Southwest Pilots Chime in With Caution on New Aircraft Purchase

(MoneyWatch)  When Southwest first announced it was looking at getting the larger -800 version of the 737 aircraft it operates, I couldn't figure out why it had publicly mentioned a decision it hadn't yet made. But when the flight attendants started talking about it, I immediately suspected the issue might be labor-related. Now that the pilots have spoken, I might have been just a bit off. The pilots are now cautioning that the lack of growth at Southwest means they aren't quite sure how they feel about the idea of a new, larger airplane.

The president of the union, Carl Kuwitzky put it this way in an official statement:

One of the primary concerns for our pilots is job security and the issues associated with adding aircraft with increased capacity while the Company is actively retiring planes with less capacity. We share the Company's enthusiasm for the added revenue this aircraft can provide. However, we must address the aircraft's effects on pilot productivity.

Unlike the flight attendants who actually get an extra body on each 737-800 fight as compared to the existing fleet, Southwest still only needs two pilots to fly this airplane. And that has the pilots concerned because Southwest has really slowed its growth lately. Take a look.


As you can see, for the last 15 years, there has been nearly unabated growth except in two instances. The first was right after September 11, when everyone backed off as much as possible because of the tanking in demand. But the latest has been over the last couple of years, and it doesn't look to be changing much. Southwest has said that its fleet size will be virtually flat for the rest of the year, and there isn't much future hope for the kind of growth Southwest has seen up until recently.

Of course, Southwest is now a behemoth and growth opportunities become harder and harder to find. The kind of growth that the pilots have been used to for the last few decades just isn't going to be happening again in the foreseeable future. That's a reality the pilots are going to have to learn to live with, and that's going to be hard for a workgroup that has seen rapid growth for so many years.

The concern with the 737-800 is that since it has more seats, it will allow Southwest to fly fewer flights and still accommodate the same number of people. That means fewer pilots are necessary. It's a cautious view that I understand, but I don't think it's the right view.

It seems to me that Southwest is looking at these larger aircraft because it is now flying into more crowded airports. Southwest has long killed competitors with frequent flights; that's what people want. But with only 8 slot pairs at New York's LaGuardia, 18 slot pairs at Newark, and other congested airports on the radar, there isn't an option for high frequency. Instead, this larger aircraft could simply better utilize the airport assets that are out there.

I assume this is what Southwest is discussing with the pilots right now. If the order doesn't materialize, however, maybe we should be looking more toward the front of the plane than in the galley.

Related:

• Southwest Flight Attendants Strike Back, Deny Intent to Block Larger Airplanes
• Flight Attendant Demands May Block Southwest's Push Toward Bigger Planes
• Labor Issues Thwart Southwest's Efforts to Buy Frontier

Photo via Flickr user randomduck