Grease5667

I have to disagree slightly....we had astounding unity considering where we were with the “Old SWAPA” prior to the pickets and latest administration. For the last few years, the biggest faction of the group that could be considered “kool-aid” leaning was the newer hires. They were “on boarded” during Indoc with fairy tales and dreams of sugar plums. Now, the company has (in my opinion) ****ed them off in irreparable fashion. They just created a lot more no voters by making yet another huge tactical blunder. As for the picking up during the pickets....yeah, there will always be greedy a-holes with no compass. My guess is things will be slightly different if these guys hit the street.

at6d

Just to place a point—I was hired in 2015 and the majority of my non-military (as in full time service folks) classmates were very sharp in terms of airline management and contract issues. Most of us were Lost Decade types with many having been on the furlough end before.

dash8driver

Many of us new hires on the Deans List came from the regionals. My second regional we negotiated a contract for 8 years. Been there, done that, voted yes on the strike vote and told them where to shove their last, best, final offer. While it’s a far better place, it’s mostly because of the pay and the schedule flexibility. We don’t fly wide bodies, we don’t (for the most part) do international. The one thing SWA did have going for it was the fact that we had never furloughed. Am I disappointed to find SWA is just like every other airline? Yes. Surprised? No. Even if it is just posturing for Congress, I resent being used as a pawn especially just before Christmas. We won’t forget this.

Zard

It didn't take long to figure out this is a job, no more, no less. The company doesn't do me favors, and I don't do anything other than fly the jet.

I will not expend an extra ounce of sweat for SWA for the next three decades. #notmyjob will be my new favorite motto.

They have the kulture they earned.

flensr

There's a pretty broad hazy gray line between "likes to fly" and "selfish bastard". SWA has been intentionally selectively hiring pilots who want to fly, the more the better. On top of that, it's been part of the cultural koolaid since day one. Come fly for the scrappy startup airline, we'll make it easy to work overtime so you'll make more than the legacies if you keep coming to work! If you show pretty much any inclination towards that mindset in the interview, it's a pretty solid indicator for a "good fit" here.

Telling 10,000 people who were hired on the basis of really wanting to come to work to fly that they're selfish bastards for doing their thing is kind of a non-starter. There are a handful who really twist the system around in some seriously anti-social ways to game the system and screw over their fellow pilots (trip parking, bidding out of base then calling in sick, etc) and yea THOSE guys deserve their special place in hell when they die of boredom the day after they retire, but the rest of us... well, we were hired to fly and we like doing it, otherwise we wouldn't be here. So calling the entire pilot group selfish bastards for doing what we were hired to do is kind of dumb.

Everyone has their own threshold of pain, their own line in the sand as to what they're willing to do to get an extra TFP every month. My personal line is I won't steal from another pilot by gaming the system, which means I refuse to trip park and I won't bid with the intent to sick out. And I don't set up auto-bids that let me do those things while pretending it's not my fault I stole a line from a junior FO then sicked out because autobid forced me to!!!!111one. I've got nothing for those people, and I've got my own list of people who out-bid me from another base then sicked out of the trip because I really don't want to be around the handful of guys who do that. But everyone else... I can't really hold it against someone who habitually bids to sweeten up their line a bit.

I've had some really low months recently, well below min guarantee in Nov and Dec. So I padded a bit over for the last few months. There's another guy here who works his butt off, really puts in the time to research the payoff and bid for max return on his time, and he's getting a solid 50-60% over min guarantee every month without stealing from anyone. He just puts in the work and it's kind of silly to tell him to stop. We're going to need guys like him around when the recovery happens.

If someone chooses on their own to pull in their fangs a bit and take it easy for a while, that's cool. But at the same time while I track who steals money from me by gaming the rules, I'm also not worrying about every guy who merely picks up an extra trip either. Because at one point or another, that's just about all of us and we're here BECAUSE flying is what we DO.

hoover

Why bid out of base for the intention of calling in sick? Because that's the only trip in open time or is there's a more nefarious issue?

Tenacvols

If he/she is out of domicile, how did they out bid you?

hoover

Exactly. There is no way an out of base guy gets it over in base in any situation. So how is this gaming the rules?

Crockrocket95

Possibly over/under the cap. But yeah.

barabek

Yes, they can bit straight on a crappy unrigged trip out of base while everyone in base bids premium. Maybe not that common nowadays, but easy to imagine before covid. 8 TFP 2 day (or something equally heinous) that fits your schedule and you don't even consider flying is, well, 8 TFP in your pocket while you're home.