Southwest's non pilot employee pay is a problem that cannot be overcome without Chapter 11 and SWA is years away from that. The big 3 with their new very low non pilot employee can compete and crush SWA and Spirit will grow year after year
Why is it such a big deal that rampers, op agents and gate agents make good money? Management does this all the time with pilot pay. Now pilots crap on the workers that help turn the airplane. Don't understand. Besides it's a fallacy. Most of the SWA workers get a lot of overtime. A lot!! It is ALWAYS cheaper to pay overtime then hiring another employee. SWA has done about billion in net profit since 2012. Doesn't sound like anybody needs to take a pay cut. Nobody should be taking a pay cut, especially the fact they pay dividends and buying back shares. They can afford this because they do more with less. Plain and simple. Look at the numbers(2012 is the latest for a full yr). Big three and SWA. Three metrics. Employees per aircraft, revenue per employee and average salary(includes pensions and benefits). Excludes pilots, FA's and MX.
UAL AMR DAL SWA
Employees/AC 60 36 37 29
Revenue per employee 611 867 922 3608
salary 50370 69000 63000 70000
SWA pays more per employee but has less per A/C then anybody. Even if you factor in that all the other legacies have wide bodies, look how much more revenue SWA employees generate per employee. Not even close. Gary Kelly can spin it all he wants. It's not a employee/pay problem. It's a management problem.