Originally Posted by
sailingfun
Are you talking Southwest hourly rates or Southwest block hour costs? The company will attempt to use block hour costs with the NMB. If however we also go for Southwest block hours costs we will not get to the NMB. The company will sign the contract right away since it will not involve a large cost increase.
Be careful what you wish for since you might just get it. Lots of great things reported here about SW but when you go before the NMB they are going to have actual hard numbers of company reports not forum legend.
Southwest total block hour costs were 698 verses 690 at Delta. Delta's costs are skewed by 3 and 4 man operations but even when adjusted your looking at 650 for two man ops. In straight compensation Southwest averaged 166,000 per pilot. Delta Average 142,000 per pilot.
I don't know about you but my goals are quite a bit higher then that.
Airline Data Project
All we are concerned with WRT SWA are their per pilot W-2's and average days off for small narrowbody flying and up from there, plus reasonable premiums to account for our higher per pilot revenue. To any extent that their block hour costs are lower, that is a function of management not us. We are cheap and already very productive. Any remaining gaps in productivity come from our 9ish different fleet types, which is a management choice. We shouldn't have to pay for that choice come contract time, especially since it helps net the company the significant per pilot revenue premiums in the first place (although we could benefit with at least a little more fleet simplification...especially the many different types of costly and logistically non-integrated outsourcing).
As for the block hour cost differential, we can apply not only that adjusted 50 metric, but again, reasonable premiums above and beyond that to account for our per pilot revenue...
...and then there's scope. How much bargaining credits would our management give to SWA if they were running things over there to get 50% domestic block hour outsourcing, a massive domestic 737 code share at a growing airline while we stagnate beacause of it and significant company friendly JV relief?
SWA or SWA plus includes 100% scope recapture. Any outsourcing that is left come contract time, even if its only 100 fifty seat RJ's and some JV seat kilometer splitting, is an additional premium over and above SWA by definition.
My goals are higher than SWA as well, but SWA parity plus reasonabe premums including scope will help us get there with the NMB involved far better than righteous cries for concepts of restoration, Caddilacs with a month's pay or hard nosed saber rattling openers like AA.