Huh? I wasn't implying anything about in-cognito routes and the plans for the SMF flying where probably set in stone well before Harvey was even named, so I have no idea what you mean in regards to a "cover". There was just a normal planned schedule extension that happens every couple months (just like at every airline, I'd imagine) where flights are put out for sale where some routes are added, discontinued, added seasonally etc. Basically, what started from a single Facebook post on a page for Southwest pilots, blew up into some people jumping to the conclusion that some big announcement was imminent. All I guess I may have been implying is that it's no surprise that the company doesn't show their hand to us pilots (or just about anyone not in the need to know for that matter) as to the exact details of our long and short term plans as it would no doubt be plastered all over the internet for all our competitors to see.


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Here is a copy of the press release. Lots of new routes!

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/southwest-airlines-adds-flights-throughout-173000755.html?.tsrc=applewf

 

Bingo!
In my 20 years, the biggest announcement was unscheduled and involved acquiring another airline.
The happy hoohaw **** that comes from Dallas is never pertinent to line flying.

 

Would they acquire Sun Country simply for the purpose of expediting ETOPS? New Sun Country CEO has mentioned Hawaii out of Cali next year and is getting rid of the -700s.

 

SWA was all set to do etops flying. We had the planes and maintenance certified, had a training program approved for the pilots, and then things suddenly changed.
Like everything done here, it was done on the cheap and rather than taking an already proven program from another airline, we treated it like we were landing on the moon and re-engineered it Texas style. Rather than tapping into the expertise of the many pilots here who have flown across vast oceans, they deferred to the F-teeners who made up the project pilot Force at the time.
I have a feeling that version 2.0 will be much different. The new pilot contract has an etops subset and it will be done by base and not by trying to train 9,000 pilots at once. The training center has also taken a turn for the better and seems more interested in trying to put out quality training rather than the cheapest possible product.

 

You just completely nailed it!
Awesome post 😃

 

Doubtful but I doubt they would do it for the ETOPS in any case. They still have to train thousands of pilots for it eventually. Even at Sun Country (where I spent a year) the vast majority of the ETOPS flying is done by just a small subset of the crews even though all are trained in it.

I've heard the leases at SY aren't very favorable and the integration of even the small pilot group would be thorny.

The biggest reason to acquire Sunny would be to take control of the Terminal 2 at MSP and I've heard Southwest doesn't really want to start a war with Delta in either MSP or Atlanta. It would be a fight nobody would win and both sides would lose.

Let things go the way they will with Sun Country but I don't really see Southwest acquiring them even though they have some ETOPS experience.

Southwest could hire ETOPS experts as consultants into the training dept. and have this done with Boeing's assistance very quickly. As mentioned, there are tons of pilots here at Southwest with oceanic experience in previous careers.

 

I have it on good authority that we can't do Hawaii yet due to our inability to brief the said flight within a FAR 117 flight duty period... hence the delay.

 

Ha ha. But seriously. That probably will be a problem with some guys who want to do a full weapons school grad brief to include time hacks and a brief history lesson on why we fly to Hawaii.

 

You mean doing a turn and not overnighting, right?