Is it about time to make an offer to spirit?
 

New fleet with plenty of orders and options

And trained pilots


Price is cheap and under 40

Stock swap for 65 and done deal

No cash

Lol. I’ll give you this. You’re consistent.

And hey, with that Boeing payout, the price effectively dropped farther.

SWA needs planes yesterday
Price dropped of something that is not produced is good but does not solve your huge problem this summer and eliminating the competition....plain business

The offer will happen and if the board of spirit accept it
The DOJ will bless it

Watch it happen

Does SWA need planes for the coming summer rush if Boeing continues to make them whole for lost earnings?

It’s suboptimal for market share etc., but does it really matter if the bottom line isn’t greatly effected? I don’t think much happens as long as Boeing is solvent. Picking off NKS would be more about managing a competitor at this point in my mind.

Why Spirit and not jetBlue?

With jetBlue you get access to a gaping black hole for the WN network in NYC, BOS, DCA, and the Caribbean. With Spirit you get more texas, vegas and ghettos like Detroit??

Also get LGB which WN seems to be tripping over themselves to lose money at.

Is it about time to make an offer to spirit?
 

JetBlue is an aspirational brand. Think Target vs Walmart. Anything can happen but I don’t think those two cultures would mesh. JetBlue is way too progressive, willing to try new things, Mint... transatlantic... A220... TVs, Internet, power, snacks, dual HUDs in the E190, autoland in the bus, printers, window shades, paid parking, paid uniforms, no leather jackets ...

SW too slow and plodding and folksy. I think it would be a tough merger for the business to say nothing of the employees.


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Well I don't see WN compromising on anything if it was to acquire jetBlue or any smaller airline. They'd come in and throw red and blue on all the assets (including people) and that would be the end of NYC's gayest airline. i.e. questions of culture do not matter, this would be a whale swallowing a trout wholesale, same as what happened to AirTran a few short years ago.

End result, WN gets the planes, staff, slots, gates and order books it needs to take it to the next level. I mean, what is WN supposed to do next anyways? Keep begging the DOT for more LGA slots and doubling down on more midwest???

The fastest way to obtain aircraft is through an acquisition, but when will Gary pull the trigger. How long will the board allow SWA to remain grounded?

I think JB would happen before Spirit because JB offers less potential overlap. SWA doesn’t offer much Northeast including JFK and BOS which makes the combination more likely to be approved by regulators - you need to look at the potential overlap and there isn’t much beyond some FLL overlap for a SWA/JB combination.

Of course, adding 3 types simultaneously with JB (A320/1, A220 and a phased out E190) would go against SWA’s single-fleet strategy.

What an interesting change. Southwest needs Spirit (or Frontier, jetBlue, or Allegiant) and not the other way around. We have our growth, an order book, and full airplanes. If WN wants NK and there's no conceivable way a current NK pilot could be involuntarily displaced into your flying museum relic then I don't care who the paychecks come from.

But if Captains are displaced to the right seat or the 73 then I'd fight it every conceivable way possible.

the number of conceivable ways would be zero

Well, at the very least I can promise that that exact thing will be attempted :rolleyes:

I can see SWA making a play for either JBA or Spirit. Both tie ups would have their respective advantages and benefits to SWA.

Besides, there might have already been an offer. It could be an ongoing discussion/negotiation or that offer could have been turned down.

Granted you’ve flown for both airlines but I think you’re putting too much significance on cultures matching up.

As far as equipment, well I’m sure some FAT pilots have shared with you how SWA stripped the AT B737s of their printers, roll-up window shades, independently controlled wipers, AUTO mode on the igniters, etc.

The E-190 will be sold to AA but not before they take the dual HUDs out and sell them on EBay.

AA doesn’t want them. They’re ditching their fleet of 190’s in 2020.

No one at Spirit wants to merge with SWA. Majority want to stay organic. Also, we know how SWA management treats acquisitions.

Want has nothing to do with it. This OP has been pushing this angle for quite a while as a self proclaimed quasi plugged in investor.

I think you’ll be hard pressed to find pilots at either airline that are excited for a merger/acquisition. That doesn’t matter though.

Exactly.

Speaking as a SW guy, for the majority of SW pilots, the only thing worse than the max being grounded would be spinning the seniority Russian roulette wheel with another SLI.

Given past history I’m sure SWAPA pilots will be just fine :rolleyes:

GMAFB

[QUOTE=WHACKMASTER;2940556]Given past history I’m sure SWAPA pilots will be just fine :rolleyes:

I agree.

LOL.... Seriously?

Inserting 100% of the pilots from another group, whilst only keeping a small percent of their former airframes, was a GREAT deal for the SW folks?

Both pilot groups voted to ratify that SLI, and within a couple of tenths of a percent of each other (around 85% IIRC) too.

You'd seriously want to roll the SLI dice again?

The only upside with either JB or Spirit, is that there's far less chance of having a bunch of scabs inserted in front of us on the list than last time. ;)

Because stapling the Morris Air pilots must’ve been so detrimental to SWAPA pilots careers, huh?

