Bushpilot: you expanded very well upon some points made in my remarks. They never claimed that Southwest belongs, or needs to belong to ALPA-it was not my intent. But Southwest has been nevertheless heavily unionized for many years, and this glaring (intentional) bit of forgetfulness by the press is so consistent that one wonders if the only information available to the press is first filtered by either Wall Street writers (who often have an anti-labor prejudice), or others who want to keep this prominent fact hidden from public view.
And another airline analyst quoted somewhere above, highlighted the dramatic operational efficiencies with Southwest's business model, in contrast to the normal hub-and-spoke structures. The hub-and-spoke model, although inherited as various CEOs go through the revolving upper mgmt. door (few, if any, having any genuine interest in aviation: very, very few ever worked "down there" on the operational side: I can think of only two-at American Trans Air and Continental, who were pilots), was not designed by labor-even though labor is always the scapegoat (Peitschjunge?). It was designed and perpetuated by decades of fortress-building mgmts. But why are upper managements never considered responsible, by media writers and others, for this antiquated, highly inefficient 'business model'?
Also, despite the many inherent contradictions and flaws within ALPA, it is quite different than the IAM or Teamsters (dropped by UPS pilots years ago, and recently dropped by NWA's Flight Attendants, after decades of having their heads up their *****).
Last edited by Ignition Override; 18th Sep 2005 at 06:19.