Yep: Southwest, the darling of the industry, has been heavily unionized for many years, and has the best-paid B-737 pilots in the nation, if not the world. Southwest's leadership was not in the business for a quick kill on stock prices.
Unions have not prevented Southwest from becoming very successful. This is no coincidence. Their history speaks volumes.
But Southwest has First Class Management, which seems to treat its staff (employees) as a bit more than liabilities on a financial sheet, in stark contrast to how most US airlines have historically operated. And they developed a route network which does not require passengers and crew to constantly shuffle through a terminal on every other leg.
Unions never created our wonderful hub-and-spoke networks.
The so-called "airline builder" in the 80s abused the very concept of Chapter 11 (bankruptcy) to void union contracts, even though Continental's unions were negotiating paycuts. After Lorenzo and his Superscabs were in place, Frank then bought other airlines. The skies looked golden: unions were gone. Continentals labor "force"consisted of Superscabs, union "crawl-backs" and desperate new-hires, plus those from Peoples' Express, New York Air who were stapled to the bottom of the seniority lists etc. The merger between Continental and Trans Texas before Lorenzo came onboard, and the greed which turned one pilot group against the other, made it much easier for Lorenzo. Nobody remembers (or knew about) the lessons from how Caesar gradually conquered Gaul (Aedui tribe already against Allobroges or Remi etc...'help us'...).
Therefore, why did this annointed-by-Wall Street non-union "Airline Builder" NOT build a successful airline? For any dufus
out there who still admires Lorenzo, well, he never planned to create a long-term airline success! He wanted to smash companies together so that he could create a big enough cash cow, milking their cash up into his holding company, Texas Air Corporation. Unions never hindered anything Lorenzo wanted to do with Continental-they were gone for many years. Therefore, where is the problem? I detect a lingering silence about this question. A few Department of Transportation Admin. judges under Reagan/Gerge Bush Sr. ruled in Lorenzo's favor immediately before they left to go work for his Texas Air Corp. Even this was in "Aviation Week & ST" and probably in the "Wall Street Journal". His actions even affected pension reform in the US Congress. Some people still admire the way he stomped on labor (they are not real people) and put seniority lists together with total disregard for experience. Read about how the FAA's Western Region was "allegedly" ordered by senior FAA bureaucrats to leave Continental and its flight operations and aircraft logbook "issues' alone. It would have embarassed the Reagan and Bush Sr. regimes. Who appoints the senior DOT and FAA bureaucrats?
Ignorance is no excuse for anyone who praises, even indirectly, such corporate cannibals as Lorenzo and Icahn. Now, let anyone who worships US airline managements explain how Southwest became so successful with the higher-paid 737 pilots in the US, maybe the world...with many long-term flight attendants whose personal stock is worth quite a large bundle...oh no, say a few geniuses on Pprune, that gleaming success is just a coincidence and anomaly....
Before the year 1999 or even 2000 (the watershed was 9/11), the most profitable US airlines were all heavily unionized. Two of the US major airlines with the more serious financial problems operate a higher percentage of regional jets than others
... are the (very high cost+ brand-new) regional jets not the 'golden calf' to worship? This has been the tranquilizing mantra chanted for years by many annointed airline mgmts! Who is still ignorant of the fact that one or two high-lea$e cost CRJs presumes to replace an older 737 or DC-9 which was paid for many years ago? How much more is the operating cost of a 44-seat than the same CRJ with 50 seats, just so mgmt can get round a scope agreement? Six less seats equals quite a percentage less revenue for similar operating costs. How does physically reducing revenue that much, on markets that have growth potential, indicate good marketing?