Originally Posted by
Skeet20
Until we have to shrink to become profitable. That’s what the airlines always do in bad times, this will be no different.
Funny, every communication from the company directly refutes what you just said. SWA has typically not telegraphed growth in the past due to the upsetting of the status quo that growth causes the airline industry which results in price wars, turf battles, and reduced revenue for a bigger slice of the same pie. This generally upsets the investor community, which swa is absolutely beholden to.
Read the Wall Street journal from Friday. There are two articles, one about how awesome United handled the pandemic by basically just hunkering down, the other on how SWA is operating on a razor's edge, which resulted in an epic meltdown in October. This was a shot across the bow to the C Suite. They don't listen to the pilots union, but they definitely listen to Jim Cramer and the WSJ, both of which have unloaded with both barrels.
Now they are all in on letting everyone know that 2022 is a growth year. They have broadcast hiring, hull numbers increasing, and in general that rapid growth is on the horizon.
Nobody has said a word about shrinking.
I am normally not very optimistic, but I think 2022 is going to be very good for pilots hired 5-10 years ago. We need to get people in the door fast, and that is very good in general. There are issues with labor relations at swa for sure, but if those barriers can be broken, a new contract this year is not out of the question at all.