Hmmmmmm don't you work for Airways?
I wouldn't pick up that stone so fast.


There is truth to the fact that lcc's can depress wages but you also have to look at your own legacy management. Most have turned the ship around but that came with BK, mergers, pay cuts and furloughs.
Gloopy seemed to say only legacys should exist and that is a TOTALY arrogant statement.

No I work for American airlines.

Don't you FLY for US Airways, a subsidiary of the AAL group?

I was responding to his comment that us is basically low end, we're making exactly the same as aa and we are basically aa.

But back to the matter at hand, everytime JetBlue or spirit or whichever lcc adds an airplane it adds more cheap seats to the industry. It lowers the profits of the legacies and in the ends hurts their ability to be able to pay more. It's basic supply and demand. Get mad all you want but those are the facts.

We'll that says it all.
You should change your profile still say airways.

I was not blaming airways, I was just pointing out that until recently you were the low end of the "majors" so I am not sure where the attitude came from.

On the contrary, I'd say the LCCs are probably responsible for forcing the legacys to get their houses in order. The learned about fees and the fact that if they cut each others throats, a new LCC would step in and fill the vacuum.

Canoe has some interesting posts. He took a job at the lowest paying airline in the country and was about to crap his pants when the DOJ filed to stop the merger.

No pilot should look down upon another.

l:Your "facts" have been weak at best.

I've around this business most of my life and seen it go through many changes. My Dad started with one of the original local service carriers that grew into the major I went to work for. Used to have PA amd TW guys on the Jumpseat making snide comments about our 737s while the captain was making more than their 74 captains. This business is ever changing and those that don't keep up die. The company you took a job with came close. Every legacy filed for Chp11(depending on the definition of legacy used).

Best to save your stones for squirrels. West ones. :-)

So what is the point of your "factual"" statement? I think the addition of cheap seats is as much a bait and switch maneuver as anything. How many $29 fares do you really think any of them have? I'd be willing to bet that as soon as you see an advert for one, that unless you are on the computer with their website up when the ad is first run, you ain't getting any of that... but I am sure the thinking goes that John Q will say... "well... since I'm here.. and they are THE low fare airline" :rolleyes: might as well buy a ticket.... It's a total ruse.. and masterfully done too I might add. But back to YOUR point... Some of the true low fare airlines aren't going to be in business long if they sell a product for less than it costs to produce it. Econ 101. I don't think JBlue selling a few cheap seats is gonna hurt DAL much in the big scheme of things. We have a lot of other areas from which we can make up the margin. They, on the other hand do not. Ultimately, all they are doing is hurting their own earnings. By NOT giving away the product, which is what the industry seems to have finally gotten thru their thick heads, we all make money. Ultimately, no matter how you slice it, none of it is a pilot's fault.

Sorry for the ramble....

You didn't seem to mind when legacy airlines were gasping for air and the LCC's were taking deliveries as fast as the factory could pump them out while gutting the markets with 25 dollar intro fares and taking almost any route they wanted with a hyper low CASM no one could come close to matching. While legacies furloughed by the thousands LCC's had lightning fast upgrades (ironically to about industry standard FO pay in the first place, with lower benefits and work rules…"PFU" pay for upgrade).

And now that the industry is finally seeing some limited measure of stability and prosperity, due mostly to legacy consolidation and "capacity dicipline" you are giddy to grow into that contraction as if it were some permanent paradigm to transfer domestic flying to you so you can code share with the flag of convienience "open skies" poachers.

FWIW, I hope the LCC's fall hard and face contraction and some of them go away, directly or via consolidation. As if you would have shed a tear if a legacy or two liquidated and your start up placed a big widebody order, etc. I agree though, its not the pilot's fault. I just hope we are in a period of legacy prosperity and can not just fend off the growth of, but reclaim significant marketshare that the LCC's grew into the last 14 years in a blatant attempt to put down a legacy or two and take that flying. It wasn't personal back then, it was just business. As it is now.

