I think you’ll see AUS based on convos I’ve had with gal that runs the coffee bar at the training center. I also think you’ll also see another Midwest base sooner than later too. That one is based on common sense.

 

When you have an APL of 2.85, yes it does. That’s the crust of it. The higher number of RON’s gives the ability to stay in the 2.85. They could forgo a new base all together but that would cause more DH’s and rig trips. No APL would lead to the majority of the pairings being four days if the CBA didn’t have guard rails. The changes that the company has made to the network really put wrench in how pairings are built efficiently for a p2p network. Whatever base they pick will likely have a very high number of locals living there already.

 

^ this right here….

 

I used to joke about every month people saying the lines are the worst they have ever seen and how that is quite impossible, but now I am pretty sure they actually are. When we used to look at the lines in the bid sort program, it brought us joy and soothing feelings as they had symmetry and harmony. Now it looks like a 3 year old took a bunch of legos and threw them on a calendar.

There simply are very few of the old SWA bread and butter line, which was four 3 day trips starting and ending the same day of the week. Now it is a jumbled mass of oddly placed trips with a couple of turns thrown in there for S and G. I am sure that this has many reasons. They changed the schedule to vary based on the day of the week, redeyes, network changes, SWAPA failing to account for the downside of APL changes, etc. It is just the new reality.

 

RON makes no sense as the only factor when you’ve got 30+ planes not doing a RON. How does UAL staff their bases? AA? DL? When over 5% of the fleet is running 24/7, you can staff some based on flights out of a certain hub. Shrinking a hub doesn’t make any logical sense if the flights per day don’t decrease. Simply reduce the flying from one base to another. West coast bases don’t see any SJU. Why does BWI need to fly the lions share of redeyes when those flights originate out west. They could easily staff those with west coast bases as the beginning or mid-pairing. Only caveat is 15 hrs rest after…pretty sure BWI, MDW and MCO don’t drop dead at 2000. Creating trips that are 2 leg 3 days that block 7-10 and pay 19.5 isn’t productive or efficient.

it’s like they’re throwing darts blindfolded and hoping whatever hits actually works. We’ve seen them try and reinvent the wheel over and over and refuse any ideas because “we know better”. Look at VNAV, Bebop, setting zeroes, etc.

 

Devils advocate would say step one into ever talking the pilots into PBS would be to make the lines as nonstandard and painful as possible.

Sorta like healthcare in US. Step one to making the gov in charge of everything is require existing system to cover everything and make it as expensive as possible so that people start clamoring for gov run healthcare system.

 

I could be making things up but the way this company staffs is ridiculous. They don’t want rsv’s to sit around not flying. So they’d rather staff Rsv minimally and then burn all the rsv’s on open time leaving them nothing to put out the midday fires except POT and VDT. If they had more rsv’s, sure some would sit at home. But then you’d have the ability to create better trips because you wouldn’t have as many mouths to feed. Say you have 200 in base per seat. If they have 20 rsv’s per shift (~10%) you gotta spread the flying among 160. Bump it to 20% rsv and now you got 40 rsv per shift and spread the same amount of flying over 120 people. Trips would be more dense/productive…or they can keep what they’re doing and offer LG bars outside of Feb. 🤷🏼‍♂️

 

Couple of things when it comes to red eyes. They are inefficient. Period. No matter how you slice it. Before part 117, airlines did push it to the edge. Look at the FA's pairings. Not much different before 117. Years ago I did red eyes on a four day at the end or in the middle of the pairings at my previous airline. All of them sucked. They paid crap. Nobody liked flying them except those who could put up with it. Many of them magically ended up in opentime or assigned to reserve's. At least 117 took into account WOCL. The fact they are going very senior tells you a lot. If you like a lot of soft pay and you commute, nothing beats it. Not my cup of tea these days but it seems to work for a segment of the pilot group. I could remember an airline based on the west coast that started all their trips with a redeye. It paid crap. Again, this was before part 117. Bottom line, their are many ways to build a pairing with a red eye. Rumor is once the red eye RAP's come on line they may change how the red eye pairings are built. We'll see. When we started doing red eyes a few months ago, it was not only a change on the op side of things, it changed how SWA looks at flowing the network. Be careful letting the company build red eye pairings as a buffet vs strict controls. Domestic red eyes will never be efficient through a crew planning point of view. If they try, those pairings will fail. As far as west domiciles not doing the East Coast or Atlantic times zone stuff, that was an issue last decade that began to rear its ugly head when DPOS was building some insanely crazy pairings with no regard for time zone changes at all. Their was enough p2p flying to go around and keep the block per duty period high enough to make it work as far as keeping everyone within a time zone or two and those trips paid well. Now with the network changing as much as it has(red eyes, longer stage lengths, day of the week flying, more intentional connections) the whole schedule planning of the CBA is beginning to not look as good as it was did based on pure p2p operation. The only way to change the displacement's is to make it contractually harder to do so. Openers don't begin at the earliest until 2027. Hopefully new hires will be help fill some of these vacancies and reduce displacements.

 

I get that they’ll never truly be efficient due to the nature of the beast. As a PM west coast guy, I can easily land at 2-3 am more easily than I can get up at 3 am body clock time. A red eye that lands at 2-3 am my time is nothing to me…where it might be a bigger deal to an east coast guy having to deal with working their entire night away. Which is one reason they adjusted the schedules to avoid fatigue years ago (limiting west coast based guys to far east stuff to avoid getting up at 2 am and vice versa). We’re just cogs in the wheel so our opinion doesn’t matter much unless it’s something we have a vote on.

 

Granted, I only have a tenth of the experience that a lot of you have, but from what I’ve observed so far it appears that new contracts drive new behavior by the company. A lot of good things which is why a new contract was fought for, but also some unintended consequences as the company looks for more efficiency (money-making opportunities) and as long as the company is acting within the confines of the contract, they pretty much don’t care about Pilot QoL, or at the very best it ranks very low on their list of priorities.

I just started Year 3 pay and in the past 2 years I have seem our lines change a lot. When I first arrived, the framework of good ol’ SWA lines was still there, but they started changing quickly and have definitely mutated into what we have today. I also will not be surprised once red-eyes evolve into something most of us don’t like. My personal belief is REs started lucrative and attractive so the company could have good buy in from the pilot group while they tested the waters. Now that we’re entrenched and they are proving to be successful, be prepared for REs to evolve into something much different and I don’t think the majority of us are going to like it.

Bottom line is the company will do whatever is in their best interest, especially with Elliott breathing down their neck, and we will feel the consequences. Next contract negotiating cycle comes and we’ll fight for positive changes, new contract comes out, and the cycle starts all over again.

Classic cat and mouse.