Right on. I hear people say “It’s not bad” have never lived anywhere where they are free.

Every state gets their money one way or another. I lived in Texas for years, and I don’t miss the insanely high property taxes for a junky house. I also don’t miss paying a toll every time I drive on a toll road.

In every other profession, people make way more money living in CA. We are in a very unique profession where you make the same amount of money whether you live in BFE, Arkansas, or San Francisco.

Yeah, I’m much prefer my toll-free toll roads. :D

TX?? TX?? TX is a true amateur when compared to NY where you can pay insanely high property taxes, nearly CA-like gas prices, substantial tolls to/from work AND still have "the privilege" of paying 7%+ of your income to NY State. 😁

(and "they" wonder why NY keeps losing congressional seats after every census. Ummm...it ain't just because of the weather).

I saw a news segment today that SWA is also planning interisland flights. Any rumors on whether this might result in an HNL base ? As an island boy at the regionals my ears are perked....

I doubt it. SWA is slow to open pilot bases and usually does it in locations with a lot of flying.
It will be 3 day OAK/LAX trips. Day 1 fly there, maybe one additional leg, short overnight. Day 2 inter island, Smedium overnight 15 hours or so. Day 3, 1-2 short legs and fly home.
There will be enough crews overnighting to absorb scheduling drama.

It doesn't look like LAX initially.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...ine&yptr=yahoo

"Southwest Airlines Co. intends to offer island-hopping flights within Hawaii after it ramps up service to the state from California, boosting the competitive threat to Hawaiian Airlines.

Inter-island flights will “eventually” be added to complement new service from the U.S. mainland, Southwest said in a statement Thursday. The carrier named San Jose, San Diego, Sacramento and Oakland as the first California cities that will get nonstop flights to Hawaii.

The lucrative inter-island market is a mainstay for Hawaiian, which derives about 94 percent of its in-state revenue from the five largest routes in that network. Competition on those flights from Southwest would be “a fairly significant headwind for Hawaiian,” Joseph DeNardi, a Stifel Financial Corp. analyst, has said."

Just because LAX is not one of the HI city pairs (yet), doesn't mean that the LAX-based pilots won't be doing some of the initial HI flights.

...or did I misunderstand your point?

The pilots can most definitely still do the HI flights. No doubt LAX will eventually have direct flights to HI.

San Diego to the islands is going to be a little interesting as far as takeoff is concerned. SAN-HNL is further than it is to BOS and ETOPS requires quite a bit of fuel padding at the critical point. Add in a weather alternate and SWA’s single class seating and you’ve got quite a heavy little piggy trying to get airborne in SAN’s relatively short and obstacle surrounded runway.

There’s a reason all the Hawaii flights take off on the 28s in SFO.