Originally Posted by ZapBrannigan

I've been giving this thread a lot of thought since it started. I've worked for other major airlines (albeit in the late 90s/early 00s before consolidation) and other LCCs so I feel like I can speak to the comparisons between WN and at least some other models in the industry. So I thought I would write down a few of the areas that I think might be of interest to pilots that would speak to whether SW is really that bad.

Words...

I hope that answers some of your questions.

Originally Posted by e6bpilot

This post is gold. This is the answer.

Originally Posted by ZapBrannigan

I've been giving this thread a lot of thought since it started. I've worked for other major airlines (albeit in the late 90s/early 00s before consolidation) and other LCCs so I feel like I can speak to the comparisons between WN and at least some other models in the industry. So I thought I would write down a few of the areas that I think might be of interest to pilots that would speak to whether SW is really that bad.

Training:
Lets start with training since that is really the first thing that you'll see. The training center is absolutely spectacular - the Taj Mahal of training centers. You will undoubtedly be impressed by the facilities. (Sidebar - Gordan Bethune wrote in "Worst to First" that you should never spend money on something that your customers will never see, and they clearly didn't follow his advice. The training center and the NOC are world class.) That said, the training itself has some opportunities. I could be mistaken but I believe we are the last major airline that has yet to transition to AQP for initial and upgrade. Hopefully that will improve the training product. Simulator instruction is good. Classroom seems a little haphazard and there is a considerable amount of "choose your own adventure" or do it yourself training. That said, it seems like they're more than willing to invest additional training in newhires who might need it.

The Product:
WN doesn't offer TVs in the back of the seats or blue corn chips. They don't have first class or business class or clubs. What they are well known for is the friendliest flight attendants in the business. I think that, while we do have some amazing flight attendants, like any large group the unhappy contingent of their group is beginning to outnumber the happy, and the customer service is not what it once was. They often think they're being funny on the PA, when (my opinion only) they're actually being a little snarky, and harassing the customer into the behavior they want. The idea was that WN is less of a stuffy atmosphere than other airlines, but what it has become is more of the Walmart or Target of air travel. Its adequate. It'll get you where you're going. But its not an enjoyable experience, and its certainly not an aspirational brand like Delta or JetBlue.

Ground Staff:
Ramp is interminably understaffed. They try to do everything with 3 ramp agents. They park the airplane, hook up the power and air, bring strollers up to the jetway, then unload and reload the airplane, unplug the power and air... honestly they could use another 2 or 3 people per turn to try and help. On the plus side though, compared to virtually every other airline where I've worked, I very RARELY have to wait for ground crew to park us or for a jetway driver.

WN is the only airline (I am aware of) that uses an operations agent in lue of customer service at the gate. Most airlines have load planners or the like. But the customer can't distinguish between someone in uniform at the podium and someone in uniform at the gate, so they frequently dismiss customers, sending them to the counter. This is another area where the cacophony of PA announcements pushes the boundary of professionalism and sometimes leans into being offensive (when they are trying to be sarcastically funny). As the airline modernizes I would guess this position will end up going away, but for now they are the gatekeeper to the cabin.... which brings us to travel.

Travel:
Because there is no premium cabin, SWA is very protective of the exit row seats and the first row. Which means that unlike other airlines, where nonrevs and jumpseaters are often offered those premium seats (why wouldn't you want someone trained to evacuate airplanes in the exit row after all?) they are pretty much off limits to nonrevs. Jumpseaters and deadhead crewmembers are, however, offered the opportunity to preboard which means that, unless you're running late or scheduling didn't give you enough time to connect, you'll most often be able to choose a window or aisle.

Since we do not have a premium cabin with which to reciprocate, we do not have the ability to book a premium cabin when utilizing our ID90 or Zed fares on other airlines. Thats unfortunate on international travel and leads the spouse Facebook groups to start thread after thread about what little gifts and tchotchkes to give to those OAL flight attendants in the hope that they'll be upgraded.

WN is a big airline, but since it lacks a regional partner, the network is somewhat limited. This is a GOOD thing for our profession (only SWA pilots flying airplanes with SWA painted on the side), but its a bad thing if your travel plans call for going to smaller towns where SWA doesn't offer service... like Burlington, VT or Knoxville, TN, or Daytona Beach, FL, or Greensboro, NC... the list goes on and on. As a result if I'm nonreving I tend to use ID90s on other airlines a whole lot more than traveling on my own. The company throws "SWAG points" at us fairly frequently. (Think Schrute Bucks) and these can be used by converting them to frequent flier points and then cashed in for space positive travel. That's fairly useful for family vacations provided you want to go someplace we fly.

