Oh, I agree with this, but the problem is, what to do when the Astoria won't take our business but Motel 6 will? All I'm saying is that it's not a conspiracy to find the crappiest places, but that sometimes it's only the crappiest places that will take us.

One night LAX ran out of rooms and the ops agent could find only one place for us -- the Queen Mary in Long Beach. My ex-Navy F/O grumbled: "I swore that I would never spend another night on a boat!" Aside from the lengthy cab ride, it turned out to be a good deal.

Alaska strikes back, sorta:


Alaska Airlines will begin daily nonstop service between Salt Lake City and Portland, Ore., Los Angeles, San Diego and San Jose, Calif., starting June 9, and will add a third nonstop flight to its existing service between Salt Lake City and Seattle. Sale fares on the new flights will be available for booking Tuesday, Dec. 10.

Agree to disagree, I suppose, but one of the branches of the family I married in to owns around 20 franchised hotels up and down the East Coast, and airline contracts (and trucking company contracts and railroad contacts) are liquid gold as far as they are concerned. And no, they're not Motel 6's or Novotels. I'm sure your GM buddy/cousin has lots of good stories about the airline crew doing whatever, but at the end of the day it's all about revenue. X number of rooms guaranteed for $Y day in and day out is Christmas come early every morning the night auditor closes out.

We may be a headache for the GM, but (with some notable exceptions), hotels crave our business.

If your re-routed into a day off and on reserve, do you get any time above guarantee or no extra pay? I know one would get a payback day but not sure about pay.

Thanks.

No rumor, SWA pilots and FA's scout, evaluate and negotiate all hotel deals. It has always been that way at Southwest. Of course there are financial constraints set down by the company, but the Crew Accommodation Committee is truly the ones out there making the deals. According to a committee member I flew with recently the "special deals" are simply a part of the bargaining process. Most hotels still offer 1-2-3 cocktails and food discounts normally range from a bare minimum of 25% up to a more normal 30 to 40% but do reach 50% at many properties. The crew component of hotel decisions is codified in our CBA.


The Crew Accommodations Committee is a committee composed of SWA Pilots and Flight Attendants.

Committee Charter: The Crew Accommodations Committee is charged with the responsibility of screening Crew Member hotels and negotiating said contracts for Southwest Airlines. The goal is to place our Crew Members in the highest quality accommodations for the most affordable cost to the Company.

The Committee Chair and Members share in a management function that represents the interests of both the Company and its crewmembers in the hotel contract screening and negotiation process. The Committee Chair and Members have a direct role in substantial corporate expenditures for crewmember accommodations.

Who knew?

This might be the answer to concerns about excessive sick leave. I mean, pilots might need something with a screen larger than the Surface 2 and the ability to side load a flash player.

DailyTech - Experts: Masturbation Prevents Cancer, Diabetes, Insomnia, and Depression

Of course, then there's the problem of getting a "Live Jasmin" pop up while trying to brief the arrival. ....

I think that's the only thing we're unhappy about....the transportation. I applaud the hour and hotel change. But, forcing us to take public transportation TO the hotel while allowing for the hotel vans to take us BACK to the airport? That makes no sense.

Not true...at least in that we're flying LAX-SEA on our 73s now, for the first time in forever. I've done several of those legs recently for the first time since they opened the LAX 73 base. We're upping the ante, and I'm loving it.

We don't have the airframes.