SWA Pilots have a TA!

CRJDriver

CRJDriver

Well-Known Member
Straight from the company website...


Fellow pilots,

Last night SWAPA agreed in principle on a new five year contract with the Company through August 31, 2011. This new contract includes the following: stronger scope language as well as codeshare restrictions not previously released including no domestic codeshare, increase in pay rates including retroactive pay, increase in 401K match, improved disability program and streamlined/improved scheduling and work rule language. Additionally we have retained the Lance Captain program and ELITT albeit with changes to current language. Our Negotiating Committee (NC) is continuing to negotiate final language and when that work is completed will present a Tentative Agreement to the BoD for approval. If the BoD approves the new contract it will be sent to the membership for final ratification. I anticipate a BoD meeting in late February or early March to review the TA. Please review my January 15, 2009 Reporting Point Article for a timeline for the ratification process.


I realize every one of you is anxious to know the details of our new contract. However, our NC has much work to do in the next few weeks finalizing language. Once the BoD approves the TA, an in depth executive summary will be released and placed in your Company mailbox along with complete contract language on the SWAPA website. Additional education and communication efforts will also be underway and will be highlighted for the membership. Please refer to the SWAPA website for the most up to date information.


In closing, I want to thank our NC for their hard work through this arduous process. Their dedication to our pilot group has been outstanding. While this process has been unusually long, it has been productive for our pilot group. Your patience and support through this process is to be commended and will be required for a little longer while we conclude the process. Once again, please refer to the SWAPA website for the most current information.
 
Improved pay and work rules?

Wow.

Nice work. Here's to the other heavy users of the 737 airframe meeting or exceeding the rates in SWA's contract.
 
surreal1221 said:
Improved pay and work rules?

Wow.

Nice work. Here's to the other heavy users of the 737 airframe meeting or exceeding the rates in SWA's contract.
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Really 'boss'? Who's going to exceed them in their next contract? Please show me. Who's going to even meet them? I guess we don't know what their rates are going to be, but please enlighten us as to who you "think" is going to surpass them.
 
What?

Why so much hostility? Not really even sure what the heck you're asking me to provide.

You know just as well as I do who the other pax 737 operators in this country are, this isn't super secret ####. Or maybe you don't, I don't know.
 
PCL_128 said:
The one I work for is projecting record profits this year.
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Let's see "projected profits" for an airline is about as useful as altitude above you and fuel in the tanker.

On a side note over the last 10 years Airtran has lost 140 million net, that's 14 million a year in losses per year for the past decade. As far as airlines go that's pretty respectable, maybe it's because of their lower labor rates, who knows.

SWA on the other hand has made ~$4.4 billion over that same time period. That's $440 million per year every year for the past decade.
 
Gee, a game of "my balance sheet is better than yours." Everyone here knows I'm a huge SWA cheerleader, but would it really be so bad (or even a bad GOAL) to have that other 737 operators at least TRY to match their pay and work rules? If you say "Well, they're not making money, so why bother" we might as well all say "Well, I guess $18K a year isn't TOO bad for a regional FO."
 
kellwolf said:
Gee, a game of "my balance sheet is better than yours." Everyone here knows I'm a huge SWA cheerleader, but would it really be so bad (or even a bad GOAL) to have that other 737 operators at least TRY to match their pay and work rules? If you say "Well, they're not making money, so why bother" we might as well all say "Well, I guess $18K a year isn't TOO bad for a regional FO."
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It appears it would be so bad.

:rolleyes:
 
How are they gonna match them if they can't? It's one thing if the other 737 operators were also making money and the pilots were keeping the bar low, but this may not be the case next TA around for those guys.

It's a victory for the SWA pilot group (and SWA IMO). Let's be happy for them and hope that everybody else has the same opportunities down the road.
 
falconvalley said:
It's a victory for the SWA pilot group (and SWA IMO). Let's be happy for them and hope that everybody else has the same opportunities down the road.
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Until we see what is in Section 1 (i.e. scope), there is no victory!!! Great pay with no scope protection is a cancer that kills jobs. Just ask all the majors in the late 90s when they allowed the RJs in exchange for industry leading pay. We know how that worked out...
 
Well I'm no expert and being that I haven't personally seen it, I wouldn't know. It sounds like the SW pilots got some positive results so far and hopefully as the contract actually goes to work, it will have a positive impact.
 
falconvalley said:
How are they gonna match them if they can't? It's one thing if the other 737 operators were also making money and the pilots were keeping the bar low, but this may not be the case next TA around for those guys.
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Exactly, without profits pilots really have no leverage. If the majors were consistently each making $1 billion a year pay and benefits wouldn't be what they are now and you can bet there wouldn't be nearly as many RJ's as there are now.

In reality we work in a broke industry, either it gets fixed or we will continue to lose pay, benefits, and QOL.
 
little_cricket said:
Until we see what is in Section 1 (i.e. scope), there is no victory!!! Great pay with no scope protection is a cancer that kills jobs. Just ask all the majors in the late 90s when they allowed the RJs in exchange for industry leading pay. We know how that worked out...
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Bingo! You can get $500/hr, but it doesn't mean jack s--- if your job is outsourced to the Mexicans and Canadians. I'm not hearing good things about the scope language in this TA. Actually, it isn't even language, since they apparently only have an "agreement in principal" with only concepts agreed to. The language isn't even written yet, and probably won't be done for another few weeks.
 
No domestic codeshares from what I read in the article. Any domestic flying has to be done by SWA seniority list pilots.
 
kellwolf said:
No domestic codeshares from what I read in the article. Any domestic flying has to be done by SWA seniority list pilots.
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That's not much protection. In my opinion, most of SWA's growth from here on out will be in the international arena. Allowing that flying to go is a huge mistake. Has no one learned the lessons about scope over the past three decades? :banghead:
 
PCL_128 said:
That's not much protection. In my opinion, most of SWA's growth from here on out will be in the international arena. Allowing that flying to go is a huge mistake. Has no one learned the lessons about scope over the past three decades? :banghead:
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I'm just going off what was in an article in a local GSP paper. Don't have the language in front of me since it was "forthcoming." It's better protection than they had before, though, which was nada. They coulda said "Well, we're gonna make SNA-LAS a Skywest route" and there wasn't jack the SWA pilots could really do about it.
 
kellwolf said:
I'm just going off what was in an article in a local GSP paper. Don't have the language in front of me since it was "forthcoming." It's better protection than they had before, though, which was nada. They coulda said "Well, we're gonna make SNA-LAS a Skywest route" and there wasn't jack the SWA pilots could really do about it.
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That's the exact opposite of how I understand their contract.
 
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