Southwest bidding on Frontier?

So, are they going to require the Frontier guys/gals to go get their 737 type before taking them on at SWA? Hmmm...

Yeah, Chicago...it's going to be a while before they hire if this goes through. But look at the other side...at least they are still doing good, and you have a chance. When was the last time American Airlines hired a pilot? How many are still on furlough there???
 
LoadMasterC141 said:
This should be interesting. Soon as Herb steps out SWA breaks the mantra of slow growth.
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They were stepping outta the mantra for a while. They were opening a new city every year up until 2001. Then the next city they open? PHL. Caught every one of us working there by surprise. We were thinking ABE or RIC, and they announce PHL. Pretty much all the cities after that have been big markets, too.

Anyone remember the scope issue on voting down the SWA pilot contract that had to do with merging with another airline that had regional feed? Yeah, Lynx may have come back to bite SWA guys in the ass if this goes through and that had been approved.
 
How did this work out for the ATA pilots, when SWA bought them. The Frontier pilots will be gone and all SWA wants are the slots. They did it to ATA.
 
So how did they get the gates in LGA and SFO? The had a code share for 3 years and then when ATA was on the ropes, let them fall. And bought them for their assets. Very limited staff and pilots went over.
 
True, but in a purchase, you have the majority and the minority and the one putting in the gold makes the rules. And if they don't get what they want, they walk. This is not a zero sum game, one side wins and one side loses. Why would SWA want to intergrate, they can just do what they did with ATA and get the same result.
 
Unless Republic steps up its bid or F9 is able to come up with some big $$ you can count on about 5000 more unemployed folks in the Denver area.

If Southwest ends up buying F9 what is the soonest they could have their 737s taking over the A-concourse? I assume they would sell off the owned Airbus fleet and find other airlines for all the leased ones that they can't park in the desert. There also has to be a great market for a Q400 fleet with the cheapest employees to go with it.

Truly sad way to go out for one of the best places to work in the aviation business.
 
SFLAX said:
True, but in a purchase, you have the majority and the minority and the one putting in the gold makes the rules. And if they don't get what they want, they walk. This is not a zero sum game, one side wins and one side loses. Why would SWA want to intergrate, they can just do what they did with ATA and get the same result.
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I don't think there are any examples of a judge gutting a contract to make a merger go through while one company is in bankruptcy, at least not with an airline.

Care to give me an example?
 
SFLAX said:
So how did they get the gates in LGA and SFO? The had a code share for 3 years and then when ATA was on the ropes, let them fall. And bought them for their assets. Very limited staff and pilots went over.
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When you enter into a codeshare, it's sharing of tickets and reservations. It's not a revenue sharing program. The gates were part of the deal to get SWA to even go in on the codeshare agreement. I doubt Delta would step up and help any of the other Skyteam members if it meant more market share for them. If I were a shareholder, I'd expect nothing less.

Anything SWA "bought" from ATA was after they'd gone under, and if any pilots went over, it wasn't because of the purchase. They were long since furloughed by then. Our CP over here is former ATA.
 
SFLAX said:
So how did they get the gates in LGA and SFO? The had a code share for 3 years and then when ATA was on the ropes, let them fall. And bought them for their assets. Very limited staff and pilots went over.
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Makes sense, when they started up again at SFO, they only had 2 gates, both ex-ATA, perhaps they kept the gates, leased them to US for a while after ATA left SFO, then took them back. They're doing pretty well here. I hear as soon as DEN-MSP started up, the SFO-DEN flights began filling like crazy with connections to MSP. Northwest actually costs about the same and you get a non-stop flight, I guess people just hear the name Southwest and think they're getting the best deal in town.
 
People need to understand that a BK is for the creditors not the people that work there. If the people owned money (secured) want cash at 20% face value, then they get it. A purchase in BK is for the assets, what you do with them is your will. The people are just that people. Not an asset purchased. So if SWA wants to keep them operating the assets then they could, or SWA could buy the assets. This happens all the time, when you buy something you want to cut, b/c you have an HR you have payroll you have pilots, why go through some merger and end up like US Airways. What SWA wants is the slots and gates and routes not the plane or the pilots. Look at Eastern and Delta, United and Pam Am. These are huge examples of routes, gates and slots and no planes or pilots. Look at SWA and ATA. World and Gemini.
 
Well the one thing Southwest did screw up on was they should have bought ATA outright. That way they could have had authorization immediately to start flying international with full 180 ETOPS.

If they do get Frontier, Frontier and the majority of those people will be gone. I am including myself in that.

Less competition means higher fares

F9DXER
 
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