ftrplt18e

BTW, I don't know who you work for, nor do I care. I'm merely stating the fact that there is always negative info about EVERY airline.

Scoop

Its easy - Why do people hate the NY Yankees? Beacuse the Yankees and SW are on top. Remember, pilots felt the same about Pan Am, TWA, UAL etc, etc - enjoy the envy while you can.

Scoop

youngairliner

Our maintenance is embarrassing. Our Lavs on -300's are held together by duct tape, we defer stuff all the time that might be legal but less than desirable, and are our fuel tankering program is a joke. A dude sitting in a room with no windows in Dallas tells us to land in SNA with an extra 5k in gas because a chart says we will have 1000' of stopping margin at flaps 40 with Max Braking and we do it. Good thing we are turning on the automation in the 300's . . . ooppss.

ewrbasedpilot

Maybe, maybe not........ but what irritates many of the legacy pilots is SWA's continuous need to move into other airline's "territories", and lower the fares so much as to put people out of business AND jobs. Our overhead is much higher than SWA's, and our operating costs are too, but undercutting to the point where NO ONE is making money is just a bit on the ridiculous side. Everyone wants to compare SWA to the rest of the industry, but flying B737's on 1.5 hour hops all day long has NOTHING in common to flying a B777 on a 15 hour flight across the pond. Yet, that is what we're "compared" to. Doesn't seem quite right to me. How have they raised this industry up? They don't offer meals, inflight entertainment, international flights, baggage checking, etc. (And NO, I don't hate SWA.......have a lot of good friends working there, so don't go there.)

Lambourne

This comes on the heels of SWA receiving the second largest fine in history for maintenance issues, having an airplane pop a hole in the fuselage inflight and the FAA saying SWA lacked proper oversight. If you don't feel these are "continuing" issues then we can agree to disagree. Seems to be a enough of a pattern for the FAA to require more frequent audits of SWA mtc and a requirement for SWA to increase manpower due to their lack of oversight previously.

L

1Bigrodeo

EWRBased,

If you really believe SWA does 1.5 hops all day, you are as disillusioned as the people you worry compare you to them. (if it means anything at all what they think about your "length", go ask them when you taxi for 2 hours and strand them in EWR when there is a cloud over Teterboro. Been there, got the t-shirt)

If you took this job for professional image, glamour, or any other external factor, good luck finding peace in your life. Personally, I'm sick of flying with guys who try to make a mission out of this job. STFUAF. I love to fly, can't affect anything but how I do that and treat my passengers. Im pretty happy that I chose a company that has a good variety of flying, and encourages me to get out there and help my customers at every opportunity. Maybe not everyones thing, not my care though. Whatever floats your boat.

PS, sitting 15 hours doing nothing is hell to some people too. If I'm going somewhere that takes more than 5 hours, I am doing it from first class with a cocktail in my hand. One man's garbage, another man's treasure.......

No one survives scrutiny in this world. Go do a twitter search to hear what people have to say about your company today, then tell me who's glass hotel is darker when the sun comes up.

My only wish is that my fellow aviators would realize the nature of free markets, and then further apply their "masters of logic" hat to the "pilots don't make marketing decisions" issue and get the heck over the whole your group wronged ours mentality. It is our human nature to form tribes. We haven't evolved from it yet. If we realized that our corporate tribes have the common interest against poor management, we might be on to something great for the "career pilot". (No, I don't think ALPA is the solution, its deeper than that)

The real enemy to the professional pilot is the puke that runs the joint. If there was a pilot around smart enough to get hired as CEO of an airline (G. Behtune) then maybe things would be different(were for a large part with him there, but he wasn't an airline pilot). Till then, we are pawns in the same sick game, and vitriol like this thread does nothing but generate cortisol. Lemme know how that works out for ya.

Back to the thread,
Some pencil pushing dork who works for one of the maintenance contractors bought parts to save a buck, or without reading the label, so that must mean that SWA, and SWA pilots are somehow doomed to failure, unsafe, and bred from Pakistani mountain goats..... did I miss anything?

FlyingViking

Just did a little comparison randomly. Flight a week from now, New York to LA, SWA: $249,- Delta: $ 134,-.

Point is, people got to Walmart regardless of price, as long as they think they got a good deal. Sad but true.

Lambourne

You hit the nail on the head. That is one of the reasons SWA doesn't sell tickets on travelocity or expedia. They don't want to see their fares compared side by side to the other carriers. The problem is the other carriers need to have comparable increases so as the recoup that gap in the ticket price.

You might want to be careful about calling SWA- Walmart, some sensitive people here might be offended I saw a clip on TV just a couple of days ago about the "Dollar General Store" and its recent IPO. They interviewed a shopper of DGS and her comment was, "I like the Dollar General Store, you don't have to get dressed up to go there like you do Wal-Mart". And yes she looked like you would imagine. My bet is I know which airline she "thinks" is the best deal.

L

shoelu

I have to disagree with this statement. I'm not sure what your previous background is, but of the three airlines I've worked at, SWA is well ahead of the others. We have a much smaller percentage of MEL'd items than I have seen at my other airlines and I think our maitenance staff does a great job in general. That is not to say we don't make mistakes. We do. As we continue to outsource more maintenance we will need to be more dilligent with oversight than we are previously used to. As the classic fleet ages, we will need to be more careful about MX than other carriers with similar equipment because our shorter stage lengths create more cycles and therefore more fatigue of the airframe. This is what will potentially cause more problems in the future and I hope it is being addressed. As far as the fuel tankering program is concerned I agree that it sometimes is not an ideal situation, but that has absolutely nothing to do with MX. I can agree with the condition of the lavs on the -300 though, they can get a bit disgusting however the -500's have got them beat hands down.

tsquare

Exactly... SWA is more properly compared to (and I believe the almighty Herb... said it) Greyhound.. that is their competition. The legacy product is NOTHING like the SWA product... period.