UPDATED:WN Pilots Seek Ouster of Gary Kelly After Tech Snafus, Company Responds

enilria · Mon Aug 01, 2016 5:44 pm

I don't think the problem has anything to do with not spending enough money. They are spending a crap-ton on the cutover to Altea. The mistake was WN taking soooooo long to cutover to a modern system. They waited much much too late and tried to keep the old system running with bailing wire and electrical tape for so long that now unwinding the mess of kludges that were created to keep it running makes it very hard to cutover and maintain the old system...particularly both at the same time.

...and it's not just the RES system. The WN backend systems are also wedded to the aging RES system and are also a big risk to the operation. Whenever the cutover to Altea next year I expect another operational meltdown of the backend systems that do weight and balance and maintenance tracking and crew planning and accounting and those types of functions.

Pilots' union leaders are asking Southwest to replace CEO Gary Kelly because of the technology outage that caused the airline to cancel or delay thousands of flights in July.

The union says Southwest is spending too much on buying back shares and not enough on updating its technology.

The union said Monday that its board voted 20-0 to ask that Kelly and Chief Operating Officer Mike Van de Ven be removed.

http://www.startribune.com/pilots-union ... 388851661/

UPDATE:
Dallas-based Southwest issued a statement attributed to Randy Babbitt, senior vice president of labor relations. Babbitt doubted the union's motives of wanting to improve technology, instead saying it was a negotiation tactic.

"This latest move by the new leaders of the Southwest Airlines Pilots’ Association is designed to pressure the company to meet its demands," the statement says. "Their maneuvering is not about our leaders. It’s not about 'IT infrastructure.' This is about the union’s approach to contract discussions and it’s attempt to gain leverage in negotiations."

Babbitt said in the statement that Southwest Airlines' leadership is "routinely recognized in every notable forum for its achievements in all areas, financially, operationally, and culturally."

"SWAPA leaders need to understand that we want to work with them, not against them, and as soon as they take a similar approach, we'll be closer to finalizing a contract for our pilots that rewards them for their service and professionalism," the statement says.

http://www.bizjournals.com/houston/morn ... f-ceo.html

winginit · Mon Aug 01, 2016 5:47 pm

We must have been typing this up at right around the same time...

Link to my (seconds earlier) post

enilria · Mon Aug 01, 2016 5:48 pm

Yeah, I wanted to take a couple of minutes and add a little color because I have some detailed knowledge of the situation.

piedmontf284000 · Mon Aug 01, 2016 5:54 pm

The Herb Kelleher days are a very distant memory....

commavia · Mon Aug 01, 2016 6:05 pm

Wow. As if we needed another reminder ... I think we can now definitely see that this is not Herb's airline anymore, and that - for better or worse - the Southwest of the past is definitely gone in many (if not most) ways.

hivue · Mon Aug 01, 2016 6:15 pm

commavia wrote:
I think we can now definitely see that this is not Herb's airline anymore

But it sounds like it may be his IT infrastructure.

usflyguy · Mon Aug 01, 2016 6:20 pm

piedmontf284000 wrote:
The Herb Kelleher days are a very distant memory....

Except this IT debacle is what Herb built... this is all his. By being thrifty and pinching pennies instead of upgrading over 30 years, this is the final result.

DfwRevolution · Mon Aug 01, 2016 6:29 pm

enilria wrote:
I don't think the problem has anything to do with not spending enough money. They are spending a crap-ton on the cutover to Altea. The mistake was WN taking soooooo long to cutover to a modern system. They waited much much too late and tried to keep the old system running with bailing wire and electrical tape for so long that now unwinding the mess of kludges that were created to keep it running makes it very hard to cutover and maintain the old system...particularly both at the same time.

You're absolutely right. So what should they do? Fire Kelly? The fix to this problem was already in progress before the system failure.

I think we are burying the lead here. What organization on earth needs 20 board members. Holy smokes. Jesus only needed 12.

piedmontf284000 · Mon Aug 01, 2016 6:34 pm

usflyguy wrote:
piedmontf284000 wrote:
The Herb Kelleher days are a very distant memory....

Except this IT debacle is what Herb built... this is all his. By being thrifty and pinching pennies instead of upgrading over 30 years, this is the final result.

