Hawaii flying
 

First off I don't work for Southwest but I do have a question. Second of all my understanding is you have AM and PM schedules with no redeyes. When you start your Hawaii flying are you going to start doing redeye flights? I'm only asking because I don't see a plausible way of getting someone from Hawaii to the east coast without some type of redeye.

We don’t know the answer to that yet as nothing has been officially announced.

I could be wrong but I would expect SWA to eventually add redeyes. Why not? Huge source of additional revenue and airplanes sitting at gates ain’t making money. Would suck for crew members but I am surprised SWA still doesn’t fly these yet....

Then you may also be surprised to learn that not all flight-planning software was built with the ability to handle red-eyes...I know I was!

The res system was the original hold up for red eyes. They could do it now if they wanted. The last time our Dear Leader spoke about them he was elusive but said it doesn’t make sense in our operation right now.
The AM/PM schedule is pretty much a thing of the past. Our flying day is so long (flights scheduled to block in after 1:30 am and take off at 5) that you need like 2.5 crews to fly that schedule. We have a lot of mid day starts and plane swaps as a result.
As far as what the future holds, who knows? I suspect red eyes will eventually be a thing in limited numbers. The thing is, when you have 750 of the same type of airplane, the need to reposition aircraft during low pax density/revenue hours really isn’t that great.
As it is now, there is a huge 10-11pm push out of the mega stations to get airplanes out to the outlying cities to bed the planes down for the night.

I wonder how long before our AM/PM reserve system will catch up with the flight schedule. How many trips are out there that our reserves aren't legal/available for?

We’d have redeyes and concessionary rules right now if Weaks wasn’t president of SWAPA.

The company can schedule redeyes if they want to, right?

Yes. It is a conscious choice not to at this point.

We really could use 3 reserve shifts. I'm sure right now they cover very early and very late flying with reroutes instead of reserves. I've seen this happen on PM reserve where I time out and then I see the trip covered by a rerouted pilot who's duty started much later then me. Three reserve shifts would cost more money though, hence the reluctance to implement it.

I could hear the out roar right now if they suggested 3 reserve shifts. Those that don't want to be in reserve would be that much longer.
But you're right not only do we need them, they are coming.

So how junior / senior is lax going to be you guys think? I’m hoping for mdw (asap) curious if people will be moving out west

Very senior at the top, and very junior on the bottom.

They could, they just wouldn’t have a reserve shift to cover it. No doubt the company is taking a wait and see attitude who will eventually replace Weaks. The luxury of time is on their side.

I saw some numbers in the magazine, somewhere around 100 CAs and 100 FOs currently live in SoCal area. I figure after that first 100, it'll be somewhat junior based on cost of living and the fact that LAX (and associated airports) isn't any easier of a commute than LAS and it's prohibitively expensive to move out there.

Early "best guess" I've heard tossed around by people who have been here a while is it'll go junior by mid-2019.

But that's still just a guess.

Am I reading this right? What’s preventing the company from doing red eyes is our union president?

I don't think it's gonna go senior at all. I talked to some SoCal locals and they don't get excited to bid LAX at all. There are multiple reason, but one uniform complaint is traffic. If you live in Ontario or closer to SAN for example, it's faster to fly to LAS that fight the traffic to LAX. Also the whole ETOPS thing, extra training every year, reduced flexibility of schedule in a small base, base lock, etc. On top of that, I heard there are some people that own a place in LAS just to pay Nevada taxes while living in SoCal. Those will continue commuting. I predict a lot of new hires and junior captains going there against their will. It's just a subjective prediction of a guy who has been wrong many times before.

It will be our most junior base in short order. The union newsletter says just 38/37 ish capt/fo’s in the la basin. A few of those have houses in Vegas for tax reasons. I can see the Orange County and Temecula guys driving but doubt San Diego guys will for long. Ballpark 150 pilots will want LAX as a permanent base and I understand it will be a good sized base in a couple years (500+). It will draw from LAS and OAK making them more junior also. I’ve been told OAK will not shrink and will have equal ETOPS pilots as LAX.

So would new hires be base locked if they get LAX/OAK out of indoc given the ETOPS training??

No, if it’s involuntary there is no base lock. 6 months if you volunteer so be careful not to volunteer.

Thank you.

So would southwest be a good move for a pilot living in Hawaii? Could junior guys most likely get LAX and be doing the Hawaii trips?

EDIT: Asking for a friend.....

No guarantee that LAX will go junior, but the tea leaves point that way. He would have to commute to LAX, as no Hawaii base has even been speculated. Just my guess, 5 yrs from now, if we are successful in that market, there will be a base there. Doing things from LAX is not efficient, and this place is all about efficiency.

makes me wonder. A buddy at Alaska tells me that Hawaii is 40ish % of their business, and they don't have a base there

Alaska doesn't fly interisland. Supposedly, we're also gonna invade the interisland market. Who knows...