Its not about a few cheap seats though. JB has big plans to capacity dump onto DL routes. The assault has already begun out of BOS and will continue. Expect ATL, MSP and more this year and next. What that does, hype over intro fares aside, is dump tens of thousands of seats a month onto routes that are finally doing good because of capacity dicipline. They will bank on DL backing off to preserve yields while they continue to grow forever, all the while tying in with Gulf airlines and any other flag of convienience carrier to syphon off international/HVC traffic on a permanantly growing basis.

DL has slowly begun to take the fight to them and others. Slowly. Its a positive sign, but JB will continue their assault on DL's network because they have to continue to grow forever to survive. Yet the more they grow, the more the legacies will feel the pain. So we raise fairs and reduce capacity to preserve the fares, and they grow into the capacity while also raising fares but due to their lower CASM (primarily due to labor cost advantages) they remain profitable while growing and keeping fares below ours as long as we have YoY RASM growth tunnel vision.

We're finally starting to add capacity on a few markets they do. Finally. But its not enough. We need to take it to them and do it hard. Now. Before we wake up in 5 or 10 more years and they have another couple hundred narrow bodies overflying capacity we've yielded while tying in with even more Gulf airline routes in a multi front attack on our business model. Of course, they may be merged/fragmented by then, which would be great, but until and unless that happens, we have to fight to win. We can't let yet them pick us apart on their terms. Its us or them. Its not personal, its just business. And they (and VX, etc) are hoping its them. That's fine. But our current path is radically unsustainable. We can't rest flat footed on our (newly re-earned) laurels while they continue their stratedgy of marketshare transfer on their terms.

The big difference between you and me is you seem to want to see pilots out of a job and I just don't understand that.
I have only been with jetBlue for a little over two years, before that I was at a regional so I sure as He-- did care if you guys got hurt as it had a direct impact on me. I think your comment about it being business and not personal is ironic, you should read your post again and tell me it is not personal. It all depends on which seat you sit in, I have a feeling you would feel different if you were not at a legacy.
Just out of curiosity did you go from the military to said legacy?
As I said LCC's did and will have an impact but if you go back 10 years and want to tell me that the legacy's were well run and its all the LCC's fault, well you need to do a little more research.
I truly hope your airline does well as it benefits all of us in a way.

Wow you really give jetBlue a lot of credit.
We are not a big threat to Delta.
Spirit in Fll yes (nothing against Spirit) Delta not so much as you said you could kill us at any point. But if you are worried about 5 flights a day on an emb-190 to ATL, MSP, and DTW I guess so be it

Its not a matter of being well run. Its ironic that someone at JB would play that card in the first place when JB is one of the worst run, fair weather airlines in the country, only able to compete with super cheap labor and ultra low across the board longevity compared to their peers. Although prior to the pre 9-11 cliff drop off recession (and then 9-11) legacies were raking in record profits. We all know what happened next.

Just as the legacies were trying to get a leg under them, the LCC's went supernova and flooded the market with cheap seats, high volume and ultra low costs that couldn't be matched. So the legacies contracted and purged many tens of thousands of jobs while the LCC's barfed capacity on any and every route in a blatant attempt to put a legacy down.

So it wasn't "all" the LCC's faults. A massive terror attack coinciding with a hard collapse of one foundational asset bubble (only to be replaced with another, even bigger one) was to blame for laying the foundation that the LCC's used to quickly grow to where they are.

And again, I'm fine with that because its just business. And now its our turn. You can't grow forever and honestly there is no place for the hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of growth narrow bodies the LCC's have on order, unless more capacity is transferred from legacies to LCC's. You will benefit if that happens. I hope it doesn't.

