Originally Posted by sailingfun

If GK does not care about SWA costs relative to the competition then the future at SWA is a bit clouded at best. The difference in cost structure between SWA and the legacy airlines is what pushed SWA to make a major change in corporate strategy. When SW enjoyed a large cost advantage over the competition it could order aircraft and expand at will. They could go into any market and run the competition out. This allowed SW to maintain a 10 percent yearly growth rate. This kept the employees happy and kept employee costs low with a constant flow of new employees at the bottom of the pay charts.
SWA made a decision with their lottery win on fuel hedges to drive at least one and hopefully two major airlines out of business. With 20 percent of the domestic market they could dictate yields and did exactly that. They were able to prevent the other airlines from increasing yield to match the increase in fuel prices. It was a bold gamble on the part of SW. It came within a matter of months of being a complete success. The only thing that saved the legacy airline industry was the collapse in fuel price from 140 a barrel to 40 a barrel almost overnight. Without that collapse the domestic US airline industry would be vastly different today.
The result however was that SW in effect helped management at the legacy airlines make huge adjustments in cost structure. SW no longer had a dramatic cost advantage. The result has been stagnation at SW and increasing labor costs. In the end management made a huge philosophical shift to grow via purchase or mergers. No matter how you work out a merger it never makes the employees happy. When you go from 10 percent a year internal growth to a merger strategy its a bitter pill to swallow. Especially for a group used to quick advancement. Mergers mean little or no advancement.
That is however not Airtrans fault. Its a result of the cost structure at SW relative to its competition. I suspect that within the next 5 years there will be at least one more merger at SW. SWAPA needs to get used to this and realize that arbitration is not a huge evil. SWAPA has many compelling arguments they can make before the arbitrator and I suspect if it goes that route will do quite well in arbitration. The strategy of simply trying to strong arm a list will in the end turn out to be a poor long term choice.

Originally Posted by WideRide

Very nice synopsis.

SWA is slowly deviating and changing what was their unique operation; some voluntarily and some involuntarily...

Examples:

Two aircraft types
Big hub operations: ATL, LGA...
Fuel hedges now not looking so pretty
International operations
Disgruntled employees

All the above mean SWA is becoming just another airline in my opinion.

It was the single-aircraft type and unified culture that really made the difference at SWA...I think that magic may be in jeopardy.

Originally Posted by Smokey23

Gee, another Delta dude that thinks SWA's best days are behind us. How original. Welcome to APC.

Originally Posted by OscartheGrouch

Hey TS, if I had a dime for every time you told SWA folks how we are not worthy.......and how you would never have wanted to come here. The accusations against the SWA folks of being arrogant may need to be redirected.

What's with the "watch" comments all the time? You don't like someones avatar (w/an F-16) so insults are necessary? Please post all the aircraft you have flown so we can all be in awe. Oh wait they are all on you profile page. I bow to your superiority.

Besides those girls in GRU don't have anything on the honey's in Midland-Odessa!

The Oscar

Originally Posted by DAL73n

Don't let T and NK scare you off. It's good to know what's going at SWA so we can try and get better at DAL. I've never understood anyone's need to put down anyone to make themselves or their company look better. I do think you guys SWA will have a challenging time ahead with the merger and I wish you luck.

Originally Posted by newKnow

Huh? When did I try to scare someone off ?

Originally Posted by tsquare

Yeah, I dunno what that was all about. The post he quoted was three months old.. Besides, I'm way past caring about this anyway. Actually I thought this thread was dead.