carry enough reserves for that period. Since you don't have part time pilots, that means they have to carry those reserves for the rest of the month.

Now you absolutely could set up PBS to ignore known absences and the transition, but it would actually be worse for a company than the current line bidding system. Line bidding, for a good part of the BES, is pseudo random. Yea, you put in your preferences, and yes, you can try to sharpshoot the system, but it really comes down to how people above you bid and what's left over, so you might not wind up with a perfect schedule or have it work out optimally to your advantage. If you used PBS to do the same thing, now pilots could intentionally target their known absences/transition with the power of PBS, and you could truly cause some schedule havoc, because it's by trip, not by line.

No company in their right mind would agree to that.

rickair7777

The company can have some efficiency, there's enough net benefit to PBS to make it workwhile for the pilots *if done correctly*.

Make sure you get made whole on time off.

If the company can get by with fewer pilots per ASM in the long run, that's not the end of the world either... brief slowdown in movement while the dust settles and then back to normal, with the benefits of PBS. You're not obligated to create jobs for future potential applicants, just need to make sure you're not working more for the same pay.

Liberty

… but for my future seniority! 😁

Request20Right

This Elliot news comes at a weird time for me. I just hit my year mark here at Southwest. I’m stoked to be settling in, making year 2 pay, and I am 58% in base (have 1400 people underneath me in the company so 88% company seniority), driving to work. I do have a class date at United on 7/23. I had applied to UAL last year and delayed because I wanted to see how the contract was going to shake out, and I ended up getting the job offer after going to the interview in January. The delays at United with Boeing pushed the class date back until now, and I only found out about two weeks ago that it would be in July.


This has coincided with this Elliot news, and is really having me scratch my head if staying is going to be a bad move. I do not think that Elliot's main goal is the long term success of the ariline and I fear that they don’t have a plan to turn things around. Of course this is speculation but if they sell off the aircraft to create cash, set up a leaseback program to lease the airplanes back to Southwest, and do stock buybacks, this will undermine our strong cash reserves. This may ultimately liquidate the company of their money.


Over the past week, I have come to the determination that the only reason I would leave is to get the chance to chase other aircraft. But to be honest, I don’t care for widebody international flying at UAL. The grass isn't greener I'm learning. I see some of my friend's schedules and I prefer the our schedule flexibility and vacation, and everything here at Southwest. I get more days off a month than my friends at UAL flying the 737. So my MO currently is to stay, but I am unsure about the future and if I am ignorant to what is coming towards Southwest. Of course nobody has a crystal ball, but I'm wondering if I'll regret turning down my UAL start date once we learn more about Elliot's motives and what it will do the company.

e6bpilot

Sounds like you have it mostly figured out but just have to process it in your mind. I wouldn't even put Elliott in your decision making matrix. They are here because they believe that SWA is a company with good bones but poor health that they can turn around and make some money on. They aren't here to bleed them dry or sell them off. That's not only hard, but they would never get consensus with other institutional shareholders that they need to go forward.

I personally think SWA has a very bright future, but I only have the same facts as everyone else to go on. It's been a tough couple of years, no doubt. Our management got us here and I don't think they are able to get out of this by themselves. While I don't trust Elliott, they will act as a catalyst for change, which was desperately needed here.

I think you can't go wrong in your decision. United is a great place to go right now. They have big growth plans to take advantage of their massive scale and spread their costs out. As long as demand holds up, I think they are going to be the destination airline for a good while. SWA has been good to me over the last decade, but there have been some dark times as well. I am killing it with pay vs days worked right now despite my awful seniority in my seat. I definitely couldn't do that in another shop. My first 8 years here were marked with 3 separate events (AT merger, max grouding, Covid) that halted my seniority progression. Despite that, I have been able to enjoy myself and maintain a great work/life balance.

Best of luck. I think you can't go wrong either way. Good on United for maintaining offers long term for guys at other places. I recently flew with a FO in the same boat.

salt lord

Absolutely do what is best for you and your family. But don’t lose sight of the fact that you’ll go from 88% seniority and driving to work to being the plug somewhere you don’t live at a time when hiring is stagnating.

