March Vacancy Bid Thread
 

This vacancy is obviously significant, not only for AUS staffing but because of the unknown number of displacements, specifically out of DEN and western bases.

My seniority is in the bottom 50 of the DEN captain list (less so in BNA where I’m based). I’m a November 2015 hire.

As of today, my SWAPA individual vacancy view shows 118 captains senior to me bidding AUS. This number interestingly decreased in the last two days. I suspect the numbers will become more accurate the closer we get to bid close.

As the company and SWAPA are fairly silent on these events, I thought I’d start a general thread for the vacancy as other threads are more specific.

Im not bidding out of BNA voluntarily but im close enough that these next few bids are guaranteed to make a difference.

Discuss.

I live in a west coast base, am very junior, and am scared. Been commuting to BWI since I’ve been here but fear I’m getting further and further from holding west coast.

I don’t think you have anything to worry about. Right now it’s the western bases that will be affected by displacement.

SWAPA has addressed the Austin domicile and the overall displacement situation a fair amount, including the email two days ago with the subject "Assigned Seat Settlement, Jumpseating, and More". In that email they predicted an additional ~200 displacements based on a preview of the vacancy bid. When the final numbers come out on the 22nd, and the last stragglers enter their AUS bids, the picture will become more clear.

There’s little doubt that the majority of pilots voluntarily bidding Austin will be currently based in Dallas and Houston. However, those bases are not projected to have much in the way of reductions. According to the From the Source video published last week, the majority of the reductions will come from DEN, PHX, and OAK. Fortunately, many new hires and upgrades will be part of this bid, which will help soften the blow. That said, there will be displacements, and then secondary displacements, as pilots are pushed out of Denver and subsequently out of other western bases.

I think most pilots here don’t have a good understanding of how the vacancy bid process actually works. There are a few unique aspects to how vacancy bids play out at Southwest.

First, while displaced pilots have domicile right of return (DDR), that protection is only valid on primary vacancies (the ones published in the vacancy bid). So if your domicile is in constant decline, with either negative or zero primary vacancies each bid, DDR becomes essentially worthless.

Second, the overall vacancy bid is processed before displacements are determined. The ramification is that secondary vacancies are filled by senior pilots before displacements even begin.

Consider this hypothetical situation: the final bid numbers show -50 CA seats in DEN as predicted in the On the Source video. Let’s say 10 Denver CAs voluntarily decide to leave DEN, creating 10 secondary vacancies. Those 10 vacancies will then be filled by the most senior pilots system-wide bidding DEN CA. After that, the displacements are processed. This creates the bizarre situation where senior pilots are awarded Denver, while a large number of junior pilots are displaced out of Denver in the same bid.

When the displacement bid is processed, vacancies are not considered at all. Instead, the displaced pilot’s next domicile preference is evaluated, and if they are more senior than a pilot already in that domicile, they will displace that pilot. This will almost certainly create a large cascade of displacements out west, eventually pushing pilots into Texas bases and possibly into junior eastern bases like BWI and MCO (FOs).

Austin will grow significantly in the March through June bids, so expect at least four months of chaos. I don’t fully fault SWAPA, because this scenario has never played out at Southwest to this extent, both in total pilots involved and in duration of displacement. Fingers crossed that new hires and upgrades take some edge off the chaos.

That said, now that we’ve seen how the company will act, there are certainly some improvements to the contract that need to be made—both to improve the situation for displaced pilots and to make displacements more costly, thereby encouraging the company to avoid them in the first place. Right now there is very little financial impact to the company, especially since most displaced pilots will not take a paid move.

Where did you find this nugget of information? I’d assume the 10 bidding out would take away 10 of the 50 displacement positions…

There’s roughly 293ish on the Disolaced Pilot list. Swapa email said almost 600 so that’s almost 300 more displacements.

I’d assume that the way it works is if DEN is -10 and 15 bid out that they’d have 5 secondary vacancies. If only 5 bid out they’d kick out another 5 with no vacancy backfill.

Yes, you are correct. I misunderstood something I read on the SWAPA website. Hopefully this explains more clearly how you can have pilots awarded a domicile while still having displacements from that same domicile. As I mentioned before, it’s a complex process.

The situation where you can see pilots awarded a domicile while others are displaced from the same domicile can only occur if that domicile does not have a net negative number of primary vacancies after the vacancy award is processed but before displacements are applied.

For example, in the Denver scenario:
If DEN starts at –50 and 10 pilots bid out, the domicile is still at –40 primary vacancies. Because it remains negative, there are no secondary vacancies, so no one can bid into DEN.

However, consider how PHX might work out for March:
If PHX starts at –10 and 15 pilots voluntarily bid out, that creates 5 secondary vacancies. Those vacancies can then be filled by pilots system-wide bidding into PHX, resulting in 5 pilots being awarded PHX.

After that process is complete, the Denver displacement is then applied. If some displaced DEN pilots list PHX as a subsequent choice and have sufficient seniority, they can still displace junior pilots in PHX. So even though 5 pilots were awarded PHX, displacements can still occur once DEN displacements are processed.

See the Displacement Resources Q&A on the SWAPA website and CBA 8.B.10.b for reference.

Current situation...321 total pilots displaced. 74 Captains and 247 First Officers.

I personally believe that they will make SAN a base. the hiring numbers for the rest of year suggest the opening of another base. I don't have the numbers in front of me, but SAN has one of the largest number of RONs in the system. SWA just moved into a brand spanking new terminal. And in the latest networking video they emphasized how much they were planning on growing out of SAN, similar to the projected growth out of AUS. SWA already has the largest market share there. Sounds like the same formula as AUS.

What are the chances that upgrades dip a ways below the current plug? I would think plenty of DAL and HOU FOs that avoided commuting to BWI or MDW will be willing to bid AUS. Not sure we’ll see a dip until Summer.

If the company learned anything and does open another base, maybe they will staff it with new hires. More likely they'll grow it rapidly and displace another few hundred pilots. Someone else has said it, but new bases opening is bad for all pilots who don't live there. Only reprieve for SAN is that it would at least help heal the west coast displacements a bit. Denver displacements will just live in limbo forever till we announce a new fleet in 10 years. I like it here and genuinely enjoy going to work. However, the prospect of being a 4+ year FO till I can be based back at home only to be the plug has me rethinking options. I just wish the company had been honest with their intentions of downsizing Denver as I would have been updating apps a year ago. I understand the need to drawdown with lesser RON's but a 10% cut vs a 35% cut is night and day from a movement perspective. We need to make displacements costs this company a lot more than 6 grand or so per pilot.