Southwest hands down is the best airline out there. Its nice how SWA keeps its poolies swimming, whereas delta and NWA management send the NWA poolies down the river to drown. Hats off to you luv guys!

From the bottom of the stream, without air! NWA POOLIE O8

 

what he said,emphatically.

 

With friends like this who the hell needs enemies. Be careful with thinking like this. Before you know it you'll be crossing a picket line in no time.

 

I would never do it, then again loyalty led me the end of my flying career. However, I can't blame guys who do cross. There is absolutely no loyalty or brotherhood anymore, if you believe it your kidding yourself. Go talk to all the NWA hires who got screwed, no one even cared enough to throw a lifeline.

 

Why someone is picking "extra time" may not really be extra time. Very often my "extra time" (a white slip at Delta) is very often a result of "fixing" my schedule by drop and pick up or swaps. I have rarely broken guarantee and yet have lots of white slips. Another thing to remember is those flights will get flown by someone so not picking them up is not going to help guys on furlough. Another thing to remember is some of us have a lot of leftover bills and missed savings to make up for due to furlough (4 years for me). So if happen to pick up a white slip, green slip (2x pay) I'm not apologizing for doing it (we don't have any furloughs right now.

 

Let's try to get this creeping thread back on track. Any news about the SWA poolies? I heard that GK said 2010 looked to be on track to break profit records, surely that means some kind of growth. We can only hope.

BTW, who gives a crap if you pick up open time when you don't have anyone on furlough. Fly your tail off!!

 

Nothing solid but most news as of late has been positive. I'm hoping some momentum is being built that leads to growth and maybe some poolie classes later in 2010.

 

Can I ask what the terms and conditions of your poolies. How long may they float? Do they have to remain current, or be flying while waiting?

 

This is an unprecedented time at SWA of no growth or retirements. I think they are making the rules up as they go, but from what I understand, there isn't an expiration from the pool. I heard they were calling the poolies back to the HQ for some kind of update of status. Everything I've heard has been second hand since the company doesn't usually keep the pilots updated on the poolies, so someone else may have better information. I don't think it was anything close to a reinterview, but rather an update to make sure no career changing events had happened since the interview (ie DUI, FAA action, etc). We are still overstaffed by quite a few pilots, but as the RNP training winds down I think any "growth" SWA sees this year would be absorbed by the current excess. I wouldn't rule out a couple of classes if things really turn around.

 

If I'm not mistaken, short bus drive is on furlough and was referring to pilots who pick up open time while other pilots are on the street. By all means if there are no furloughs then fly as much as you can.