Culture:
There is no discernable difference in the culture inside the airplane between WN and any other airline. We have the same conversations. ("Work.. work.. work.. contract.. hotels..") We have similar backgrounds. If you go down to the hotel restaurant the captain is likely to buy you a drink or a meal. That's the same everywhere. There IS a sense of exceptionalism here, but its not based in reality. We are no better or worse 737 "experts" than any other airline in the United States that operates the type.

Pay:
At many of the other airlines where I've worked, you are capped - typically at about 85 hours per month as required by the CBA. If you happened to go over that limit due to weather or reroutes or something, the extra pay would go into a kind of negative bank which you could then draw from when it got big enough, to be able to drop a trip and still get paid for it. There is nothing like that at WN. You can fly right up to the FAR limits, which is both good and bad. It has bred a culture of pay above all else. This is where the comparisons you always see on APC come from where somebody whips out their W2 and shows you that they made as much as a Delta A350 Captain. What they don't mention is that they work a LOT more to make it happen - whether that work happens in the airplane, or in front of the computer, moving flying around to create gaps where they can bid premium opportunities as they become available. Its great when the washing machine dies or you need to replace a car because you can bust your butt for a month or two and pay for it though. I hated it when I got here... but now that i've been here for a while I see the benefits and take advantage of it when necessary. Everybody has a certain pay total they shoot for - I'm kind of a 105-115 per month person, which usually means picking up an extra day or two, or hoping for a reroute.

Scheduling:
Reserve rules are terrible. Reserve pay is great. There is no short call or long call reserve. You're unlikely to be released earlier than the CBA allows on the last day. There's no real trip ownership or proffering of trips. But on the other hand, we are paid per DAY of reserve.

At most other airlines, there's a reserve guarantee per month. Which means that if you bust your rear for the first 3 weeks of the month, and hit guarantee, and then scheduling parks you and you don't get used for your last 4 reserve days of the month, then you are essentially sitting for free on those days.

At WN, if you bust your rear for the first 3 weeks of the month, and then scheduling doesn't use you for those last four days, you'll still get 24 TFP for those last four days. (6 per day) So reserve CAN be pretty lucrative if they're using you a lot.

Once you have a line, there is a lot of flexibility to move your schedule around and trade with the company or trade with other pilots. Can even pick up flying in other domiciles if you want. What there is NOT any flexibility for is the ability to REDUCE the amount of flying you do. We do not have a mechanism to drop trips, regardless of staffing, outside of a sick or fatigue call.

Trips range from 1-4 days and you could be junior manned into additional days. The days typically range from 2-4 legs, but there are outliers on both ends with more less. Unfortunately there's not much language to protect us from reroute or junior manning, so you might show up to the airport thinking you're going to do what you bid for and be told you're doing something completely different, which makes it feel like you're always on reserve. That said, chaos pays and those reroutes are typically lucrative. JAs - junior assigned - are the exception. Somehow the computer always figures out how to use you for an extra day and only pay you for the min rig for that day. Frustrating to lose a day off for so little financial reward.

I'm so tired
You'll always be tired. The more I think about this, the more I think it stems from the whole AM/PM division of the company. They are trying to increase the amount of flying they do, so they add flying in the shoulder periods. Since our trips are either ALL AM or ALL PM, you end up hitting several of those early AMs or late PMs every trip. There aren't too many of those days when you can sleep in for a few hours and work bankers hours on day 2 of a trip. There aren't too many commutable trips where you start late and finish early either. As a result, as the lines have become more dense and operate more frequently in the shoulder periods, you can't help but to be exhausted. It takes a day or so after getting home from a trip to recover, and then its almost time to pack up and go do it again. They say they know we are tired, but I don't see much of an appetite on their part to change it. Which brings us to sick and fatigue...

Sick, Fatigue, or Commuter Policy
This airline has THE BEST sick, fatigue, and commuter policy I've ever seen, bar none. You will NEVER* get a phone call about a sick call, fatigue, or failure to commute. On fatigue calls they might ask you to fill out a report explaining what happened, but you're not required to. (Chiefs may call after subsequent sick calls just to check and make sure you're ok and don't need anything). Its one of the best things about this place.

