Originally Posted by
FreedomFlier
Trying to get an understanding of the reality of working at Southwest and filtering through some of the recruiting stuff.
1. I have heard that based on the way bidding and vacation work that you can turn 1 week into several weeks off. Is this actually the case and can happen frequently or more of a one off type deal? When the conflicts are removed from your schedule for vacation are you paid for them or do you lose the credit. My current airline does line bidding and when there is a conflict with a trip it just breaks it up into an inefficient trip and don't get paid for what is removed. Therefore you have only 1 week off with a crappy 2 day on either side.
2. My understanding is that there are lines, blank lines, and reserve that are sorted into AM and PM stuff. I understand there is a 2 hour call out for reserve and it sounds like 15/16 days off if 30 or 31 day month. I am not sure what a blank line is however. Is it just an open month you can pick up what you want?
3. What are the average days off and credit for most lines?
4. What are the actual pay rates for TFP? Is the TFP not the pay rates that are listed on APC? For example is year 2 pay something different than 122?
4. I am still slightly confused on the TFP and such and trying to understand what the realistic pay is during normal times. Lets use a year 2 FO that has a pay rate of 122 per APC with an 89 hour credit line. If you are to just fly your line does it end up being 89? I am not sure on how pilots that are just flying their line are crediting 10 hours TFP or more just by flying the line. At my current airline the only way to make more by just flying your line is overlocking which I could never do 10 hours a month more.
5. Also trying to understand what a normal 3 day trip would consist of leg wise. For an ATL FO what kind of flying would one end up doing for that 3 day trip?
6. In general how are the hotels for the overnight? I assume they must be better than my regional. Do you guys have downtown overnights over a certain amount of time at an overnight or is it just a crap shoot?
7. How does non revenue travel work? Is it based on seniority or some other method? Do you get buddy passes or something for a travel companion? I'm assuming you all get the ability to ZED as well on other airlines but I may be wrong.
8. Is the seniority progression substantially slower than the legacies in reality? Based on the APC numbers it still appears Southwest will still have a good deal of retirements for the next 10-15 years.
Sorry for all the questions and the answers may be partially buried in the threads somewhere.
1.Trips drop that touch a vacation week. Credit for a vacay week is 26.25tfp + value of trip dropped.
2. Blank lines are lines constructed after the scraps from the 1st round of line bidding are piled up (vacation drop, training, mil leave, etc). There can be reserve blocks in a blank line, along with other normal line holder rigged trips.
3. Days off are contractual as is min monthly guarantee. 15 duty days is max, with system wide avg being 12.0-13.5 depending on days in that calendar month. Min guarantee is 85/87/89tfp for 28&29/30/31 day months.
4. Think of TFP as a pay unit. Every 243nm is one pay unit(TFP). When the lines are built, they assigned a tfp value based on the 243nm route segment. Those pay rates are "conversions" to block hours, I'm assuming so folks can compare pay rates. 2nd year actual pay rate is 109.56 times 87/88/89 depending on calendar month would be year 2 min guarantee.
4#2: Staffing and seniority play large roles in earning capacity at SWA. Some have credited 2000 tfp plus in a year, most are in the 1100-1200 tfp per year range.
5. Spitball a "normal" 3 day ATL trip would have 10-12 flight segments, 12-14 hour overnights, credit 19.5-22.0 and block 15-17 hours. You'd also likely get some AirTran and ValuJet appreciation lessons from some in that base.
6. Hotels are generally ok. The pilot group relies on a Company staffed section for hotels, union has zero swagger on this issue and it shows.
7. Nonrev and ZED yep. Dad, Mom, Spouse, kids. There's a mechanism to obtain buddy passes.
8. Seniority progression will be slowest in the industry among Big4 and FedEx/Ups. There might be momentary blimps with explosive growth and muffin man blah blah, but at the end of the day it'll be 10+ years in the right seat before having horsepower to hold QOL/earning power/domicile of your choice in left seat.
SWA hiring formula has put good people 99.9% of the time for you to work with on your trip while you hold out for your gate.