I have a very decent home there that I love.... I do not want to be slapped with a 13.9% state income tax. IT WON'T HAPPEN!

If your base of operations is out of a State, YOU PAY TAXES TO THE STATE THAT BASE IS IN.... I was ****ed when IL hiked up their rate, but it's still close to 1/3 of what CA is.

I mean we would all be claiming TX or NV residency if we could get away with it, but it's illegal!

That can be state dependent. I’m taxed based on the state I live in, and claim residency in. Not the state in which my base resides.

The IRS and local state tax agencies are on to the “scam” of claiming residence in one state and living in another. There is a classic court case involving a NWA pilot, claiming FL residence and living in MN. It’s an interesting read on how the judge determined residency.

Wait..so if you live in Texas and commute to United in SFO you pay Cali Taxes?!

I'm sure your accountant is doing you right. In my situation, I DO own a home in CA, as well as one in the Chicago burbs, and I would never keep my Chicago place now that my folks are gone. So I don't think their is any way to swing avoiding the 13.9% CA income tax rate.

Ahhh, if only her legs (MAX) were a little wee bit, tiny more long... we wouldn't be so tied to needing a CA base to serve Hawaii.

Buy a small condo/house in Nevada. Run the numbers will most likely be cheaper than paying California...

Huh? This statement would be correct if you live in the same state as your base, and/or more than 50% of your flying is within that state. By chance are you OAK or MDW based?

Otherwise, tax law seems to state pretty clearly that you owe income tax to the state where you have permanent residence.

Legal residence
 

I hear several years ago some pilots from another airline based in PHL won a legal suite against the IRS. They stated they only worked in the state from the time the reported for work until the left 3,000' which is federal airspace not owned by the state of Pennsylvania or the City of Philadelphia. I don't know how true the story is but you can always become a mail order minister and say your home is a church. All your pay check is deposited to the church account which you draw from for living expenses. Then convince your friends (other pilots) to join your church and give donations to your church which are tax deductible. The church would then buy all members of the church gift cards for gas, food, movies, etc as a show of appreciation for their attendance to his church in the exact amount of their donations.

MDW... my fear is that if I had LAX for my base and the state pushed the issue of my residency, then I'd find myself in trouble. If somebody asked me, I'd honestly have to say I'm a CA resident. As I do consider myself a resident of IL right now.

I don't mind paying my fair share. But not that much, it's INSANE. I don't live in a prestigious area, but it is gated, and I have a very respectable 2000 sq ft home on a golf course. You get very far out of that realm, and it's freaking Iraq! Only less safe! But my oh my, the weather, and the absence of smog in southern OC, with it's blue skies and beautiful mountains. I snag a hand full of nights sleeping in my own bed because their are 5 airports that make an Uber ride feasible, depending on the time of day.

I'm not a legal eagle, nor am I the wolf of Wall Street. Such complicated issues give me a headache.

KalifoRnia is a whole different animal when it comes to collecting taxes and their laws are written to get any and all taxes they think they are owed.

CA state income tax is really not as bad as some people make it out to be. If you are married, the first $537,500 of your income is taxed at a marginal tax rate of 9.3%. However, California's income tax is highly progressive. The first $105,224 is taxed at an effective tax rate of only 4.4%. That's actually below average for many states. Even if you make 250k a year, your effective tax rate is 7.2% (Before any write-off's) For comparison, 43 out of 50 states charge state income tax, and the average effective state income tax rate is 5%.

State income tax is deductible on your federal taxes if you itemize. So if you're in a ~30% federal tax bracket, you'll get to write-off 30% of that 7.2% you paid in state taxes on your federal tax return. So your effective state tax rate would be 5%. Throw in some other federal write-offs (mortgage interest, charity, etc...), and your true effective state tax rate gets into the mid 4% range, depending on your situation, for making 250k.

California's property tax rate is also significantly lower than other states (Roughly 1% of the home value, and can not increase more than 2% annually). You'll find that owning property in California is also quite profitable.

People get all worked up over CA state income tax, but ~4.5% of your income if you make 250k is a very small price to pay for living in CA. It's worth it for the weather, scenery, things to do, beaches, mountains, wineries, you name it.

When you say, buy a small condo in NV, I hope you mean to live there, not just for the tax advantages even though you live in CA... MN came after NWA pilots hard a few years back for essentially the same thing. Living in MN, but had a small places in TN/FL/AK. Were claiming that they weren't MN residents.

Sorry dude - state and local income tax deduction is now capped at $10k/yr for your federal return.

Also failed to mention the $0.14/gal gas tax on our already astronomical gas prices, and the ever increasing cost to register vehicles. $450 for my 11 year old truck this year. Up by about $100 from last year.

Where did you get your info from? It’s all wrong.