While that may be true, at least in terms of updating its technology. The union says Southwest is spending too much on buying back shares which has zero to do with Herb and is definitely more the thorn in the side of the union then anything else.

The union said Monday that its board voted 20-0 to ask that Kelly and Chief Operating Officer Mike Van de Ven be removed...that would never have occurred during the LUV days of Kelleher, where pilots and staff were worshiping him at every opportunity.

You don't think the fact the pilots have gone without a contact for 4 years has anything to do with them voting 20-0 to oust their CEO and COO nor calling them out about stock buybacks? Puhlease.

bobnwa · Mon Aug 01, 2016 6:41 pm

The Sky Gods have spoken!

enilria · Mon Aug 01, 2016 6:45 pm

hivue wrote:
commavia wrote:
I think we can now definitely see that this is not Herb's airline anymore

But it sounds like it may be his IT infrastructure.

ROTFL and true.

The irony is that years of KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) resulted in making the RES system and associated systems VERY complex as they attempted to make them more and more functional without full replacement.

DfwRevolution wrote:
You're absolutely right. So what should they do? Fire Kelly? The fix to this problem was already in progress before the system failure.

I think we are burying the lead here. What organization on earth needs 20 board members. Holy smokes. Jesus only needed 12.

I don't think I'm in a position to decide who was ultimately responsible and whose head should be chopped. You have the middle management who mostly fight any change. You have the upper management who didn't champion evolving sufficiently and you have the board who rubber stamped it all. The line employees had to deal with the repercussions of it.

I think WN has become way too conservative which is a negative outgrowth of the KISS philosophy and perhaps he can be blamed for not fixing that. Arguably a new CEO would come in to get ALTEA going, make some hard changes to the leftovers of the AirTran network, refocus the company on what needs to be done to make international work in markets where the passengers are not 97% Americans, and get with it in the areas they are woefully behind like redeyes, demand based cancellations, reaccom, a regional solution, intl code share, etc. With regard to this particular mess you could argue that he was the first CEO to actually put a date on fixing the RES problem, so to some extent it was just dropped in his lap.

And, BTW, if it really was one router (which I doubt) that is even more embarrassing. I think the real story is probably that they are doing testing on pieces of the system toward this cutover to see what happens when they flip the switch and this is what happened when they attempted a test on a chunk. My conspiracy mind tells me that they'd rather blame it on a router than make the Altea cutover look like a looming disaster, BUT frankly my conspiracy theory is much less embarrassing than letting a single piece of equipment shut down a whole airline. So, pick your poison...

jetmatt777 · Mon Aug 01, 2016 7:16 pm

Is it possible to build new IT from scratch and once it is ready, have a reservation cutoff date? For example any attempted reservation after March 1 would go into the new system, and anything prior to that would be booked in the old system. Anything that is attempted to be booked between system dates would just have to be manually adjusted to have one-way on one system and the return on the new system.

Seems like that would be easier than trying to migrate everything overnight from the abacus and slide rule days to the modern age? As we have seen on this site, as well as from many airlines, IT migrations overnight don't always go as planned. I think it would be easier and safer, but also a longer process, to just allow new bookings on a new system and once the old system has no bookings left in it just shut it down.

klkla · Mon Aug 01, 2016 7:21 pm

usflyguy wrote:
piedmontf284000 wrote:
The Herb Kelleher days are a very distant memory....

Except this IT debacle is what Herb built... this is all his. By being thrifty and pinching pennies instead of upgrading over 30 years, this is the final result.

How long as Kelly been in charge? How long has it been since Kelleher gave up day-to-day control? I think Kelly has had enough time in the job that he can be held responsible for this issue.

enilria · Mon Aug 01, 2016 7:33 pm

jetmatt777 wrote:
Is it possible to build new IT from scratch and once it is ready, have a reservation cutoff date? For example any attempted reservation after March 1 would go into the new system, and anything prior to that would be booked in the old system.

That's exactly what they are planning. The issue isn't Altea. The problem is whether all the backend system that depend on the legacy WN RES system will work after cutover. BTW, using that style of cutover means that once they start taking bookings in the new system which is this Fall sometime for a Summer 2017 cutover they will not be able to further delay cutover since it would be impossible to move the bookings from Altea back to the legacy system.

klkla wrote:
I think Kelly has had enough time in the job that he can be held responsible for this issue.

