Spartan

Whack - Serious question..... If/when SWA buys JetBlue, what's your thoughts on the integration? Relative, DOH, staple? What do you think most FAT guys/gals would go for?

For reference, JB started hiring in 1999. Currently 3200+ on the list..

Tankerhead

I deadheaded from BWI to CHS to start a trip with a flag-tie yessie. Dude pre-emptively tells me he taxies "faster than most" and to let him know if I get uncomfortable. He hits 45 knots groundspeed behind the row of C-17's, but has to slow quickly when we catch up to an RJ. He then goes on various tirades at this point about ATC, other lesser pilots, you name it. Surreal.

Caveman

AirTran pay scale

Yr/CA/FO
12/153/79
11/147/79
10/144/79
9/137/79
8/132/79
7/127/78
6/124/74
5/120/72
4/112/66
3/106/61
2/102/56
1/102/43

SWA pay rates



The SWA rates are in TFP...so you'd need to multiply them further by 1.13 to make it hourly.

The previous statement "fairly senior CA"...anymore senior than about 7-8 years you'd be a CA at SWA already.

So even assuming 7 year CA pay rates, can you clarify how it was a 25% pay hit for you?

Smokey23

Oh Lordy, here he goes again. Just when I thought that dead horse had been completely beat into the ground.

pilotrob23

This is like sharing a conversation with the Jet-for-jobs, U.S Air pilots when I started 12-15 years ago at Mesa. The fantastic pilots that were such a pleasure to fly with, and who had been through such a tough mess when they were furloughed after 12-15 years of right seat and stagnation. The stories of how much money they used to make, and the how much the industry and US Air had changed. They thought they won the lottery when hired, to be followed by 8 days off, CRJ CA commuting out of seniority. The one thing they continually said, even after all the mess, is that "our company isn't healthy...we were going to close the doors, or be bought, nature of the beast (industry). We can be fortunate that SWA, even as times have changed, is a great place to work, and for now is still financially conservative and healthy. Whether you made more money here or there, lost a seat, I would hope we can agree that SWA is a hell of a better place that Air Tran was, especially long term earnings. AT was a wonderful place to work I am sure, and everyone I have flown with (FAT) have wonderful things to say and are great pilots, including Whack. But this industry is a wild one, be grateful to be here, I think you are still in a great position, because it could have been a hell of a lot worse. Maybe I am trying to be a half full guy.

Burton78

In all fairness, in my opinion he's been pretty mum about the topic recently in comparison to his past tirades despite the onslaught of attacks out of the blue from various people.

shoelu

No one likes unanticipated career interruptions! I can sympathize with with everyone industry wide that has experienced undesired rocking of the boat. Living in base, holding a desirable line and driving to work only to have a change forced upon you is a nightmare no matter how you slice it. That being said, everyone knows they are involved with a highly volatile industry. Coming out unscathed by adversity at the end of an entire career is the exception to the rule not the norm.

Std Deviation

Let me know soon will ya? Because if I leave Jetblue now for SWA will my seniority get worse or better than staying? And I live in DFW, so there's that.

ZapBrannigan

How long have you been at JetBlue? One of my classmates from there is already an E190 Captain after only about 3 years.


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WHACKMASTER

I suppose I can once and only once. I'm not going to waste my time arguing with people who were not personally there to witness my take home pay drop 25% thanks to "winning the lottery". Gmafb

I came over as a fairly senior Cptn IN MY AIRTRAN DOMICILE at $174.97/hr. Being that the base was closed by SWA (something that is understandable and purely a business decision) and of course losing 32% of my relative seniority, I now found myself IN MY NEW SWA DOMICILE as a mid-level FO making $132.84 a trip or if we multiply that by 1.149 = $153.63/hr.

While SWA flying is productive (thankfully), I was also flying productive trips out of my old AT domicile. In fact, in the three months prior to transitioning/downgrading I hussled because I knew I would be facing a sizeable pay cut. In those three months I was able to gross 77K.

Combine all of this with the fact that my AirTran B Fund went "poof" and I now had to contribute 10% of my gross to my 401K if I wanted to get the company match (you'd be crazy not to as it's a 100% ROI). Unfortunately, that also meant that 10% was immediately sucked off my gross for essentially every year as a SWA FO because my W2s are consistently 175K-180K, thus to hit my max contribution I needed to keep contributing for the entire year.

If you combine the reduced pay rate along with my B Fund going bu bye and subsequently "having" to contribute 10% of my gross to my 401K, then yes you arrive at roughly a 25% cut in take home pay give or take a few percent. I should know. I was the one getting the checks.

Now I know someone's going to raise the argument that we at AT only got our new contract with the improved pay rates due to SWA buying us. To which I say......bull$7it. After six years in negotiations and with a high 90s strike vote and participation level, coupled with the fact that we were most likely small enough to get released to self-help by the government.......well, I'm confident that we would have secured those pay rates OR BETTER on our own.

Pragmatically, this was a bad deal for myself and many others in the short to mid-term. In the long term I'm confident that it will be a positive (although I much prefer that one of the Big 3 had bought us instead).

Even the most bitter and irate FAT pilots accept the airline industry for what it is.....mergers, buyouts, downgrades, forloughs, and bankruptcies. What we don't accept is SWAPA & SWA management working in tandem to deliberately **** us out of our seats and seniority. THAT will forever make some of us resentful, and if anyone tries to claim that that exact deliberate and coordinated act didn't happen then they're just insulting my intelligence. Then to further pour salt on the wound, we have here and out on the line those who actually have the gall to tell me and others what a great deal a pay cut, downgrade and a loss of a third of our seniority was. Perhaps in the long run but again, not in the short or mid-term.

I'm done and will not be engaging in further discussion or argument on this thread about this topic. I've done my best to represent and describe my particular circumstances as accurately and best as possible. If some of you are actually arrogant enough to claim to know my take home checks from an AT Cptn to SWA FO better than the person receiving them then there's really no reasoning with you.