Yes we do need drastically improved pay rates, along with drastically improved many other items, like disability insurance, loss of license, retirement plans, work rules, and hotel language. And on and on.


I've said this before: to get us up to year 2000 UA 737 captain inflation-adjusted pay rates requires more than a 50% pay rate increase from where we're at right now. Isn't it interesting that SWAPA limited the maximum pay raise increase that you could tell them you are hoping for in the April poll to 40%? What does that tell you? It tells me that SWAPA is anchoring the pilot group to a maximum 40% pay raise as a starting position to work lower from.


Moreover, to be able to attain even the 40% pay rate raise that SWAPA has set as its maximum ask from the company AND to also achieve the many other improvements that many of us would like to see requires leverage. Everyone is fixated on the pilot shortage issue as our major source of leverage. Is there actually a genuine pilot shortage issue at Southwest Airlines? That is not a settled question. And, for argument's sake, even if there is a true pilot shortage issue at Southwest, it could go away tomorrow if the economy takes a major dump or some other black swan event materializes. Then what is our leverage if and when that occurs?


SWAPA has not even entered into mediation yet two-plus years after the amendable date. I cannot stress enough how important starting the mediation timer is in the process of developing leverage under the RLA. In the eyes of the NMB and in the eyes of the courts, all of this time since the amendable date spent in direct negotiations with the company counts for virtually nothing. To ever have any leverage accrue for us under the RLA, we HAVE TO enter into mediation. Then, we have to spend a significant amount of time in mediation before the NMB would ever consider releasing us from mediation. The actual, real potential for a release from mediation into a cooling-off period and possible self-help is what creates fear in the company's heart of a "book-away" phenomenon developing among our passengers as news reports begin to circulate that Southwest pilots might actually, for real go on strike at some point in the not-too-distant future. Going through mediation is a necessary condition for obtaining that leverage.


Leverage under the RLA is always available to us. It does not depend on the economy or a pilot shortage. But, leverage under the RLA is only available to us if we effectively play the RLA game. Right now, we have ZERO leverage under the RLA. We will continue to until we've spent a significant amount of time in mediation. We could have filed for mediation 12 months, 18 months, 24 months ago. We could have been allowing the clock to run this whole time - and allowing our leverage under the RLA to build. The clock would have started ticking had we filed for mediation. But we haven't yet filed. And the clock hasn't started ticking.