The real problem is the WN culture that fights change. I don't think you can place the blame on a single person very easily.

commavia · Mon Aug 01, 2016 7:43 pm

usflyguy wrote:
Except this IT debacle is what Herb built... this is all his. By being thrifty and pinching pennies instead of upgrading over 30 years, this is the final result.

I agree - but that's the rational response, not the emotional response. Emotionally, the unions are placing blaming with present management - rightly or wrongly.

In general, I agree that the issues now facing Southwest are, in many cases, years in the making. These issues are the natural growing pains of a business that is steadily "growing up" and embracing the reality - much as its culture may have tried in some ways to resist it in recent years - that it's not the small, nimble competitor it once was. Southwest is now every bit as much the large, lumbering giant of a company as it started out competing against - far larger, in fact, than any of the competitors it faced back in 1971. As such, investments like IT are far, far more critical than they ever were back then, and the lack of investment in those areas - perhaps exacerbated by the fuel hedges hiding a proverbial multitude of sins in the 2000s - are definitely costing Southwest big time now.

Southwest will figure it out. It's a generally well-run company with a lot of very smart, very motivated employees. But culturally, yeah - it must be said - Southwest is not the airline it was when Herb was there. The unions crossing the Rubicon of openly calling for the CEO's firing - that's not something one would historically expect at Southwest, to say the least.

diverdave · Mon Aug 01, 2016 7:47 pm

klkla wrote:
usflyguy wrote:
piedmontf284000 wrote:
The Herb Kelleher days are a very distant memory....

Except this IT debacle is what Herb built... this is all his. By being thrifty and pinching pennies instead of upgrading over 30 years, this is the final result.

How long as Kelly been in charge? How long has it been since Kelleher gave up day-to-day control? I think Kelly has had enough time in the job that he can be held responsible for this issue.

Herb retired in May 2008. Current leadership has had 8 (yes EIGHT) years to update/upgrade their IT systems.

NWA and DL completed their merger in much less than half of that time.

Gary owns this one.

David

enilria · Mon Aug 01, 2016 7:57 pm

commavia wrote:
In general, I agree that the issues now facing Southwest are, in many cases, years in the making. These issues are the natural growing pains of a business that is steadily "growing up" and embracing the reality - much as its culture may have tried in some ways to resist it in recent years - that it's not the small, nimble competitor it once was. Southwest is now every bit as much the large, lumbering giant of a company as it started out competing against - far larger, in fact, than any of the competitors it faced back in 1971. As such, investments like IT are far, far more critical than they ever were back then, and the lack of investment in those areas - perhaps exacerbated by the fuel hedges hiding a proverbial multitude of sins in the 2000s - are definitely costing Southwest big time now.

Well said

commavia wrote:
Southwest will figure it out. It's a generally well-run company with a lot of very smart, very motivated employees. But culturally, yeah - it must be said - Southwest is not the airline it was when Herb was there. The unions crossing the Rubicon of openly calling for the CEO's firing - that's not something one would historically expect at Southwest, to say the least.

It's actually a testament to how much WN has going for them that all the constraints caused by their archaic technology hasn't put their earnings outside of a competitive level. OTOH, one can imagine they would be significantly beating everybody else if they had fixed these problems and the solution was not overly costly.

commavia · Mon Aug 01, 2016 10:45 pm

enilria wrote:
It's actually a testament to how much WN has going for them that all the constraints caused by their archaic technology hasn't put their earnings outside of a competitive level. OTOH, one can imagine they would be significantly beating everybody else if they had fixed these problems and the solution was not overly costly.