Vacation
Since WN still uses line bidding, even the most junior pilot on property can easily turn one week of vacation into 3 weeks. Any trip or reserve block that touches vacation drops. So if you have a four day reserve block that touches your vacation week on the front end, AND the back end of your vacation week, those will drop and you'll be left with 3 weeks off. If you're a lineholder and do the same, you'll be paid for some or all of the trips that drop - and there are 3rd party tools to help you bid for that. Its not unusual for lineholders to have very high paying vacation months where they barely ever work. Reserves can still get the time off, but they'll be left with a much lower paying month. Still, this is one of the best things about SWA when compared to some of the PBS bidding airlines where I've worked.

The Union
SWAPA has been getting better every year that I've been here. As the company has become more adversarial, the union has ratcheted up pressure as well. Contract admin is absolutely awesome for helping to fix pay discrepancies. At the other airlines where I've worked the senior were favored over the junior to an extraordinary degree. ALPA's motto seemed to be "I've got mine, screw you" as the senior pulled up the ladder. I don't get that from SWAPA much at all (years 1-5 pay notwithstanding). They actually make an effort to improve the QOL for the junior as much as the senior, and they're constantly polling to take the pulse of the pilot group.

Hotels
Hotels here are as good, if not better, than any other airline where i've worked. There are a few outliers in podunk Texas towns and, bizarrely Portland, Oregon and Sacramento... but for the most part they're pretty good. What is NOT good is that we don't have any significant hotel language in the current CBA. So, unlike other places where i've worked, if we have multiple hotels in a city, there's no way during the monthly bidding cycle to know which hotel you'll end up with. So maybe you bid a line that has a sweet 21 hour overnight in New York City, and you think you'll be at the downtown hotel and have plans to bring your wife to the big city for a night of romance on the company's dime... you might find yourself at the Marriott LaGuardia airport for 21 hours instead. Its maddening that they can't give us that information prior to bidding.

Many of the hotels they pick are in industrial parks or business parks - which is equally maddening because, unless you love spending money on Uber or Door Dash, you're pretty much stuck eating every meal at the hotel restaurant. Unlike other airlines where there are long and short overnight hotels - we have no language that requires that. To be fair though we do have some amazing hotels in downtown locations or tourist areas... but without CBA language they could go away at the drop of a hat.

Things I Didn't Think To Ask About
I'll finish up with a few things that I had at other airlines that I assumed were industry standard they don't have at WN.

• No paid employee parking (*Company recently said that's coming soon, but wouldn't expect it before a new CBA is signed)
• No paid uniform or uniform maintenance
• No crew meals (except on international flights) Sometimes getting food, like before a particularly early AM show, or after a late PM show, can be a challenge. So people tend to carry big coolers of food like a Sherpa mounting an expedition to Everest or something. It's a real problem.
• No mobile friendly bidding or scheduling application (There are 3rd party apps for bidding that you can buy)
  

The bottom line
So is WN as bad as everybody says it is? Well, yes and no. It's not a legacy airline and it doesn't offer a legacy airline CBA. The contract lacks maturity and doesn't offer many of the quality of life provisions that legacy unions have been able to obtain over many negotiating cycles in good times and in bad. But the pay checks cash every couple of weeks and they've occasionally been pretty good.

In the post 9/11 world most people came to SWA for what, up until recently was unparalleled job security.

Those of us who spent the lost decade bouncing around, getting furloughed and starting over, came here looking for stability. We were willing to accept those areas where WN lagged our peers in exchange for that security. Now that they've sent warn notices, that is no longer the case. So is it a good place to work? Sure, absolutely. It's as good or better than all but one or two of the other airlines where I've worked. But if I were under 40 years old, I would probably be applying at Delta, United, and maybe American for a more interesting career under a more comprehensive CBA.

That said, if you end up here and either don't want to move on, or can't move on for some reason, there are far worse places to be. (Provided you live in base)

I hope that answers some of your questions.

Originally Posted by ak68W

I feel like on average we need about a 50% pay raise to catch up and be competitive in pay with the legacies.

Originally Posted by Lewbronski

50%? Why? What makes you “feel” that way?

Originally Posted by Lewbronski

50%? Why? What makes you “feel” that way?

Originally Posted by ak68W;[url=tel:3641912

3641912[/url]]Because 30% life of contract, (what most airlines seem to be settling for) is not gonna be enough imo. 2-3$ per trip above what OAL’s have settled for will not be enough. 50% DOS, is about the min I’m willing to accept.