Hey look, if there is some fantasy way every single pilot, including current and future start ups, can enjoy endless growth and unchallenged prosperity despite the market realities of us being in the middle of a critical capacity war then hey, fine. Bring it. I guess. But that's just not realistic. But in the real world there will be winners and losers. The legacies have lost mightily, to the direct benefit of the LCC's. I hope the legacies can merely take back what was lost. If everyone can magically grow into an evergreen market of endless growth, great. But thats not likely or even realistic.

I didn't play that card I just said the LCC's were not the only problem the legacy's faced, and I never said jetBlue was well run.
So military straight to Delta?(I think so as you seem to lack some perspective)
So its back to in your world where only Delta, American, United and maybe Southwest have a right to exist all other trouble maker, low cost, capacity dumping and lets not forget INSOLENT airlines should just go away.

Where do you see a place for the many hundreds of growth narrow bodies, as well as the inevitable LCC widebody order, coming from in terms of capacity to warrent it unless that capacity is gifted to them by existing legacy routes?

We are on a collision course with reality in this industry. There will be winners and losers. They growth powerpoint you probably got in indoc will only materialize if it comes from existing legacy capacity. I hope that doesn't happen. I appreciate your cockeyed optimism (if thats what it is) thinking we can all grow into infinnity and beyond with no consequence, but I disagree with the premise on the grounds of the reality of the marketplace.

Not sure of your background either, and it really doesn't matter, other than to urge you to shy away from ad hominem arguements to bolster your position. I assure you there are plenty of military and civilian pilots who agree and disagree with both of us.

We didn't get a growth powerpoint.
As I said I really think you give us too much credit.
Nobody at jetBlue thinks we are going to be able to roll over any legacy, maybe you are thinking of another LCC but that is not us.
We all know what position we are in and how very vulnerable our company is. We do need to grow and where that is I am not sure but you guys have fought us and won...ie...jfk pit and you have fought us and lost. Like I said you seem to want to see guys out of a job and I just don't understand that. We will see who wins and I hope we come to a point in the airline world where we all can have jobs and have a stable industry.....but that's just me being a cockeyed optimist.

Not an ad hominem attack as much as me trying to understand why you have the opinion you do. I would argue that a guy who goes form being a cfi to a regional to Delta might have a different prespective on the industry than one who went from the military straight to Delta(there is NOTHING wrong with either way) it just tends to shape ones opinions.
So please understand that I was no attacking you or the way you made it to your airline.

TOTD!!!!!!!!!

It's called business................if Spirit and or jet blue can afford to make a profit while selling seats cheaply, then that's just too bad for you now isn't it?

Didn't say that they should be banned. I know it's business, but that doesn't mean I have to wish the best for the part of the industry chipping away at me.

Airline seats are a commodity just like any other, the more you add the cheaper it becomes.

My only complaint with spirit and swa are their management practices with industry pricing. Their pilot groups at least are well compensated and have industry standard or obove rules. It's JetBlue and the rest of the non union groups who openly collaborat with their managements to pull down the industry.

I hear ya...........

Well it's good to know you have no idea what you are talking about.
Ask any jetBlue pilot about our collaboration with management and how we'll it's going.
Btw our pay rates are better than Spirits and yours in some cases just an FYI.
Good thing Airways was never one of the lowest paid because it allows you to look down on the rest of us, oh wait you were.
Good thing that merger was approved.

Yes it is.


Except…

Now, finally, the legacies can afford to fight back and agressively seat dump onto the "established" LCC routes. The legacies can afford to bleed big time your entire route structure and yet still make huge profits over all. And they don't even have to get into "predatory pricing" (funny isn't it that LCC's can gut established fares offering pennies on the dollar but if a legacy tries the same to them they squeal to the government for protection) but there's nothing to stop predatory capacity. What's your cheapest bucket? We'll match it on twice the seats per day you have. Bring it. :cool:

You love that capitalism…right up until it works the other way.

I'll believe it when I see it, or when I'm out of a job..............