Totally agree. It is actually stunning to consider how resilient and impressive Southwest's financial performance - both in absolute and relative terms - has been in recent years even in spite of some of its serious operational limitations, and it is also equally stunning to consider where Southwest's financials would be if it had had a modern IT platform, more flexible scheduling, international flying, codeshare/interline, etc. 5-10 years ago.

exFWAOONW · Mon Aug 01, 2016 10:58 pm

I can see both sides of this, but I lean toward the ball was dropped side. I came from RC (Republic) which had Escort, a PARS like system that had local hard-drives at every station for when the phone-(data)lines went down. When you checked a pax in, you said how many bags they were checking and the weight and balance updated the bag count. Then, took a step backward with POLARIS after the NW merger. That system couldn't handle the peak loads very well. Down time was a regular occurrance. Then NW bought into PARS and it was very close to Deltamatic without the W/B tie-in. So two reservation system changes occurred without major disruptions in about the same (8yr) time span.

deltal1011man · Mon Aug 01, 2016 11:13 pm

commavia wrote:
Wow. As if we needed another reminder ... I think we can now definitely see that this is not Herb's airline anymore, and that - for better or worse - the Southwest of the past is definitely gone in many (if not most) ways.

It is really a shame. One of the reason WN was able grow into a great airline is they were one of the very few airlines in the world that would work with the unions. They are now into the us vs them management style.

DfwRevolution wrote:
You're absolutely right. So what should they do? Fire Kelly? The fix to this problem was already in progress before the system failure.

I think we are burying the lead here. What organization on earth needs 20 board members. Holy smokes. Jesus only needed 12.

they have large numbers like that because generally the reps are from each base and in some cases it can be 2-3-4 reps from each base. I'm pretty sure DALPA, for example, has two pilots and two first officers for at least the bigger bases if not all of them.

not sure exactly how SWAPA works because they are an in-house union but i suspect the above is probably part of it.

piedmontf284000 wrote:
You don't think the fact the pilots have gone without a contact for 4 years has anything to do with them voting 20-0 to oust their CEO and COO nor calling them out about stock buybacks? Puhlease.

Of course it does.

but thats the point. This is the same issue UA had with Jeff. Both CEOs are(were for Jeff) clearly more worried about the short term than the long term and buying back stock to fill their pockets......and then telling labor they need to take concessions. So good for SWAPA for calling him out on it. I hope the other work groups who are still without contracts do the exact same thing.

par13del · Mon Aug 01, 2016 11:34 pm

So the future for WN is to mirror union / management relationships like the other legacies, IT infrastructure that allows assigned seating and international scheduling and bag fees like the legacies, rather than a merger we are seeing the birth of another legacy?
In a chicken or egg situation one may say WN is a result of its IT systems or was the systems a result of WN desires? In any event, it does look like the birth of a new WN which will be very hard to distinguish from the other legacies.

commavia · Mon Aug 01, 2016 11:47 pm

par13del wrote:
are seeing the birth of another legacy?

In many ways, I think that ship has already sailed. Much as most of the media and pretty much the entirety of the politicians and bureaucrats in the U.S. government have completely missed it, Southwest has been functioning increasingly just like one of the network carriers for some time now. Indeed, many - though certainly not all - of the hallmarks of the Southwest business model that differentiated it from the network airlines have vanished in the last 10-15 years. Southwest still has only a single fleet type, only one class of service, open seating and free checked bags. But on the flip side, Southwest today is flying directly into busy, congested close-in airports in direct competition against major competitors, with all the higher revenue and cost that entails. Southwest operates a constellation of huge hubs around the U.S. (LAS, PHX, DEN, HOU, MDW, BWI) that cater to tons of connections going in all directions. Southwest long ago abandoned the 20-minute turn and today turns similarly-sized aircraft at something far closer to the speed of AA, Delta and United. Southwest has a multi-tiered frequent flyer program, has moved heavily into corporate sales, is flying extensively internationally, and on and on.

Southwest today looks far more like a network airline than it does like the original Southwest. Not saying that's good or bad, but that's reality as many of us have long seen it.

Silver1SWA · Tue Aug 02, 2016 12:16 am

commavia wrote:
par13del wrote:
are seeing the birth of another legacy?

In many ways, I think that ship has already sailed. Much as most of the media and pretty much the entirety of the politicians and bureaucrats in the U.S. government have completely missed it, Southwest has been functioning increasingly just like one of the network carriers for some time now. Indeed, many - though certainly not all - of the hallmarks of the Southwest business model that differentiated it from the network airlines have vanished in the last 10-15 years. Southwest still has only a single fleet type, only one class of service, open seating and free checked bags. But on the flip side, Southwest today is flying directly into busy, congested close-in airports in direct competition against major competitors, with all the higher revenue and cost that entails. Southwest operates a constellation of huge hubs around the U.S. (LAS, PHX, DEN, HOU, MDW, BWI) that cater to tons of connections going in all directions. Southwest long ago abandoned the 20-minute turn and today turns similarly-sized aircraft at something far closer to the speed of AA, Delta and United. Southwest has a multi-tiered frequent flyer program, has moved heavily into corporate sales, is flying extensively internationally, and on and on.

