Originally Posted by
RJSAviator76
OK, let's go with 3,000 furloughs.
- What are you basing your furlough numbers on? I'd like to see some math, staffing levels, and the rationale for the numbers. Bear in mind, the loudest complaining about overstaffing has come from the line swine - not the company.
- How long will this downturn last? Consider the changes in the past 2 weeks, let alone past 2 months and going forward.
- By furloughing, are you committing to ceding the market share to our competitors who outsource their work and how do you intend to ensure that Southwest is competitive while keeping people furloughed? Do you cede scope in order to let Southwest be able to keep our market share?
- What is the breakeven savings point in time of any potential furlough and what factors are you basing it on?
- What do you think is our training capacity and once recalls become appropriate, how long do you think it would take to run 3000 pilots through the recall process?
I'm not pretending to be an expert at this game. None of us know the ins and outs of what's going on in the heads of the leadership at the GO. Maybe they are simply focused on simply surviving the pandemic and not thinking much about five years from now. On the other hand, maybe they see covid as NBD, but a great opportunity to attain labor concessions and seize market share. I have no idea.
The science behind the covid virus is not well-established. It has only been around for four months. Science has not had a lot of opportunity yet to fully understand it. It has had zero chance to run any long-term studies on the virus.
The economics and politics behind a world-wide shutdown driven by a global pandemic are also not well-established. This has never happened before in the modern global economy.
I said my guess at 3,000 is what "
I think might be a realistic number". I have no certainty about that. "I think", and "might" are key words in that statement. I'm not talking to GK, VDV, or any of the SWAPA leadership. I'm not an airline industry analyst. My guess at 3,000 is based simply on the number I've heard circulated that we were overmanned by about 2,000 pilots going into the covid crisis. That put us at a pilot to aircraft ratio of just over 13. Our traditional pilot to aircraft ratio had been 10.5 until the last several years. We know we can operate just fine at 10.5. Based on that ratio, that would put our need for pilots at about 7,900. If we've currently got 180 aircraft parked (on a rotating basis and currently flying around with single-digit and low two-digit load factors), that works out to be about an additional 2,000 pilots at 10.5 pilots to aircraft (more using today's pilot to aircraft ratio).
So, depending on what happens with opening up the economy, I could see us furloughing anywhere from zero (V-shaped recovery) to 6 or 7,000 (Great Depression level downturn). 3,000 pilots is a WAG that takes into account our current overmanning (2,000) with an additional 1,000 to reflect the reduced number of aircraft as a result of likely continued diminished overall demand. I'm not at all a koolie but I think SWA will try to avoid furloughing the full number they could justify furloughing to the SWA board. Just a feeling. I could very well be wrong.
Maybe the need for pilots will be modulated post-covid if governments require or passengers demand social distancing on aircraft. Just one more wild card that nobody has any idea how it will develop that could effect the decision to furlough or not.
Again, no one knows how this is going to play out, especially not any pilot armchair economists/industry analysts. I could easily be way off. That's a given. I'm a pilot.