Agreed.

I would bet oil will go down by fall. I cannot buy gold even though everyone is telling me to.

If the dollar collapses it will not matter either way. :eek:

As for our hedges, we are hedged at about 85 per bbl for 25% of our fuel consumption. I was looking though the call notes for the exact data but cannot find it on the flash drive I have with me. Must be on the one at home.

I'm on reserve. I commute so I'm away from home 18 days/month. This keeps me from greenslipping or whiteslipping. I rarely break guarantee due to our wonderful raw score system. 70 hours * $93/hour * 12 months is approximately $78,000 for the year. My wife had a C-section that I had to take unpaid family leave for (3 weeks). My gross pay minus per diem was about $75,000 last year. I have a buddy that started at Southwest about the same time as me. He made just over $120k last year.

He is also a line holder is LAS too correct?

That sucks about the unpaid leave with your wife, I hope she is doing well. We're going to start trying for our first probably later this year.

You need to learn how to work the reserve system better.. it's not that hard (I used to commute as well). I only got one greenslip last year... that's it. You cannot whiteslip as a reserve, only yellow. Smart yellow slipping can make the difference between poking at guarantee and blowing right through 80+ hours (just ask ACL).

That's neat about your buddy at WN... sucks for him having to spend a career on the cramped noise machine. ;)

http://www.blindfiveyearold.com/wp-c...ubble-pops.jpg

I completely agree with you Nu, the problem imo is it still costs us lots of money in the interim.

I think the national average price of gas will be too much for the economy to bare and you'll see the price drop. But this is early March and we're coming off the highest oil price during the month of February since 1990.

And we've still got hurricane season, OPEC meddling season, vacation demand season, dollar declining season, oil refinery explosion in Houston season and whatever else that allows speculating to become far more profitable than any other investment instrument.

Right now it's climbed to $106.31 this morning. That's $2 since it opened.

Speculation sucks, write your congressmen.

You know Buzz as a bike rider I was thinking about Charlie. Over the years I have always rooted for Lance Armstrong, although I have always been a little suspicious of his phenomenal success. I just realized something, the Tour drug testing program did not institute testing for Charlie Sheen until 2009 - After Lance retired. Do you think, is it possible, could Lance have been doping on Charlie Sheen all these years? :)

Scoop

Yes - its called the law of averages. Sooner or later we were bound to be on the right side of the fuel hedge issue, and it has definitely been later. :)

Scoop

What are some of the tricks to yellow slipping for a reserve guy?

SWA has a application window opening. It will help if your buddy puts a recommendation in for you.
Commuting on reserve as you have found out is pure folly. It never happened before we ended up with the best reserve system on the planet. That went away in the 1113 contract. It was simply unheard of when I was a new. If you decide not to go with SWA since you now have a young child the very best advice I can give you is to pick one of the major bases and move to that area. Your life will be a improvement beyond anything you can imagine that involves a commute.
I have one of the easiest commutes around. Short flight, same time zone, 35 plus flights a day on 5 different airlines and no kids at home. Its still sucks! I would not even consider my commute with children at home under this contract.