Southwest today looks far more like a network airline than it does like the original Southwest. Not saying that's good or bad, but that's reality as many of us have long seen it.

Well said. {checkmark} lol

winginit · Tue Aug 02, 2016 12:18 am

So they go after the CEO and the COO over a technical snafu but not the CTO?

smart.

BestWestern · Tue Aug 02, 2016 12:42 am

Comparisons to DL / NW system merge aren't the same, as DL NW shared the same system architecture in their Joint Venture Worldspan, which resulted in an easier merging of data.

commavia · Tue Aug 02, 2016 12:45 am

BestWestern wrote:
Comparisons to DL / NW system merge aren't the same, as DL NW shared the same system architecture in their Joint Venture Worldspan, which resulted in an easier merging of data.

Okay, but there are other examples of merger-driven res migrations that were also pretty much flawless, though - the AA/TWA cutover in December 2001 and the AA/USAirways cutover last October, as examples.

barney captain · Tue Aug 02, 2016 1:14 am

DfwRevolution wrote:

I think we are burying the lead here. What organization on earth needs 20 board members. Holy smokes. Jesus only needed 12.

Two pilot representatives from each each base. 10 bases = 20 SWAPA Reps. However in this case there were three Reps absent from the vote. The additional three voters (for a net of twenty) were the SWAPA President and the two VP's.

zeke · Tue Aug 02, 2016 1:45 am

We were running a very old but reliable mainframe system by Unisys for reservations until not so long ago, while the application was originally on a mainframe it was ported over to UNIX servers.

The Amadeus Altéa Suite is more than a reservations system, it does everything from inventory control and distribution, ticket sales, reservations, check in, boarding, cargo etc. In the past most airlines had a number of applications to cover these roles.

Amadeus has migrated lots of airlines, it takes time to setup the process and conduct the training. I don't think they are late to the party, they are leapfrogging many airlines by implementing this.

enilria · Tue Aug 02, 2016 1:52 am

par13del wrote:
So the future for WN is to mirror union / management relationships like the other legacies

deltal1011man wrote:
commavia wrote:
Wow. As if we needed another reminder ... I think we can now definitely see that this is not Herb's airline anymore, and that - for better or worse - the Southwest of the past is definitely gone in many (if not most) ways.

It is really a shame. One of the reason WN was able grow into a great airline is they were one of the very few airlines in the world that would work with the unions. They are now into the us vs them management style.

enilria wrote:
"This latest move by the new leaders of the Southwest Airlines Pilots’ Association is designed to pressure the company to meet its demands," the statement says. "Their maneuvering is not about our leaders. It’s not about 'IT infrastructure.' This is about the union’s approach to contract discussions and it’s attempt to gain leverage in negotiations."

The company's response is sad because it shows denial about the IT problems that clearly exist and the decline in labor relations from both sides of the table.

deltal1011man · Tue Aug 02, 2016 2:11 am

enilria wrote:
The company's response is sad because it shows denial about the IT problems that clearly exist and the decline in labor relations from both sides of the table.

Yeah but did you see anything else coming but this?

It was always going to end up in a pissing contest about the contract. It always does. Even legitimate issues get tossed out by the company or by the union when its contract time.

If the company had a complaint/issue that was real about/with the pilots right now SWAPA is going to issue a PR saying its just because they are still working on a contract.

it all boils down to how the airline management and airline unions act. We are even starting to see the same s**t tossing at DL now between the company and the union. Best friends till that contract date comes up. Then its all about how worthless and evil this side is or that side is.
sad thing is it can become a safety issue.

barney captain · Tue Aug 02, 2016 2:16 am

"SWAPA leaders need to understand that we want to work with them, not against them, and as soon as they take a similar approach, we'll be closer to finalizing a contract for our pilots that rewards them for their service and professionalism," the statement says.

The VONC has nothing to do with contract talks.