Btw, any airline that chooses to "bleed" another LCC route structure until they are gone would be right back where They were 10 years ago, bankrupt. SWA, JetBlue, Virgin, Frontier & Spirit make up a lot of city pairings , but go ahead and lose money on all overlapping routes, should work out nicely for you

This point is worthy of discussion because it comes up constantly, not only with LCC's but regionals and everyone else really.

First off lets look at regionals. They hired and upgraded thousands while their corresponding legacy networks furloughed thousands. Obviously anyone that cares about this career/profession would like to see those outsourced jobs return. Not for revenge or hubris, but to see more good paying jobs and fewer lower paying jobs. Ditto for the LCC's.

Its the same thing WRT LCC's. The more they grow, the fewer better paying jobs there are at the legacies. Your points about USAir's pathetic wages are duley noted and I have been critical of that myself, but it finally looks like those days are behind them.

If there are X number of narrow body pilots jobs available in the US, would you rather, from a profession standpoint, those jobs go to a legacy or to JB? Obviously if JB is where you are at you personally want growth by almost any means necessary, but for the profession as a whole which is better? That's all I'm saying. There is only so much flying to go around and the legacies have spent the vast majority of the last 15 years culling themselves so the phenom LCC young bucks can grow as fast as they wanted.

Every time you open a new "Blue City" where do you think the hundreds of thousands of additional seats a year are going to come from? Obviously, you are hoping your company can win them in the market from existing capacity. That's fine, but when pilots on the other side of that equation see their airlines face massive cost and revenue issues from your expansion, it becomes very clear that every airline can't grow like you are growing. Someone has to shrink to accommodate that growth in a relatively flat market. JB's formula since its inception has been to storm marketshare by gutting yields while remaining untouchable with ultra low CASM. Legacy airlines are finally poised to fight back. That's not a value judgment and has nothing to do with the moral superiority of any perticular seniority list. Its just business.

Put it this way…JB expanded like crazy while legacy airlines experienced gut wrenching contraction followed by stagnation lasting half a career. JB pilots benefitted from that in a huge way, and were more than happy about it. Again, that's fine. Nothing wrong with that from an individual standpoint. If the cycle were reversed, however, would the legacy pilots be imoral for enjoying their airlines finally winning for a change?

I wouldn't worry too much about the rhetoric from the "900 lb. gorillas" on the site.

Just ask them how their A-plan is doing.

So how is your A-plan doing?

And in case you haven't noticed, the fate of "A-plans" isn't just a legacy competence issue. They are collapsing anywhere and everywhere. Even sacred cow ones are being looked at now.

Oh so speaking of A-plans, how is your B-plan doing? Let me guess…a lower percentage of a lower wage, yet you were attempting to use that to win some sort of arguement about something?

Paying off nicely every month, thanks for asking. The $1.5M from the B plan is doing fine as well.

Just pointing out that it wasn't too very long ago, DAL was in Chapter 11 and the hubristic crowing around here was a bit more muted.

But, you boys enjoy being on top of the world...for now.

I remember when Pan Am pilots were there. And when United pilots were there. And when everyone wanted to work for Continental. And when American was the airline of choice.

But when you're on the top of the pyramid, you're surrounded by slippery slopes that only lead in one direction.

A little modesty here on Delta Pilot Central may be in order.

That's pretty much what I'm saying. For a decade and a half the darling LCC's were upgrading in less than half the time legacy pilots were on furlough. If either group is guilty of Pan Am top of the world arrogance, its the wundergrowth LCC's that are finally cresting the peak. The legacies, which have only now even begun to hire the slightest trickle to provide relief to their bottom reserve FO's who have been clinging by their fingernails for well over a decade, are hardly the arrogant ones. LCC's act like they are entitled to unquestioned infinite growth even if it comes from existing capacity and when anyone challenges that they accuse them of being arrogant and mean. :rolleyes:

So why are you so worried about jetBlue?

My A plan is going great guns... how's yours?

See post #69.

So I am guessing that you are hoping for age 67 then? lulz.

