Lewbronski

Look, I didn’t just make that story up. The guy ran a small business that prepped people specifically for the SWA hiring process. That was his assessment. Not mine.

I can’t really say it better than SlipKid and Crockrocket. It’s the greatest airline pilot hiring boom in history right now.

Cyio

So you all are calling everyone hired here since the “aughts” is less than desirable to the other three majors?

Not only is that insulting to all the great pilots we have both from the civilian and military but also is is ignorant of the fact that “most” pilots are competitive, especially before COVID.

Sure there are some that slip through the cracks or have some history on the record but to assume WN specializes in hiring them is dumb.

We can all agree to disagree on this one.

e6bpilot

I think prior to 9-11, Lew's friends' assessment was very true. This was truly a bottom feeder, just happy to be here type of job. The guys that got hired were generally guys who were either transitioning to something bigger, were Texas locals who weren't ever leaving, or had some sort of black stain and couldn't get hired anywhere else.

Those guys hit the freaking lottery by being here, pulled the ladder up with things like stock options in lieu of raises and B scales, and have been an anchor holding this pilot group down since the 90s.

Look at SWAPAs dirty history sometime. Not the sanitized "FS" version on the podcast (don't even get me started on that clown), but the actual no fluff history of this pilot "union" over the last 50 years. It's an abuse cycle of taking less to help the company out due to the magic spell that Herb was able to cast, selling out junior pilots (still do it to this day, look at the early FO pay scales), and senior union officials who were looking for the golden ring GO job. Every time someone pines for those days it makes me want to vomit. Herb was a master manipulator. Gary Kelly may have been a complete d wad, but at least he opened a lot of eyes to the fact that we, as Southwest pilots, have basically been cuckolded by SWAPA and SWA for the last 5 decades. There have been a few disruptors over the ages like Weeks, but until recently, this union has been complicit in stealing from you and me and our families.

I think those days are over, but the scar that is left is deep and will take a lot of time to heal. Look at our disability benefits. Look at our reserve rules. Look at JA. Look at the year 1-5 FO B scale. Those are 4 examples that blow my mind. There are probably a hundred that I could think of given a few minutes.

So yeah. This place has a history of hiring based on a certain psychological profile.
"Just happy to be here"
"This is a great retirement job"
"Don't tell Herb, but I would do this job for free"

It certainly isn't that way any more, but it's heading back in that direction the longer this contract goes. We absolutely cannot wait until the next contract to fix any of these things. We have more leverage right now than during any time in the history of pilot negotiations at this company. Fix it now or it isn't going to get fixed.

Mozam

Baba Black Sheep was one of my favorite shows as a kid

SlipKid

No, it's been going on since the 70's and certainly not everyone. Lots of folks that had a choice, chose to come here over the years. Many continue to do so, even in this environment.

I am not insulted.

I only have a 2 year degree. I'm (still) about a semester and a half from finishing my BS, and had planned on finishing up the 4 years. Flying jobs/life got in the way, and SW hired me in the mid 90's when others wouldn't even interview me.

Long story, but back in the late 90s, after i'd been here a few years, a friend of my dad's, (who was an ex Pan Amer, like my dad), who worked in the hiring dept at DAL, actually called me and asked me to apply. After some back of the napkin math, I decided it'd be worth applying, and see what happened.

Before submitting to the torture of updating my logs etc for the app, I took a look at their hiring requirements.

I exceeded every single one by a large margin, except the college.

I called my dad's friend and asked if it would be an issue, and his response was "I haven't seen anyone's app cross my desk with anywhere near your quals in over a year, so I can't imagine that they wouldn't overlook that". He inquired and he called me back a few minutes later, and told me that they wouldn't waive the degree, in spite of my other quals: 10k hours, mostly 121 time, 5 types etc.

In my case, it turned out to be a blessing, kind of, because I might've jumped ship from here for DAL in the late 90's and most assuredly been furloughed for at least part of the lost decade.

That said, had I been afforded the opportunity and gone to DAL at the time, even with a multi year furlough, I'd be light years ahead, financially, than I am now.

If only we had a crystal ball......