But since he brought it up, what part of being in contract talks for four years without movement does RB see as "working with us"? That goes for the labor unions of the FA's and MX people as well - all well past four years of "talks". The VONC was also signed by the mechanics union - this isn't just the pilots.

deltal1011man · Tue Aug 02, 2016 2:26 am

barney captain wrote:
"SWAPA leaders need to understand that we want to work with them, not against them, and as soon as they take a similar approach, we'll be closer to finalizing a contract for our pilots that rewards them for their service and professionalism," the statement says.

The VONC has nothing to do with contract talks.

But since he brought it up, what part of being in contract talks for four years without movement does RB see as "working with us"? That goes for the labor unions of the FA's and MX people as well - all well past four years of "talks". The VONC was also signed by the mechanics union - this isn't just the pilots.

because, didn't you know, its all the unions faults! The company wants to work with....

yep couldn't even finish that garbage.

exunited · Tue Aug 02, 2016 12:23 pm

When the company decides to increase the quarterly dividend 33% and authorizes stock repurchases of $2,000,000,000 vs upgrading the old infrastructure and cries poor during dragged out contract negotiations, employees are not going to be happy. It's the same tired short term pay back my Wall Street buddies mentality that permeates big business today. Investing in the business and people does not boost the stock price quickly like a dividend increase or buy back will. Sad to see the end of the LUV at SWA, it did show for a long time that a big company could have at least cordial relations between management and the worker bees.

Amiga500 · Tue Aug 02, 2016 12:34 pm

Meh.

I wouldn't give much credence to a new york taxi driver saying the mayor should be replaced...

Thenoflyzone · Tue Aug 02, 2016 1:07 pm

Amiga500 wrote:
Meh.

I wouldn't give much credence to a new york taxi driver saying the mayor should be replaced...

Forgetting the fact that your comment doesn't make sense.....what a stupid thing to say!

enilria · Tue Aug 02, 2016 1:19 pm

deltal1011man wrote:
enilria wrote:
The company's response is sad because it shows denial about the IT problems that clearly exist and the decline in labor relations from both sides of the table.

It was always going to end up in a pissing contest about the contract. It always does. Even legitimate issues get tossed out by the company or by the union when its contract time.

it all boils down to how the airline management and airline unions act. We are even starting to see the same s**t tossing at DL now between the company and the union. Best friends till that contract date comes up. Then its all about how worthless and evil this side is or that side is.
sad thing is it can become a safety issue.

All true. What is amazing is that the FAA found basically nothing in the safety hornet's nest stirred up by the G4 unions.

exunited wrote:
Investing in the business and people does not boost the stock price quickly like a dividend increase or buy back will.

In general I agree. In the next downturn when the airlines are all filing Ch11 again they will wish they had used the money to pay down debt.

winginit · Tue Aug 02, 2016 1:35 pm

enilria wrote:
In the next downturn when the airlines are all filing Ch11 again they will wish they had used the money to pay down debt.

To be fair, all of the major US airlines are using the fuel windfall to pay down debt. Some more so than others yes, and all in tandem with share buybacks, but they're paying down debt nonetheless.

exunited · Tue Aug 02, 2016 4:11 pm

enilria wrote:
exunited wrote:
Investing in the business and people does not boost the stock price quickly like a dividend increase or buy back will.

In general I agree. In the next downturn when the airlines are all filing Ch11 again they will wish they had used the money to pay down debt.

Exactly, and when the company comes crying poor for give backs it's going to be a tough sell but since modern management philosophy is to only worry about next quarter this buy back makes perfect sense. The argument I have heard is that the company can always sell back the stock in a downturn on the open market to raise cash - the fact that anybody thinks that buying a share at $60 today during relatively good times then reselling it in an economic downturn at $40 make economic sense is truly scary!

INFINITI329 · Tue Aug 02, 2016 4:23 pm

Thenoflyzone wrote:
Amiga500 wrote:
Meh.

I wouldn't give much credence to a new york taxi driver saying the mayor should be replaced...

Forgetting the fact that your comment doesn't make sense.....what a stupid thing to say!

You just dont understand the comment

barney captain · Tue Aug 02, 2016 4:37 pm

Amiga500 wrote:
Meh.

I wouldn't give much credence to a new york taxi driver saying the mayor should be replaced...

Nice.

