Southwest Hiring Freeze?
07-01-2018, 02:37 PM
#51
Line Holder
Joined APC: Sep 2013
Posts: 82
Originally Posted by e6bpilot
Exactly. We are still running classes through at least September and have committed to the July round of interviews with job offers which will fill another month or two of classes.
If anyone with a bit of sense in their head looks at our numbers right now personnel wise, you can see that we are heavy on the FO side and lagging a bit on the captain side. If there is any slowing in hiring, we will still be around 800 for the year, which is still above the original target number. The fact that we have tons of reserves sitting during the summer is atypical and cannot be lost on the bean counters. Whatever we are hiring for is coming, I suspect in the same slow, unannounced way that we have grown for the last few years.
Zero chance there is a merger/acquisition on the horizon. Anyone who wants to put some money on that can send me a PM. If airline stock prices start to slide in a major way, then maybe....but not now.
If anyone with a bit of sense in their head looks at our numbers right now personnel wise, you can see that we are heavy on the FO side and lagging a bit on the captain side. If there is any slowing in hiring, we will still be around 800 for the year, which is still above the original target number. The fact that we have tons of reserves sitting during the summer is atypical and cannot be lost on the bean counters. Whatever we are hiring for is coming, I suspect in the same slow, unannounced way that we have grown for the last few years.
Zero chance there is a merger/acquisition on the horizon. Anyone who wants to put some money on that can send me a PM. If airline stock prices start to slide in a major way, then maybe....but not now.
Someone decided that the way to curb the premium budget, which was $200 million over last summer, was to over hire. Unfortunately, no one told Crew Planning to upgrade more. Look at the discrepancy between captain and fo premium this week. Genius!
07-01-2018, 02:52 PM
#52
Line holder
Joined APC: Nov 2013
Position: On the bus,seat 0A
Posts: 3,228
Originally Posted by TurboDog
The accident with the catastrophic engine failure, which resulted in a passenger death.
Capacity = Bookings
Kelly, Nealon and Van De Ven.
A quick Google consult says fewer bookings and higher oil prices are the reason the company is slowing capacity expansion for the rest of the year.
Southwest bookings fall after fatal accident
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Capacity = Bookings
Kelly, Nealon and Van De Ven.
A quick Google consult says fewer bookings and higher oil prices are the reason the company is slowing capacity expansion for the rest of the year.
Southwest bookings fall after fatal accident
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
07-01-2018, 03:36 PM
#53
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Apr 2013
Posts: 3,443
Originally Posted by Woodbourne23
.
Someone decided that the way to curb the premium budget, which was $200 million over last summer, was to over hire. Unfortunately, no one told Crew Planning to upgrade more. Look at the discrepancy between captain and fo premium this week. Genius!
Someone decided that the way to curb the premium budget, which was $200 million over last summer, was to over hire. Unfortunately, no one told Crew Planning to upgrade more. Look at the discrepancy between captain and fo premium this week. Genius!
I have heard the same theory but I don’t buy it. The cost to pay premium is peanuts compared to hiring the extra bodies to cover that flying.
The FO vs CA discrepancy is ridiculous right now. Take a look at open time awards and see how that is playing out for them.
07-01-2018, 03:54 PM
#54
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Apr 2012
Position: 737 CA
Posts: 508
Originally Posted by e6bpilot
I have heard the same theory but I don’t buy it. The cost to pay premium is peanuts compared to hiring the extra bodies to cover that flying.
The FO vs CA discrepancy is ridiculous right now. Take a look at open time awards and see how that is playing out for them.
The FO vs CA discrepancy is ridiculous right now. Take a look at open time awards and see how that is playing out for them.
Agreed. The conspiracy theory of “over hiring” to reduce premium is some serious tinfoil logic. I think things will be seen a little more clearly after The LAX base opens and Hawaii flying commences.
07-02-2018, 02:29 PM
#56
New Hire
Joined APC: May 2018
Posts: 5
It seems like the people who are all saying there's NO WAY a merger is on the horizon are ignoring the nature of the hiring freeze. This is NOT a pilot hiring freeze--it's a hiring freeze across the majority of departments, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO pilots. This is not the result of an imbalance of CAs to FOs, or even of poor crew planning overall, because it's not specific to crew.
