Sounds like a good idea but consider the following:
-AE CAs have been here forever, they are making close to $100k and getting 17-19days off per month. They have wives, children, and a life outside of flying. They are in their mid 40s-mid50s age wise, have a house and have no desire to move or relocate.
-If you were in this position would you want to get hired at SWA, have to move across the country or commute to be on reserve in Oakland (or wherever), take a paycut down to $40k and take out a loan to cover the paycut and moving costs (check that letter, AE will help you get a loan if you want, they wont pay you)?
I dont think many people would want to do this. The majority of AE CAs I have talked to dont have a desire to go anywhere. Many of them already have seniority #s at AA(from the flowthrough) and they still don't want to do that because of the paycut.
ALSO: last time I checked, SWA, FedEx, UPS, CAL, DAL were in no shortage of younger applicants who would be able to offer more to the company in terms of years of service.
In my opinion, this program from AE is not going to accomplish much. They do want to lower the average seniority of our pilots, and the only way I think that can be accomplished is a flowthrough to AA with better than first year payscales when it happens.