South West paid less than the full service airlines for a very long time
Quite right 'Freehills' (what an interesting handle, a grubby place, even more so merged with Herbert -not of South West fame)
There was a discrepancy in labour unit cost and US carriers. that is a little of a straw-man argument; I never mentioned
rates of pay, I spoke of terms and conditions: Rates of pay are one element in labour unit cost.
As you are probably aware, the labour unit cost at Ryan Air the apex of
adversarial labour relations is
lower than South West (in nominal terms) yet consistently the labour productivity at South West Airlines is much higher. What you pay people is would seem less important than how you treat them.
“A company is stronger if it is bound by love rather than by fear.”
– Herb Kelleher