Lewbronski

Never did I say “everyone.” I was simply passing on what the guy reported. Like I said, his account was that SWA likes to hire a certain type. I didn’t say, and he didn’t say, that they always hire, or that everyone they hire, is that type.

I’d like to think I was one of the exceptions when I was hired twenty-ish years ago. But after hearing his story, it gave me pause to wonder what it was the hiring committee might have seen in me.

He was a well-known “pro-pilot” guy whose side-job for years was prepping people to get hired by SWA. Like I said, he took VSP. But he probably had a better sense for who got hired and why people did or didn’t get hired than most people do.

A lot has changed in the last few years since he has been out of the loop - global hiring demand has definitely changed. OTOH, the company is still trying to maintain the culty “luv” and “nutz” DNA - we’re all one big happy warrior family willing to do more and get paid less so that we can bring home the profit sharing.- that won the day back in the 90’s.

SlipKid

LOL... I've always wondered the same thing! I must've fooled them.... Or they knew I wasn't gonna get hired anywhere else until I finished my degree.....

That said, when I got hired, it was the beginning of a big hiring surge after around 5 years of nearly complete stagnation. WN and a few other LCCs were hiring, but none of the big guys were hiring very many. The running joke was you needed to have commanded a few shuttle missions to even get an interview at Delta.

He is a sharp guy, and while he (like another of our VSP guys) was too smart to do so, I always encouraged him to run for a union position.

Like you're experiencing now, he took amazing amounts of guff from the koolies over the years, when, ironically, he was almost 100% correct in his attempts to (unsuccessfully) save this pilot group from itself.

I miss having him around. He pops into the "P" forum very occasionally.

Pinchacabron

lew, I’ve agreed with a lot of what you said about the RLA, but you’ve lost me as an advocate here. Your stance on hiring is so off base that now I begin to question everything else you said. I’ve never understood the constant push by the left to dissuade people from coming here, but even is our current contractual climate, we have to grow. I know the argument can be made that we can’t hold leverage if the company can grow but that is ridiculous. The company will keep growing abusing who is here to make it happen, we need people through the door even through the SAV. We need to show the company that as a pilot group WE are brining in pilots not them. How, I don’t know…. But to say that those hired and staying are “the least of these” is an absolute A-hole statement…..

The biggest push should be for the Trannies and Mid-seniority captains to bale… that will show the company….. lead by example and not by accusing the new hires of being “non-employable” by anyone else

flyguy81

8 yrs ago you had to have been Military, a RJ CKA, or really lucky if you didn’t have the type. Avg flight time in my class was around 7-8k hrs with RJ guys well over 9-10k.

Big 3 and FedEx/UPS were being picky. After years of not hiring many, there was simply too many well/over qualified people to choose from.

And now…everyone has lowered their minimums because the people above are out of the job market. So we’ve got Military, those well qualified who are re-entering the market, and low time RJ pilots.

Nobody can afford to pass on qualified pilots because if they do, someone else will snatch them up and they’ll be gone forever. The only way you don’t get the job here is: if you lie or mislead yourself, don’t interview well (no clue what may have thrown a flag), or you ****ed off someone here in a previous life and they wrote a letter to their CP saying not to hire you.

Have a good “feel-good” story for “Why SWA”, be nice, show some manners, have a sense of humor, and keep a nice logbook and you’ll be fine.

MudhammedCJ

Not that I don't demand huge increases across the board here, but....? Here's an example of Delta's A319 rate vs ours (% of captain pay that FO gets paid):
Year 1 = 35% / 35%
Year 2 = 52% / 50%
Year 3 = 61% / 55%
Year 4 = 62% / 60%
Year 5 = 62% /65%

Theirs tops out at 65% and ours at 70%.

Aside from their ability to move to a different fleet/seat (which is true but utterly besides the point), our year 1-5 FO as a percentage of captain is almost the same as theirs and is better by year 5. I never understood why people make this argument. There is no B scale here. Not when comparing to the other companies. The whole group is wildly underpaid, but it's not lopsided to favor year 6+. Let the corporation worry about fixing the first few years in order to try to hire and retain pilots. The reality is most everyone here will spend many more years as a senior FO and topped out captain. Do you want to put away generational wealth? Or buy a few more 12 packs of bud light in the first few years?
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