How is he going to pay for his new boat and airpark house to annoy his FO with pictures of then? Nothing says you gotta publish the exact percentages.

Sure, 99% would be nice. But all you need is 50% +1 to start running the campaign and pushing the bookaway effect. It’s also a notification to the mediator that we are ready for self-help should be decide to release us. If this past week has taught us anything, it’s that even if we did strike and 40% scabbed off the bat, the subsequent meltdown would be catastrophic and would quickly bring the company to the table.

Past two guys I flew with were utterly clueless regarding the RLA and the status of negotiations. Both were more concerned about the possibility of a recession coming than they were about obtaining an industry-leading contract.

But they were wearing lanyards!

I’d say a little less than half the guys I’ve flown with in the last several months have been in the mostly clueless category. We’ve got a long ways to go in terms of education.

I do agree that a 51%+ SAV gives us quite a bit of leverage, but it would certainly be better with a higher percentage vote. The way I look at is the first 51% of the vote gives us something like 80% of the leverage we could get out of a SAV. The next 49% of the vote would give us another 20% leverage.

With SWAPA’s megaphone, if they wanted to, and if they learned how to innovatively communicate to the legions of checked-out koolies and ostriches, then we could win many of them over.

The barometer for where we stand with respect to a SAV and our readiness to pose the credible threat of a strike should not be how many lanyards the MCO BOD rep sees on our guys when he’s out in the system. IMO, the lanyard means almost nothing.

The barometer should be based on polling around those issues. Or maybe if the lanyard said something like, “I’M READY TO STRIKE!”, it might mean something.

Spot on. As usual. But at this point I'd like SNAPA to go to the company and explain to them privately how they're going to pile on as hard as possible in the media if the company wants to still play games. Even if 49 percent of the kernals aren't ready to be hard. We don't need them to play this card. Look at all the media attention SNAPA got in the last few days. They could EASILY and PUBLICLY throw out the concept of strike and bring GK to heel. This is a game of brinkmanship and the events of the last week have offered a golden opportunity. TAKE IT! Or continue down the road of milquetoast and 150 open grievances. (Not directed at you Lew.)

Anything less than a high 90s percentile in both participation & YES vote would be weak historically speaking. That said, I think that’s going to be a tough goal to reach given what pilot group we’re dealing with.

It will be interesting to see a SAV. I have to think that SWA is anticipating this and has a plan for it. Especially after Delta and Alaska. I also get the feeling that we believe this is the magic bullet. I think the truth will be somewhere in between. If we issue a SAV, we shouldn’t be surprised if it has less affect than we’re hyping it. Maybe I’m wrong, maybe a SAV will be the card that wins the game but I guarantee they’ve war gamed that scenario and already have a response and plan in place. Their response won’t be reactionary to a SAV, they’ll just play whatever card they have ready for that scenario. I don’t have a good gauge on where we’d fall on that but if we think it’s going to be a 60/40 SAV, we should hold onto that card IMO because the threat of the vote would carry more weight than the vote itself if it has weak support.

The GO is almost completely detached from the front line employees. Winter storms and fog in San Diego happen every year but they didn’t have an adequate plan for that. The C suite did major damage to the brand with this meltdown debacle and no one is buying “it’s the storms fault” argument.

The value in a SAV will be the words “strike” and “Southwest” together on the news and the general public won’t give a lick about the vote percentage. They will book away as they are already doing.

This group is still too apathetic. Flew with a senior FO this week, passing on upgrade for QOL, absolutely nothing wrong with that. Only once the parking brake was set on the last day did he ask why SWAPA/Reps are so angry with the kompany.
I tried to convey he needed to be a little more engaged with the real world. But, the fact that that is when he asked the question made me question whether he really wanted an answer. I didn't think anything i said would move the needle so I didn't put too much energy into it. And I wanted to go home so it wasn't worth my time.

Maybe. Better pray for a slow news cycle. I’m not knocking the effort but I am trying to be realistic. UAL ran a plane off the runway a few years ago and it was on every channel for about 5 mins. Right up to when Michael Jackson died and you never heard about it again. I just have very little faith in the attention span of the media or it’s viewers. Our SAV could take back page behind the funnies to a new TikTok dance in the world we live in.

This first sentence says it all. BJ sees no problem, do not forget he loves you . He says says so in every writing .

I always say, “PT Barnum was right.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There'...n_every_minute