Originally Posted by
Seaslap8
SWAPA is certainly the flavor of the moment, but really I'm not sure why. They were perennially under paid which made their management's model that much more effective...they followed ALPA up the ladder by virtue of the DALPA CK2000 dot, and have been able to stay there due to continued profits (at least until recently)...they may very well indeed prove to be the "be all and end all" of unions, but judging by the way they stepped on the heads of the Airtran pilots to eat their young to keep things rolling...I'm not overly optimistic.
Exactly. We're only talking about them because of the decimation of our pay through bankruptcy, due in large part to them running naked through the industry with their fuel hedges and low costs. They get credit for holding the line on scope with regard to code share, for the most part, but their business model has never lent itself to outsourced smaller jets feeding their jets. So really not much of a homerun for them there IMO. Their pay rates have been historically low and they pride themselves on never choking the golden goose, but rather ensuring a heathly company. Much different than ALPA pattern bargaining of the past.