Boogie Nights

Doesn't it bother you SWA guys that Southwest can do so many things well, but is technologically backward, with IT, scheduling ETC. No code share, no international, no ETOPS yet. Was Mr Kelly just ignorant as to how out of date the scheduling system is, or just a little over confidence that his folks could make the current system work?

Not intending to offend just curious

Thanks

JDFlyer

No offense taken. It is a good question. SWA is little behind the technology curve, you are right. However, as a corporate philosophy SWA is generally not an early adopter and consequently doesn't spend/waste vast amounts of money either on early stage technology.

But I know it ****es every legacy pilot off to no end when we take a quick intersection departure ahead of everybody else. They call us "dangerous", they call us "reckless", they think we bribed the entire FAA with unlimited amounts of pepperoni pizza.

My a$$, but what we did do with our one tablet computer in the flight deck is completed all our performance calculations before we even pushed from the gate, that way we don't regularly have to decline take off clearances while we wait for our "numbers" from some gatekeeper computer hundreds or thousands of miles away.

So lets take each item one at a time.

IT - you are right, our web login portal was designed around logging in with a first generation IBM mainframe running the first generation of Windows. It could use sprucing up, BUT it still works on my iPad and Macbook Air. So what do I really care.

Scheduling - As one of the most junior line holding pilots in the company, I get 17 days off per month, usually credit 100 hours, and I don't get the shaft from PBS that most pilots get. We bid good ol' hard lines. We are practically horse and buggy on this one.

No Code Share - You are right, we do our own flying. With the very, small exception of a few Volaris flights, if it is a SWA flight, it is flown by a SWA pilot. Very simple scope. Call us old fashioned.

No ETOPS - Why would we have the expense and regulatory hassle of ETOPS if we don't fly over large bodies of water?

No International - Looks like things will be changing soon enough. Near international is in the short-term future, far-international who knows when. SWA historically, has made a ton of money domestically, so there was not a need, historically, to grow too quickly to include international. But as I said, times are changing.