Another thing to remember...


In the great tradition of airline managements all along in the sordid, seedy history of airline managements, GK is playing right along with the FordHarrison playbook. Y'know, like getting labor groups to agree to concessions of some sort or another with an implied or even stated promise to not furlough or to not ask for more concessions and then, once they've gotten what they wanted, asking for or demanding even more concessions or just going ahead and furloughing?


Like, remember the pleas for everyone to take VSP and ExTO? And then, remember the "gratitude" expressed to those who jumped on those programs? Those programs closed out on July 15. And then, just a short two-and-a-half months later, GK needs more. He needs a 10% pay cut and he needs it NOW! Oh, and he needs a force majeure clause too, because, why not?


Turns out, the VSP and ExTO wasn't enough. And this new ask WILL end up being enough? As if we won't get into the new year, if we're dumb enough to agree to this "urgent" demand or some rejiggered form of it, and GK won't turn around and ask for another round of "shared sacrifice"?


Y'all, most of us have already taken a 10%+ pay cut. Most of us already have to work harder for the same pay because of the massive over-hiring drive since early 2017. Turns out hiring 2,000 more pilots than we need wasn't the best call. And now they want us to pay for their error.


Btw, the only perspective from which it makes sense for them to have hired so many extra pilots was a strategic decision to "prep the battlefield" for the 2020 contract fight. The decision to hire way too many pilots was likely made in the immediate aftermath of the ratification of the 2016 CBA. To wit, we started seeing an uptick in the pilot to aircraft ratio in early 2017. SWA does not waste money on purpose. They realize it costs more money over the long term to hire more people than to pay premium to X number of pilots.


That means there was a reason they decided to eat that cost. SWA has not been as consistently profitable as they have been by making decisions like hiring that many extra pilots out of spite or out of a belief that there was going to be a pilot shortage. There never was a pilot shortage at the major airline level and SWA is smart enough to realize that the US was due for a recession or an economic contraction in the not-too-distant future because the US, by the time they started hiring extra pilots, was in the midst of what turned out to be the longest economic expansion in history. It was inevitable, statistically and by the law of economic cycles, that the expansion would run its course during the 2020 CBA negotiation cycle.


The only reason that makes sense for them to hire that many pilots is the only reason that would save the company money in the long-term by hiring extra pilots. That reason is to prime the pilot group to approve a CBA containing some form of PBS. PBS would save the company loads of money from the time of ratification of a CBA containing PBS and into infinity future by eliminating most of the inefficiencies of overlap corrections. But how could the company get this pilot group, historically deathly opposed to PBS, to possibly vote in PBS?


Well, the main advantage of our current system is the open time system and the potential for drastically increased pay checks that it generates. A lot of open time is created as a result of overlap corrections. Our pilots have been addicted to the premium pay that open time creates. If, by hiring so many extra pilots, that almost no premium paying trips are available anymore, it eliminates the main advantage of our current line bidding system. Then, PBS starts to look appealing.


My belief is the company over-hired in the short term (their idea was a few years) in order to prime the pilot group to be open to buying the company's arguments for implementing PBS that would have been made right about now if the virus hadn't come along. Getting PBS on property at SWA, over the long run, would have saved a tremendous amount of money. Once they had achieved PBS, they could have then allowed the pilot to aircraft ratio to dwindle back down to its historical average.


That, I'm convinced was the strategy. But they didn't plan on covid. Now, they've got way more pilot than they need and contract 2020 negotiations are on the back burner indefinitely. They rolled the dice on their strategy. Turns out it wasn't the greatest idea.


I'm not willing to accommodate them for losing their own bet that was aimed at trying to screw the pilot group all along.