Originally Posted by
flensr
"Brand Yellow" used to highlight "juniority" as a CASM tailwind in their investor update slideshow. That means they knew they had a significant churn with FOs quitting at the 3-4 year point and even junior captains quitting around the 6 yr point, which led to a significant percentage of their pilot group being clustered around the lower end of the payscale. It looks an awful lot like SWA is posturing to take advantage of the same demographic shift. With 5-6 year FOs seeing earlier upgrade opportunities by jumping ship, we could be only one or two quarters away from SWA highlighting their "juniority" advantage with respect to controlling costs.
I had another point I was going to discuss but Capt Morgan stole it and buried it on a deserted island. Maybe I'll find the treasure map later on...
100% agree. It appears there's a good chance that's what management is going for.
I posted about this very thing fairly recently on another thread. Here's what I said: "
I personally think SWA management may even prefer that we’re not a destination airline. As long as jets aren’t falling out of the sky, by morphing into a stepping stone airline, the average longevity step pay rate is kept to a minimum. Cost savings for the company.
Also, younger pilots who want to move on often prefer to be and can better handle being worked like rented mules so that they can more quickly build hours to move on to a place that can provide them with the goodies that go along with industry-leading contracts. Another cost savings for the company."
"Juniority" is a great term to describe the effect management seems to be aiming for. I don't think they GAF about the prestige of SWA among pilots. As long as a candidate can fog a mirror and meet FAA min's, they're good. In fact, in management's eyes, they're better, given their propensity for "desperation hiring."
If we want to turn this around and not become the Mesa of the "major" airline world, we pilots absolutely have to demand the very best airline pilot contract in the world - not the best narrow body or 737 pilot contract - the best airline pilot contract in the world, period. That means not ratifying any deal from management before Day 60 of a Presidential Emergency Board at the earliest. And to be honest, I think it might actually require going past that given the contempt we are experiencing from the GO.