The primary “justification” for demanding what may be viewed as “greedy” pay rates or “greedy” anything else is whether or not the SWA pilot employment market will support it.

Is SWA willing to pay X for its pilots? Is SWA willing to pay Y for its fuel? If the price of fuel increases by 55% does SWA stop paying for it? At what percentage price increase does SWA stop paying for fuel or stop buying as much fuel?

What happens to SWA’s operation if it becomes unwilling to pay the market price for fuel? What happens to SWA’s operation if it becomes unwilling to pay the market price for pilots?

SWA pilots could resolve to not agree to 12-year captain pay rates less than, for example, $600 per TFP. How would SWA respond to that?

Would they decide to try to simply drag mediation out for years at SWA’s currently uncompetitive (and becoming more so) compensation structure? What happens to pilot morale and pilot hiring and retention as that progresses? When does that begin to have a material impact on SWA’s operation?

What would happen to SWA’s operation after an impasse is finally declared in our dispute if management continued to refuse to agree to our contractual demands? Would passengers begin booking away from SWA during the cooling off period? If SWA refused to accede to our demands prior to the expiration of the status quo period, how confident are SWA’s managers that SWA would be be able to survive a legal strike?

Would SWA have begun trying to train scabs in anticipation of an impasse being declared? Would SWA be able to find enough scabs when airline pilot jobs are readily available and when other airlines pay substantially more than SWA and the scabs would then forever after have to deal with the scab moniker hung around their necks?

All of the above are factors in determining whether or not the SWA pilot hiring market will support “greedy” pay rates and a “greedy” overall total contractual value.

But, let’s be honest, the single most critical factor and the likely point of failure is whether or not pilots would have the resolve to stick to their guns and not capitulate out of fear, uncertainty, and doubt to a contractual value less than what the market will support before the process plays out.

Don’t be knocking those breakfast burritos! 😉

Of course they do.

Im just pointing out what risks we, as WN pilots take many times a day/week. We fly more legs than most. Thats not secret. Taking off and landing is inherently more risk inclusive than cruise. Therefore, more legs is more risk.
**** regionals do more legs than WN into crappier airports, no doubt. When I did 135 I took more risks going into nasty airports at 3 am with zero snow removal etc, hoping the book numbers would work.

I still think we should be paid alot.

Great post….thank you. The company will certainly be banking on your last paragraph.

There is literally no additional skill needed to fly a bigger Boeing. I taught guys that flew King Airs to fly 747s and they already had the skills, I just need to show them how it applied to this 4 eng plane. In fact, the 777 is easier to fly than the 737.

hahhahhhaaahahahhhahahahahahahahhhhaaaaaaa. Ignorant statement.

Exactly. AA had the PERFECT opportunity to incorporate all of the wholly owned Eagle pilots onto their list when they all became APA in the early 90's.

Instead, the mainline APA folks sold them out with a crummy contract, after a 90%+ (can't recall the exact number) strike vote. The Eagle folks went to ALPA not long after that, and I don't blame them.

The rest of the dominoes fell after that, and here we are.

Super quality rebuttal. Thanks.

Pay is proportionate to revenue generated. While you may not consider SWA flying risky, it really doesn’t matter. SWA pilots generate as much revenue for the company, by flying more block hours per day, carrying as many, if not more, cumulative passengers per day, than a wide pilot pilot flying one leg across the ocean. Pay should be commensurate with revenue generated for the work performed, not necessarily the risk involved.

"Should" is irrelevant. On-the-job risk (and comfort, ease of work, and schedules) all factor into market-based pay scales.

Other than regionals, we're not exactly market based due to the seniority system. Fundamentally revenue is the primary factor which determines how much we *could* get paid, since airlines obviously can't operate at a loss for long. It's up to us to leverage the union system to our max benefit.

But you may be seriously underestimating how much revenue a widebody can generate... lots of premium seats on those. My swag would be that a legacy widebody pilot generates at least as much revenue on one international flight as a guppy pilot does in a multi-leg day. A widebody pilot working for FDX/UPS most certainly does, whole different league there.