02-12-2009
12:17 AM
1 Love
This is what I thought SWA would be when I came to work here! FUN and Daring, taking chances!! Now let's get rid of codeshare and do the intl flying ourselves and take a chance on our employees!
SWA DAL/FO
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"Southwest pilots must know the company will not currently operate into domestic, let alone foreign markets that don't / won't have the ability to quickly develop into a station with at least 20 daily departures. "
I'm a SWA pilot and I know we fly into 3 West Texas towns that don't do 20 daily departures. Heck, Corpus (in S. Texas) does 6 departures last time I checked.
LGA will only have 7 and will take YEARS to ever develop into 20 slots.
It's not about Canadian and Mexican travelers in their respective countries. We have business/vacationers that would fill those seats to and from the foreign destinations on our own. Why not Houston to Cancun? Why not Vancouver to Dallas? (oh yeah the moronic Wright amendment) but you get my point....
Sure there is growth to be had here. Denver is a perfect example, but I would think the millions of people in Mexico city could fill a couple 737s a day just as easily as Amarillo.
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Don,
Why wouldn't SWA fly to Canada for "a long time"? Is there not a market from Toronto to LA? I understand Edmonton to Saskatoon may not be a market for SWA right now. Once cabatoge goes through, that's another story, but why would WestJet fly Toronto to LA, for example, but not SWA?
By giving Westjet access to the millions of passengers we fly each year it stagnates the growth of seniority lists because we aren't buying more airplanes to fly those passengers. Thereby losing a chance for a better schedule and upgrade in position and bringing on NEW employees. Many employees came here BECAUSE it was a growth airline and all the benefits being a growth airline brings.
WestJet is a great airline, I'm sure. It is nothing personal in regards to the WestJet deal. Employees feel betrayed by ANY type of codeshare that SWA has the physical ability to fly.
Why wouldn't we codeshare with Delta to London, Prague, Africa etc. THOSE are places SWA will not service any time soon. This is a bad strategic decision in the LONG TERM, IMO.
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Most of the employees aren't upset by the YYC-YYZ routes that cannot be flown by SWA, but by the routes that could be flown by our aircraft. In regard to the number of passengers we fly yearly, the number added by Westjet will be small compared to what SWA will give to the equation thereby allowing Westjet (a potential competitor if cabotage occurs) to grow at a higher rate than if SWA wasn't providing access to it's huge number of pax. This growth will be fueled by SWA employees, past and present.
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11-11-2008
09:05 AM
1 Love
How can Volaris go International to the U.S. BUT we can't afford to go intl to Mexico??
We have billions (with a B) in the bank, do they? We OWN most of our airplanes, do they? If the economy is so bad, how do they figure it out?
We were told the reason for codeshare w/ ATA was for the Midway gates, which we got. $40M of revenue is a drop in the bucket.
If we need extra cash, how bout a surcharge on unattended minors who we baby sit ALL day w/ a huge risk to us for ABSOLUTELY FREE! I even pay my babysitter $10/hr per kid! We already do the work, let's take in the money like every other airline does and like we do w/ business select.
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11-10-2008
09:06 PM
1 Love
I'm very concerned that we are outsourcing our NAME BRAND to whom?? Who is Volaris?
18 aircraft and 1500 employees? How do we codeshare w/ someone who doesn't cross the border? How can their little startup figure out how to get to the U.S. and our HUGE 500+ airline can't figure out how to go international?
Very disturbing news today. This is the first time I'm actually worried about our airline.
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