As far as capacity is concerned, remember that the number of available seats in the fleet is still below where it was before the -300s were parked early. The -800/MAX8 deliveries have yet to bring the number back to where it was in 2016, which isn't targeted until next year. The long-term plan was to operate the -300 and -MAX8 concurrently to prevent that loss in overall capacity, but obviously that plan needed to change. SWA is still operating below target capacity.
And then there's the ETOPS question. SWA is definitely behind where they were hoping to be. The intent was to start Hawaii service in November with the schedule released in May, but the company is not confident that it will have the certification ready to go by then, which is why they didn't pull the trigger when the schedule was extended. The aircraft for Hawaii service have already been set aside in the fleet plan and will be available from November for additions to the schedule once certification is obtained, but there is a very real chance that will take more time than budgeted.
As M&A are concerned, there is only one US carrier that can even begin to make sense as a possible target, and I assure you it isn't Alaska. Do not discount the possibility of an acquisition play for Sun Country. It is the only 100% 737NG fleet left, and at 23 frames it's the perfect step to augment the lost capacity from the -300 fleet (including new deliveries taken since then). And they have some other useful assets as well, including half of the same terminal SWA uses in MSP; slots and gates in HNL, SEA, PDX, SFO, SAN, SJD, PVR, CUN, MSY, RSW, and BOS; and an easy path to integrate service into additional markets that SWA would appreciate like CZM, STT, SXM, and maybe even ANC. All of this rolled up into a relatively small package that can be easily bought outright (all-cash), wouldn't raise too many political eyebrows, and comes with some potentially useful employees and an extra reservation center up north.
Oh, and did I mention that Sun Country already has ETOPS certification?? That sure would make it easier to get those ongoing issues ironed out, wouldn't it?
As far as capacity is concerned, remember that the number of available seats in the fleet is still below where it was before the -300s were parked early. The -800/MAX8 deliveries have yet to bring the number back to where it was in 2016, which isn't targeted until next year. The long-term plan was to operate the -300 and -MAX8 concurrently to prevent that loss in overall capacity, but obviously that plan needed to change. SWA is still operating below target capacity.
And then there's the ETOPS question. SWA is definitely behind where they were hoping to be. The intent was to start Hawaii service in November with the schedule released in May, but the company is not confident that it will have the certification ready to go by then, which is why they didn't pull the trigger when the schedule was extended. The aircraft for Hawaii service have already been set aside in the fleet plan and will be available from November for additions to the schedule once certification is obtained, but there is a very real chance that will take more time than budgeted.
As M&A are concerned, there is only one US carrier that can even begin to make sense as a possible target, and I assure you it isn't Alaska. Do not discount the possibility of an acquisition play for Sun Country. It is the only 100% 737NG fleet left, and at 23 frames it's the perfect step to augment the lost capacity from the -300 fleet (including new deliveries taken since then). And they have some other useful assets as well, including half of the same terminal SWA uses in MSP; slots and gates in HNL, SEA, PDX, SFO, SAN, SJD, PVR, CUN, MSY, RSW, and BOS; and an easy path to integrate service into additional markets that SWA would appreciate like CZM, STT, SXM, and maybe even ANC. All of this rolled up into a relatively small package that can be easily bought outright (all-cash), wouldn't raise too many political eyebrows, and comes with some potentially useful employees and an extra reservation center up north.
Oh, and did I mention that Sun Country already has ETOPS certification?? That sure would make it easier to get those ongoing issues ironed out, wouldn't it?
07-02-2018, 05:19 PM
#60
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Jun 2007
Posts: 317
Originally Posted by Speaks3703
Oh, and did I mention that Sun Country already has ETOPS certification?? That sure would make it easier to get those ongoing issues ironed out, wouldn't it?
Maybe that's not necessarily what you meant by "getting those ongoing issues ironed out" ... Maybe you just meant it would help get the ball rolling; which I agree, it probably wouldn't hurt.
I think the biggest issue with an SY acquisition, is that SY was literally just sold to one of the largest private equity firms in the world just a mere few months ago. I highly doubt their plan was to flip the airline after less than 6 months of ownership. But, who knows. Anything is possible.
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