Or the last go around when SWAPA got together with SWA management to orchestrate a plan that ended up stapling 60% of the acquired FOs, gained an average of 8% relative seniority (with the other side losing 22% on average), and successfully “captured” all of the acquired pilots’ captain seats?

Yes, we’d better hope that our management doesn’t go shopping again. Oh.....the arrogance is just plain astounding.

Spirit guy here ... I profoundly respect WN, multiple friends over there, and always enjoy hitching a ride with you guys. It’s a legendary company. I’m a line holding Captain, in the base I want, I drive to work , I hold 4 days off between trips without having down (and get what I want), I’m 40% seniority of the ENTIRE company, and I’ve only been here 6 year. And without much hard work made 240k this year. I’m a product of the lost decade, it’s taken me 20 years to truly be happy with where I finally am. An acquisition would
Probably come with a multi year fence that would protect everyone’s spot in the short term , but after a fence came down I’d be extremely afraid of what my life would look like . Junior OAK CA? Middle of the pack DAL DAL FO ? Who knows . The bump n pay and profit sharing would be nice , but I’m content with spirit doing its own thing organically . Nobody asks me. And that’s ok , just my 2 cents.

Not a scab. In fact, I struck for almost three months at a previous carrier. AT had less of a percentage of scabs at the time of the SWA merger than CAL did but yet we took more flack for it. Believe me, their past actions disgust me just as much as they disgust you but out of 1737 pilots, we had 25-50ish scabs.

And yes, even with the loss of 88 B717s SWAPA pilots made out like bandits. They “captured” all the Cptn seats, stapled over half the FOs and gained relative seniority. Hell, the first AT pilot wasn’t inserted in until 1,500 pilots down the list.

Oh, and let’s not forget the aircraft orders that we had on the books for 50 NGs all at a time when SWA had zero orders and zero growth and yet SWA FOs had the delusional audacity to claim that their upgrade was somehow stagnated because of the deal?! Are you kidding me?

Go ahead. Your turn. I’ll be here to keep setting the record straight.

LOL.......

Do you seriously think a staple will ever happen again?

And yet, like every other contractual item around here, a baffling 85-88% of both lists voted to ratify it.

Personally, I have a lot of heartburn with what TW and co. came up with the second time around, which is why I voted no. The only SW folks that really made out in this whole thing were the folks who were fortunate enough to be around TW's seniority, and were able to upgrade on the backs of the AT guys.

My point exactly. ;)

It's arrogance to not want to chance losing seniority again with another SLI?

I would think that you'd be more gun shy about the whole idea, given your incessant complaining about how you got screwed in the last SLI, but I've given up trying to figure out this pilot group. :rolleyes:

What record? You're just proving my point. ;)

All justifiable concerns.

Let's hope, for all of our sake, that management doesn't go back to the acquisition trough again.

I agree but...we need a plan...max out till forever at this rate, 5 years for new fleet type? I mean to me a acquisition makes the most sense by GK hasn’t called to ask my opinion yet.

There has to be talked about what comes after the 737 too cOs after the max idk if it’s a line worth continueibg maybe make a composite but call it something else

Not that either of us, (other than the eventual yes or no vote), will have any say in the matter, but IMHO, in the long run, we're better off weathering the Max nonsense like we have been than we are dealing with an SLI.

The more junior you are, the worse off you're likely to be. At best, you're likely to gain nothing.

Both suck, but ask Whack and the Angry 80's how well they did last time around. :eek: I'm betting that their answers are eerily similar.

Maybe we'll use realistic pay rate comparisons to our peers in 2020, now that many of us are stuck flying the guarantee.

Again, all stuff way beyond our pay grade, but wishing for a merger is akin to wishing that you'll shoot yourself in the foot.

Foot? I’d say head. No merger please baby Jesus.

We should always make same as peers regardless of ability to pick up, picking up at lower rate only helps company, so many ppl I talk to their mentality is we can make more than other places by working more

You do understand that maintaining all that nice extra stuff would cause a logistical headache because a tiny minority of aircraft would have had the nice stuff? And SWA would never spend a nickel to upgrade a huge number of aircraft for convenience.

True. Not that it matters now but they never should have dumbed down the fleet in the first place.


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Hahahahaha. You sound like the kind of guy would claim we make more because we can work more.

Riiiiiiiiiight. Take the integrated window shades out of the fleet of 53 because they only represent 11% of the combined fleet.

Tell that to 84% of your co workers. They seem quite content with industry lagging pay rates among other things. ;)

No, you make more because Southwest acquired you. If you are not happy with that I am sure Uncle Gary will be glad to put you back on the AT pay scale.

We’ll see how you feel when you’re stripped of so much seniority that you lose your JBA Cptn’s seat and subsequently take a pay cut. Oh, and if they try to put ALL of your pilots on probation once they crossover (like they tried with us).

If they had, we would likely have the pleasure of not working with you.

The pleasure’s all mine :D

Actually there would be one. Vote with your feet....