That's the same money that AMR,DAL,USAir,NWA,UAL,CAL and every other airline that was forced to shut down for those day's. Some took government loans also. The bailout was 5 billion cash and 90% went to passenger airlines. Payouts were based on market share which SWA was probably low teens. Another 10 billion were in loans that the airlines could apply for. SWA did not take any loan money. SWA did 5.5 billion in revenue in 2001, had 355 aircraft and paid 770 million in fuel by the end of 2001. Fast forward today. 18 billion revenue, 683 aircraft and will have a fuel bill of about 5.5 billion. I doubt a couple hundred million dollars in bailout money in 2001 has made all that growth possible.

I wonder what the other carriers did with that money. Let's see, a bunch went bankrupt, some paid nice bonuses to management and the best part, took government money and then furloughed. I'm not sure but I don't think SWA ever furloughed.

Bottom line is managements likes to say labor costs were "high" right after 9/11 but ALL were in heavy in debt and mortgaged everything they had. That's the killer.

 

The airline everyone will fly once. It is a horrible horrible product

 

Bullschit to the first line. People will fly them repeatedly when they do their internet search and Spirit consistently comes back with the cheapest fares.

Spirit has the highest operating margin of any airline. They will continue to kick *** until someone sees them as too much of a threat with a lot of desirable assets and they'll be "acquired" much the same as we were.

Sound familiar Boogie?

 

Why is it such a big deal that rampers, op agents and gate agents make good money? Management does this all the time with pilot pay. Now pilots crap on the workers that help turn the airplane. Don't understand. Besides it's a fallacy. Most of the SWA workers get a lot of overtime. A lot!! It is ALWAYS cheaper to pay overtime then hiring another employee. SWA has done about billion in net profit since 2012. Doesn't sound like anybody needs to take a pay cut. Nobody should be taking a pay cut, especially the fact they pay dividends and buying back shares. They can afford this because they do more with less. Plain and simple. Look at the numbers(2012 is the latest for a full yr). Big three and SWA. Three metrics. Employees per aircraft, revenue per employee and average salary(includes pensions and benefits). Excludes pilots, FA's and MX.

UAL AMR DAL SWA

Employees/AC 60 36 37 29
Revenue per employee 611 867 922 3608
salary 50370 69000 63000 70000

SWA pays more per employee but has less per A/C then anybody. Even if you factor in that all the other legacies have wide bodies, look how much more revenue SWA employees generate per employee. Not even close. Gary Kelly can spin it all he wants. It's not a employee/pay problem. It's a management problem.

 

Is that something to brag about?

Sounds like you aren't being paid enough.

 

Hey Purple,
go fix your scope or something...

 

I have flown Spirit and while some small segment t will alway patronize them, their product is too poor to have lasting success. The real threat from spirit will come if all the airlines follow spirits lead. Things will come full circle. So I respectfully disagree with you.

Regards Boogie

 

Hey I have no problem with the folks on the ground making what they do if we were number one in bags and on time departures but we are last. So they are over paid. Why should have to ask to have the water lav serviced? Why should I be having to pull strollers out of the aft baggage bin because there is no one to take the bags off the red-eye. Why am I picking up lots of FOD everytime I do a walk around. Why pay an no performance? Tell me there is justification. Someone somewhere is getting paid too much. Who knows maybe it is me. I seem to be working pretty hard though and nothing seems to get better so maybe I could use some help.

I am sure management is aware. I do realize this is business and when this starts affecting the bottom line things will change drastically if it has not already. What is really sad is the unions by having such poor performance can not justify the pay they get.

 

No problem Boogie. I hope you're right, but I do personally think the Spirit business model will be a legitimate long-term threat. Hope I'm wrong but don't wish those guys any ill will whatsoever.

 

Not bragging at all. Just trying to make the point that SWA doesn't need concessions from anybody. They may want it but definitely not needed.

When management drags their feet for two years with contract negotiations and all of them(rampers,gate agents and op agents) still are no where near an agreement their is no urgency to rush things. I could remember back in 2000 when UAL told the pilot group to stuff it. The operation suffered that summer. Passangers called it the summer of hell. Pilots got a contract. Pretty good one to. The other problem is SWA is buying larger aircraft with more bags to load and yet no extra help. Oh well, that's a management decision. Personally I think SWA has way too many chiefs for it's operation. And most importantly, management doesn't give the sense of urgency. If the chiefs don't say anything about it or push it, then nobody will. Leadership comes from the top. SWA management is not making on time a priority. So the operation shows it.

You can pay guys peanuts or pay them well all you want. If their is no accountability on getting airplane out on time, no need to rush. Look at our international ops. They try hard to get airplanes out on time. Why? Accountability by
the station. Which by the way is not run by SWA. It's all about leadership. You want to run a good operation it has to be a priority by management. It seems these day's SWA is not too worried about it. So I won't either.