Share your typical SWA schedule here
 

Questions about SWA schedules are scattered in many threads here. There is a lot of hiring going on in the industry and applicants with multiple CJO's are looking to get a feel for what flying is like at SWA. Maybe other SWA pilots on APC can post some details of your typical month/year of flying to help prospective new hires. I'll start:

Seat: Captain,
Seniority in seat/base: 50%
Typical month: Partial weekends (by choice), 12 days on
Year block: About 500 hours
Days flown annually: 105-110

Notes: I'm a low time flyer with 4 weeks of vacation and frequently trade down.

Share your typical SWA schedule here
 

Seat: FO and Cabin Temperature Specialist

Seniority in seat/base: 64%

Typical month: Partial weekends (not by choice), 14-15 days on

Year block: 763 hours

I try to move as much of my flying to the weekdays as possible to spend time with my family. I fly a little extra but rarely more than one or two days a month. I shoot for 100-110 credit per month (the equivalent of 85-95 hours)



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Seat: FO

Seniority in seat/base: 64 percent

Typical month: Typically bid weekend line due to bidding strategy, can hold partial weekday line. Cannot hold weekends off. Typically bid 12 day line.

Year block: 775 hours

I am a high credit flyer. I typically do not fly any of my original line. I aggressively attempt to drop days via overlap and elitt and move any flying I have left to weekdays and attempt to pick up extra flying for premium pay. That extra flying typically falls on weekends, but often I can hold weekday premium flying as well, especially towards the end of the month.
By the end of the month I typically fly 15 days and try to credit as much as I can in that time period.

Seat: FO

Seniority in seat/base: 83%

Typical month: As a junior line holder, I depend on ELITT to get what I want. So far, I've been pretty successful in dropping all my weekend flying in exchange for weekday flying and like e6b, I play the premium game, and it's much easier for a junior pilot to get it on weekends. I live in domicile too.

Year block: 860 hours

I work around 16-18 days a month. I pick up a 3-day and maybe a 2-day or a couple of turns a month.

Thanks guys. I have been sending private messages back and forth with a couple of guys with job offers from swa plus a legacy. I realized my schedule is not of much use to them. Hopefully this is more useful.

Having worked for a few other majors, there are some big differences in work quality of life between SW and the legacies. It's worth doing some research beyond payrates and monthly totals. If I were ten years younger I would've applied at Delta and United, no question.


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Hey Zap, I agree with this statement. I was going to let the data speak for itself but since you broached the subject I'll add that SWA runs a very lean operation and is built on pilots picking up open time. As such it's easy to be a high time flyer but very difficult to be a low time flyer.

Quality of WORK is something that I don't think many people take into consideration. We work our ass off at SWA when at work. This has its positives and negatives.

Mr. Boat,

Thanks for the post on this subject. I am one of those guys asking about schedules. I appreciate the information. SWA, regardless of the schedules, is a great company.

I started applying to the legacies in 2008. SWA in 2009 because of the 1500 TPIC req or whatever it was then. Nobody called....not much going on from 2008-2014 or so. Got a UAL interview after 8 years applying but I was already in class at SWA. Never heard a peep from DL or AA.