One more thing about the culture being top down, didn't want to muddy the response about the 1221 too much.

What things has the company done to show that the "culture" deserves those quotes?

Culture used to be hanging out with a cool crew after a long day: we no longer fly more than a leg or two with a crew, and then never see them again. This is due to a myriad of reasons, partially 117, partially contractual differences between the two unions, but also partially due to the blisteringly smart technology that the company uses to optimize schedules. You can't build a relationship with people you've only spent a leg or two with and will never see again, nor is it worth the risk to do so. Which leads to the second culture-destroying part of this. We have management of one of the two primary flight crew unions actively soliciting write-ups against the other group. This would be bad enough if it was taken in a vacuum, but the fact that there has of yet been ZERO clarification from our department leadership, their department leadership, labor relations (ha!), or executive leadership. It's a standing "kill" order (more on that later). We've also been told that, essentially, we're guilty until proven innocent, and even then, you're probably still guilty. Why on earth would I want to spend one more minute with another work group when I have direct and explicit messaging from leadership that we are a target and they're ok with that?

People before profits: I mean this one is obvious. I've only been here for 2.5 negotiations cycles, but it's clear that management will obfuscate, delay, and outright lie to try as hard as they can to not give us a contract worthy of our contributions and sacrifices. The evidence list for this is long: hiring Benedict Arnolds from within our group to give inside information and negotiate on their behalf behind the guise of playing devil's advocate, hiring Benedict Arnolds from within our group to directly negotiate against us, lying in management updates on the progress of negotiations and their intent, lying about the Max being silent (so as to force us to fly the max without it being in our contract), using 1221 people as pawns either to convince wall street that they're doing something or as pawns to convince the government to give us more cheese, slow-rolling the current contract cycle by refusing to look at a rewrite (of COURSE they're ok with the current language, it has holes you can drive a battleship through), sending out messaging that us getting more money will bankrupt the company (followed by record profits after TA2), stealing around $1m a year from us in incorrect pay audits (that always favor the company), refusing any input or requests from swapa on technology issues blaming cost (even when it would save money in the long run), and of course the handful of status-quo violations that have occurred surrounding pay issues over the last two years under the guise of covid.

Silos: as you've probably noticed, these issues are becoming more and more inter-related. There is definitely a feeling amongst ALL of the employees at southwest that we work for our separate departments. There's all sorts of evidence for this (and these are just a broad look), with flight attendants being told to write up pilots, the fa union sending out an inexplicable (if not unwarranted, for other reasons) VNC about the VP of Flight Ops, Ops agents STILL refusing to understand how to list pilots for the Jumpseat (and even the mentality of resentment that we're flying for free in a location they can't), the public knowledge that ground ops runs the airline, the public declaration from flight ops training scheduling that flight ops has no jurisdiction in telling them what to do (see the Zero minute report to deadhead issue a few years ago under AK), the almost comic siloing in the fact that the GO works from home while front line employees are still... on the front lines, and of course employee relations and legal pressing for a "clean kill" on a pilot termination.

Lying: there's a long saying at swa that the only way you can get fired here is for lying or stealing (I suppose the laughable ratio of incorrect audits could be considered theft). Ultimately I think the biggest detriment to the culture at swa has been the mantra of recent (and not so recent) management teams of "do as we say not as we do". The amount of lies and deliberately misleading statements issued by self serving members of management has been truly disheartening. The max is silent, you have my word he won't be fired, we gave the negotiating team our language ahead of time, schedule meltdowns are caused by pilots calling in sick, I'm taking a 10%/100% pay cut, it's impossible to do meals for international flying, there's no force majeure language, we worked with swapa to come to x agreement, we're going to go bankrupt if we do that, that's how vnav is supposed to work on a 73, we're keeping the 717s, we'll make you whole on your next contract if you agree to flying the 800s, pretty much every single one of CDs negotiations updates, the PHL deicing guy was definitely not the target of a concerted effort by management to fire him, the list goes on and on. Yet there are never any consequences for these statements from management. If I lie to my leadership, I would be, rightfully, disciplined with the possibility of termination. Yet the only thing that happens to our leadership is bigger bonuses, promotions, or, at the worst (and in only one case) returning to the line in their $400k position.

By and large, I can objectively understand the reasoning behind many of these shifts in culture in management. We live in different times than Herb's airline did, both externally from a culture standpoint, and due to the sheer size of the operation. We can't run an airline with over 60k employees on handshake deals and a mom and pop shop culture. From a liability and financial standpoint, it's just not feasible or smart. But the unfortunate side effects of this probably necessary shift have come at the erosion of our once heralded culture.

Due to all of this, more and more people are resigning to what we can see and trust, which in the world of organized labor is an iron-clad contract, where everything from pay rates to disability protections to parking allowance are codified in plain language, not some feel-good assurance from the company that they luv us.