They get less than us for their DC funding, that's true. Don't their reserves get 14/15 days a month off with a 78 or 79 hour (adjusted for trip) guarantee? If true, that's 30 days a year off more than our reserves get with around 100 extra hours of pay, at significantly higher rates. What do their work rules contain that would outweigh that and make it a net negative?

And remember, it just isn't SWA, its SWA plus reasonable premiums to account for our significantly higher per pilot revenue, plus significant additional premiums for all outsourcing remaining after we significantly reduce it across the board. There are no scope sales, only scope loans. The 9-11 bankruptcy emergency survival contracts imposed under extreme duress across this industry are not some ivy league chortling, brandy sniffing, St Andrews golfing, new world order of the airline industry where we can only achieve small gains here by "paying for it" somewhere else. We can get SWA + reasonable premiums to pay, work rules, retirement and scope, not just pay. That's the point.

As for the "occupants", like any populist uprising, they hit on some veins of truth here and there. But their reasoning and approach and goals are pretty scary. Their "demands" read a lot like the 10 planks of the Communist Manifesto. Perhaps the portion of that movement that is hitting on something legitimate can be successfully co-opted by some of the pro freedom and Constitution movements out there. Everything else gets co-opted, so why not this too?