It wasn't one "taxi driver" - it was 8000.

Plus all the mechanics. Expect something from the FA's union shortly.

If every "taxi driver" stood up and said the Mayor has neglected the roads and they're falling apart, would that be valid enough for you?

MSPNWA · Tue Aug 02, 2016 6:32 pm

You wouldn't see this if a contract dispute wasn't going on. Kinda sad, really. WN pilots have been arguably the most well-off rank-and-file employees in the industry. They don't have much to complain about.

barney captain · Tue Aug 02, 2016 6:39 pm

MSPNWA wrote:
You wouldn't see this if a contract dispute wasn't going on. Kinda sad, really. WN pilots have been arguably the most well-off rank-and-file employees in the industry. They don't have much to complain about.

And you are well-off-the-mark.

Allegiant pilots now make more than SWA. Four years without a contract or pay increase is nothing to complain about?

737tanker · Tue Aug 02, 2016 7:19 pm

winginit wrote:
So they go after the CEO and the COO over a technical snafu but not the CTO?

smart.

The IT induced meltdown was just the straw that broke the camel's back. Before that there was the MDW meltdown that management blamed on a Polar Vortex. Another example is the way the pilots and other employee groups were trained for international flying. Believe me when I say that the vote by SWAPA was not based solely on what happened during the IT meltdown.

luv2cattlecall · Tue Aug 02, 2016 8:17 pm

What does "demand based cancellations" mean?

Sooner787 · Tue Aug 02, 2016 9:00 pm

So if the pilots have been negotiating for a new contract for 4 years,
when do they bring out the threat to strike?

Heck, been so long since any US carrier went on strike, I don't remember
what the laws say about that?

Thenoflyzone · Tue Aug 02, 2016 10:03 pm

INFINITI329 wrote:
Thenoflyzone wrote:
Amiga500 wrote:
Meh.

I wouldn't give much credence to a new york taxi driver saying the mayor should be replaced...

Forgetting the fact that your comment doesn't make sense.....what a stupid thing to say!

You just dont understand the comment

Taxicabs in NY are private companies. What do they have to do with the Mayor. His analogy makes no sense! His analogy would make sense if the WN pilots wanted the head of the FAA to resign! That's not what they want.

barney captain · Tue Aug 02, 2016 11:02 pm

The 4 unions representing 38K out of the 49K @SouthwestAir employees have joined in a vote of no confidence in the CEO and COO.

winginit · Wed Aug 03, 2016 2:34 am

barney captain wrote:
And you are well-off-the-mark.

Allegiant pilots now make more than SWA. Four years without a contract or pay increase is nothing to complain about?

It really isn't if, for years, you've been the highest paid 737 pilots in the industry no? Can they really not stand to ever not be the highest paid? I could see that if they were the most punctual airline, or the most profitable, or something like that - but they're none of those things.

Varsity1 · Wed Aug 03, 2016 3:08 am

winginit wrote:
barney captain wrote:
And you are well-off-the-mark.

Allegiant pilots now make more than SWA. Four years without a contract or pay increase is nothing to complain about?

It really isn't if, for years, you've been the highest paid 737 pilots in the industry no? Can they really not stand to ever not be the highest paid? I could see that if they were the most punctual airline, or the most profitable, or something like that - but they're none of those things.

Since inception they are the most profitable airline (roc and irr).

ericm2031 · Wed Aug 03, 2016 8:35 am

commavia wrote:
BestWestern wrote:
Comparisons to DL / NW system merge aren't the same, as DL NW shared the same system architecture in their Joint Venture Worldspan, which resulted in an easier merging of data.

Okay, but there are other examples of merger-driven res migrations that were also pretty much flawless, though - the AA/TWA cutover in December 2001 and the AA/USAirways cutover last October, as examples.

Considering WN hasn't even merged systems yet, I'm not sure how comparing it to AA/TWA and AA/US is relevant. And I don't really think their res migration is merger driven either. This would have happened regardless of the FL merger. The merging of those 2 RES systems actually went very well.

And it hasn't been mentioned yet, but WN is running 2 separate RES systems currently. One for domestic and one for international. So you could look at it in a way that they went from 3 systems (when factoring in FL) and are going to 1 completely brand new system. That is a very large undertaking.

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