Much more often, though, we step on our own crank. Where is the outcry from all these hard-nosed, won’t-settle-for-mediocrity pilots we supposedly have on board now at SWA demanding that we file for mediation yesterday? Why aren’t you demanding that SWAPA file for mediation?

Look at United. They have all the same leverage that we have right now: the supposed pilot shortage and training center issues. They also went years without filing for mediation. Look at what that got them: a Tumi suitcase, sub-inflationary pay raises, and work rule concessions. Maybe if they had conducted a couple of pickets they would have really shown management they meant business?

Or maybe if they’d filed for mediation 3.5 years ago, they very credibly could have right now been posing the real threat to management of a work interruption or stoppage in the near future. How would that have amped up their leverage? Maybe they would have gotten a lot, lot more than a Tumi TA.

But their pilot group was asleep at the wheel for four years believing their own hype that a possible pilot shortage would be enough. They didn’t demand that their MEC and NC attempt to develop real leverage. And now they are where they are, years behind where they could have been and threatening to lower the bar for the entire profession. We’re currently on a similar path.