Read post #69 for comprehension, Ace.

Its not just JB, its the entire endless growth sector that is the major threat to the industry. The industry has finally gotten its legs under it through capacity discipline, consolidation and pricing power. JB, OTOH, says "dam the torpedos" and barfs capacity non stop wherever they want acting like its still 2002 and the legacies can't do anything about it and then rubs salt in the wound by hooking up with the endless growth foreign airlines who are intent on doing the same. Its time for all the legacies to go after JB hard and in a way they won't be able to beg daddy government for help (squealing about "predatory pricing"...a phenomenon which apparently only works one way as its A-OK when they do it) by flooding JB's best markets, all of them, with mass quantities of capacity at JB's lowest bucket fares. Nothing they can do about that. Except agree to sell of course. JB (the company, not the pilots) is one of the biggest threats the industry faces right now. And it will have to be dealt with or the cancer will grow out of control and we will wake up to hundreds of additional narrow bodies and a widebody order poaching any market they please while the legacies shrink to profitability until at least one folds. Its them or us in the long run. And they want it to be them. Fair enough. But don't act all high and mighty when others hope they are not successful in their long term goals.

The only person acting "high and mighty" is you Mr legacy pilot.
You should really read what you post.

Got it. You ain't got enough to retire. Spud.

When does the Wright Amendment expire? It'd be nice to see some mainline competition for LUV out of Love Field.

Looks like they're already getting ready to defend Love.


DALLAS - Southwest Airlines says it will start nonstop flights from Dallas to New York, Los Angeles, Washington and 12 other cities this fall, when federal limits on the airline's home airport end.
The new service pits the onetime scrappy underdog in head-to-head competition with American and maybe Delta for passengers traveling to and from Dallas.
Southwest announced Monday that it will fly from Love Field to five cities starting Oct. 13 and 10 more on Nov. 2.
Those routes are currently off-limits to Southwest's Boeing 737 jets because of a 1980 law designed to protect nearby Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport. Under the Wright Amendment, as the law was called, planes bigger than 56 seats could only fly from Love Field to other cities in Texas and a few nearby states.
Southwest expects to add nearly 20 flights a day, to 146 daily departures in November, from Love Field, the airline's eighth-busiest airport.
"It will mean the opportunity to grow and add airplanes and add jobs," CEO Gary Kelly said. He said the additional flying wouldn't affect earnings through 2015.
With the new long-haul routes, Southwest will compete against similar service from American Airlines Group Inc. at nearby DFW Airport.
Southwest's toughest competition, however, might come from Delta Air Lines Inc., which is already selling tickets for flights in late 2014 from Love Field to New York, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Minneapolis and Detroit.
There's just one hitch: Delta doesn't know if it will have any gates at Love Field.
American has two gates but agreed to give them up to settle a government lawsuit against its merger with US Airways. Delta, which is leasing the gates, wants to buy them from American, but so does Southwest, and other airlines could enter the bidding. The U.S. Justice Department has said that the gates shouldn't go to so-called legacy carriers such as Delta and United, but Delta points out that Southwest already controls 16 of the 20 gates at Love Field.
On Oct. 13, Southwest will start flying from Dallas to Chicago; Baltimore; Denver; Las Vegas; and Orlando, Fla. On Nov. 2, it will add New York's LaGuardia Airport; Washington's Reagan National Airport; Los Angeles, San Diego and Santa Ana, Calif.; Atlanta; Nashville; Fort Lauderdale and Tampa, Fla.; and Phoenix.

The fight over Love Field is a big part of the history of Southwest Airlines, which began as a Texas-only carrier. Herb Kelleher, the airline's co-founder and a lawyer who personally fought some of the legal battles, attended Monday's announcement at the airport.
"It just proves that being patient pays off," he said. "Only had to wait for 40 years."
Copyright 2014 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistribute


Read more: Southwest Airlines to add routes to New York, 14 other cities