Originally Posted by e6bpilot

I don't think our illustrious COB is looking to do anything evil, he is just looking out for number one and the legacy that he built after the founder left. Had he bailed in 2019, he would have been hailed a hero and we probably would have had Tom Nealon as our CEO. Instead, that succession plan fell apart and he slashed and burned during Covid, delaying our recovery, then Boeing happened, the meltdown happened, and we all know the rest. Gary Kelly did some remarkable things in terms of growing the company, but he left a legacy of paying investors when we should have been getting the plumbing and electrical upgraded resulting in the biggest meltdown in the industry's history. Now he wants to get his and leave as much of his team that he has in place intact. I don't blame him, I am not mad at him, he just kind of sucks and I don't trust him to do anything more. It isn't personal. Good luck to him and his exotic car collection. Go enjoy the grandkids while there is still time. Adios. Time to leave...like why are you still here?

Smart people have peeked under the hood and seen what SWA has going on. It isn't pretty. We got here by thinking we were smarter than everyone else when really we were mostly just lucky. I would agree with your assessment about the corporate raiders and free cash except they just announced stock buybacks which will require a boatload of free cash that they currently don't have. So instead of generating the free cash first and then being like "man, we are out of stuff to spend money on, let's buy our own stock", they are saying "let's sell some airplanes and leverage our order book to generate free cash to buy back stock". That isn't the way it's supposed to work. It's a clear signal to institutional investors that we are willing to buy our way out of this problem.

The funny thing about this whole situation is that neither Elliott nor the company has the final say in what happens. It's just the way the financial markets work right now. Both are sending up big signals to try and get other people to change their minds. That's it. Its a multi billion dollar game where someone behind the curtain picks the winner which definitely won't be any of us.