My guess is that early retirements are much more valuable at other airlines since it reduces displacements between fleet types--especially when the retirements are mainly from fleets that won't fly again soon in any case. Alas, at SWA, there's little cost to downgrading a bunch of captains and furloughing FOs--maybe two months of furlough pay and 15 trips of right seat pay for the downgrade. The SWA CEO is an accountant first and foremost---who realizes quickly that there's not much money saved by offering early retirements.

But the majority of those furloughed up to 20% of the list would be like 4-5 year FO pay. Early out for the top ten percent would still be cheaper, no?

A talked to a Chief in Dallas on one of my sits last trip about this. He said the problem with early retirements is most of those guys participate in the Top Hat program, which I believe is company managed. If they retire, the company has to distribute that, which is many, many millions. Never thought of that.


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Idiot conversations like this are why I never ask a Chief about anything not related to their actual job.
That is the dumbest reason I have ever heard. That top hat money is accounted for on the balance sheet and while the company is "holding it", it isn't theirs and never will be.

Early retirements would be a good fit to save money. Buy guys off at the top of the list for a good price. They lose their 1600 sick bank that they had planned on burning down and go home and collect a check and wait for the market to eventually bottom out and come back with a vengeance. Win win.
Here is the problem: pilots at SWA are just another employee. What you offer to one employee at SWA, you have to offer to everyone. We would have to name a new VP to invent a program for everyone and give it a different acronym than every other airline.
The other problem is that the company absolutely refuses to own the poor decision to overman the pilot group despite every indicator and line pilot saying it was a terrible idea. Remember a few months ago when everyone was in disbelief on how overmanned we were? That's when we had 87 percent load factors. That poor planning decision is currently costing them millions of dollars a month. Who will suffer the consequences for that? Hint...look in the mirror.

Au contraire! Top Hat money can be theirs if things got bad enough and they declared bankruptcy. That’s a pretty doom & gloom scenario but I’m just playing devils advocate.

To look at this scenario through very bullish glasses, perhaps they don’t want to give early outs (just yet) so that when things come roaring back they’ll have the man power and MAXes to really grab some extra market share. I don’t know. Crazier things have happened in this industry.

Yeah I totally get the Ch 11 scenario. I should have put that out there. Lots of guys put money in top hat back in the day thinking that could never happen. It is a line item on a balance sheet, so it is fair game.

Spirit is 50 @ $210 = $10.500 (over 95% are captain at year 5, and all can hold it, so I think fair comparison)

As much as I love our FA's, I could become one in 2-3 months. If they want as good of a deal as the pilots, then they need to do something that takes a decade of their lives to work towards with no guarantee. It seems like a great opportunity to bounce 1/3 of the senior mama's and papa's (don't forget the "theythey's) and replace them with some Guatemalans who would be glad to do it for $25k/yr, live 8 to a room in the US for half their lives, and the other half as very wealthy people in their home country.

Yes, I am completely heartless when it comes to senior FA's making as much as a 1st year FO, and more than some Captains at the Regional s.

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The most insightful statement made on this thread so far. The other big 3 have a lot more to gain through early retirements due to the cost of retraining. It's a ripple effect on their entire cost of doing business.