Originally Posted by
cadetdrivr
FWIW, I never worked at SWA but I did spend a stint at DAL.
IMHO, it's not the people, it's the leadership (or lack thereof.)
DAL is kicking a$$ in 2015 with the same employees they had when they were "meh" (financially and operationally). Ditto for CAL in the 90's until Bethune showed up.
UCH has the best route structure and a decent fleet plan but has been missing the element that gets line employees motived to excel.
I recently did an 8 leg international trip on Delta (military travel, didn't get to pick my booking) so I got a pretty good glimpse of both the domestic and international product Delta offers and I have to say it wasn't a whole lot different than ours. In some places it was a little better, in some places it was a little worse but over all if you painted the planes the same colors and the crew wore the same uniforms, you'd be hard pressed to find a difference. They fact that they are crushing us in financial performance leads me to only one conclusion, and that's what you posted above in bold.
We have the route structure, resources and people to be number one....