All your points are good points, but some perspective is in order. Southwest was pretty much the top job in the mid 2000s due to BK contracts and no hiring anywhere else good. Right now Southwest still one of the best jobs, just not everyone's first choice anymore. Southwest is still right up there in desirability with the legacies and Fedex/UPS. I know a number of people who have been applying for years and would still jump at a chance to get hired here. The last in house job fair was sold out in a few minutes. So the demand to get hired at SWA still exists.

Management has realized that they weren't the only game in town and have done some things to address an area which was a problem, attrition in a pilot's first year. Their measures have probably helped, but the biggest thing reducing first year attrition is likely our 2016 contract.

I think the area where the next issues will be found will be the ETOPS bid groups for FOs. New hires aren't locked into ETOPS training if they choose that as their last choice. It's likely that the bottom of the ETOPS bid groups will be a constant churn of new hires making it difficult for the company to keep up with the training. I don't see the company making the ETOPS flying more attractive, so hopefully the solution will be something like new hires that take an ETOPS lock get a bonus or second year pay for their efforts.

2019 will likely be a very interesting year, I think we will know by summer if the company intends this staffing level to be the "new normal" or if this is just part of the normal ups and downs of finding the right staffing levels. The January vacancy already looks promising with many more CA vaccines than FO.