Originally Posted by
johnso29
So I see more people griping about how we get smoked in earnings by SWA. So let's talk about that.
According to the SWA profile on APC, Southwest has roughly 570 airplanes and 6400 pilots. So they run around 11 pilots(NOT crews) per airplane. DAL has roughly 720 planes and 11,800 pilots. That works out to roughly 16 pilots per airplane.
So, we can already see that the DAL pilot contract creates MORE jobs then the SWA pilot contract. HOWEVER, some people on here complain non stop about poor pay and stagnation. So what do you think will happen if DAL pilots successfully obtain a contract which essentially is identical to the SWA pilot contract? Just sit back and think, because if you think we're experiencing stagnation now you can expect even more for SWA pilot contract.
But on the 88/90, which flies a near identical mission to SWAs 737 fleet, we are running about 4.9-4.8 crews vs SWAs 5.6 crews.
And that's set to go lower if as they said in the crew planning newsletter they reduce staffing further on that jet even with more 90s coming.
But if we went up to SWAs 5.6, we could soon add almost 370 pilots alone just for the 88.