I wish we all had a magic 8 ball to know what would turn out to be best 40 years from now.

rickair7777

Your age would be a factor, if I were making that decision. And if UAL has a base you'd like to live in at some point.

The biggy is retirements... 737 is very junior at UAL so if you're resigned to the guppy you could probably be a mid-seniority 737 CA at UAL at about the time you'd be a mid-seniority FO at SW. I'd research that to see where you'd likely stand. Money makes up for some time off, ie pay somebody to build that deck and enjoy your days off vice doing it yourself.

I know a few guys at my shop that wish they had made that move post-covid.

Hotel Kilo

Interesting position you find yourself in. Im not at SWA or UAL. I'm a DAL WB guy. Been in the industry for decades. Here's a perspective. SWA is a stagnant SL. Not many retirements going on there. It's a fairly "junior" group at SWA. UAL, they are clipping along on average of ~400 a year if not more - proabably for the next 10 years. Hiring. SWA is stagnating there as well. The single type and then the MAX disaster has impacted that. That means fewer coming in under you and not many leaving above you = stagnation. UAL will crank up the hiring again soon probably on the order of ~1200 or more a year. That means more people under you than at SWA in a given time period. More people under you is a good thing all around as it its not stagnating you in relative seniority. At UAL you'd have more people leaving above you, that means progression. From the personnel and seniority prospective UAL wins.

You've been at SWA a year, and say you are happy flying the 737. That's fine. Right now you're an FO. However, you could be a CA at UAL rather rapidly on it probably less than 2 years. Yes a bit juinor, but see my comment above about the seniority lists. You wouldn't be very junior for very long. At SWA you'd be an FO for a decade (just me spitballing but I think that's pretty close to when you can first have seniority to upgrade). There are opportunity costs there to consider. WB flying. Have you done it? Ever? I wouldnt be too quick to cast stones until you try it. I've done both. I much prefer WB flying. No reroutes. No junior mans. No multi leg days into the wee hours. It's one and done. Hit the town, get some sleep. One leg home. Int'l trips where I work (DAL) are pretty good credit wise. So I usually do maybe 2-4 trips a month. I'm off 17 days each month on average. I have buddies at UAL on the 777/787. Their trips are not much different than ours. Some folks don't like the Int'l stuff, that's ok. But until you try it, I wouldn't knock it. I will never go back to narrow body flying. Those schedules are brutal. At SWA you'd never get the chance. You're stuck in the 73 flying domestic (I don't consider Hawaii or carribbean flying international) for your whole career.

You mentioned pay. I have buddies that are farily senior captains at SWA. They can't touch what I make in a year (sorry about the W2 comment, I am just comparing this for the poster here). I work way less than they do and make more than they do. We chat and joke about it all the time. Since UALs new contract, I would say your earning potential for your career there, would be much better than SWA AND you wouldn't have to be a slave to your board all the time. Yes, you can make good money at SWA, but you gotta hustle AND you have to have seniority.

I can't speak to the Elliot factor. I have been reading up about him though. I never really knew who he was until I read about him here on APC. That's a wild card for sure.

Driving to work is great. So I've been told. I've been a commuter my whole career so I wouldn't know. UAL has a decent commuting policy and if there's a UAL base you'd liek maybe a move? IDK. Of all your points, this one is probably the one I would say has the most horsepower. I hate commuting, always have, always will. However, I knew I'd be one and I've just learned to cope with it over the last several decades. Really none of the airlines have a base I would be willing to move to. So there's that. That's why I live where I live and commute. Home is important, however one must remain flexible for a given opportunity.

What's your healthcare like? What about retirement and investment plans? Who has the best options? These are important considerations too.

This industry is volatile. You never know which one is going to be the king and which one is going to be the goat. It's always changing. Since deregulation the industry has wildly consolidated. Which I think has lessened the peaks and valleys of volatility. How long do you have in the industry? How much opportunity costs are you willing to eat? I think most would agree that earning potential is the major driver for most of us, a close second is living in base. But bases close too. Never say never.

My recommendation would be to go to UAL. You have more potential there, especially if you have a long time horizon in this industry. Best of luck to you it's certainly a first world "problem"