Originally Posted by
saab2000
I would certainly hope that furloughs would be a desperate measure of last resort and that other alternatives like early retirements, reduced guarantee (with a snapback date and retroactivity), etc. would be explored first.
My guess is that early retirements are much more valuable at other airlines since it reduces displacements between fleet types--especially when the retirements are mainly from fleets that won't fly again soon in any case. Alas, at SWA, there's little cost to downgrading a bunch of captains and furloughing FOs--maybe two months of furlough pay and 15 trips of right seat pay for the downgrade. The SWA CEO is an accountant first and foremost---who realizes quickly that there's not much money saved by offering early retirements.