SWOOP - A New Hires Future

[x-wind]

"I just flew with a mgmt pilot last week ferrying a 737 from Kelowna with the new seat layout back to Calgary...he said they are going to 20 planes pretty quick. He was also of the opinion that the Swoop LOU would need to be re-evaluated in order to fill all the positions. We will have to wait and see I guess.."

Excellent rumor to start before a bid.

[SwoopStar]

Watch everybody come back and attack this statement, truth as it is.

Truth to you, luckily you are the minority

.....As for the comment about grey days and such, my sources on the ground say otherwise. It is clear that most of the guys that went to Swoop, did so under the false promises by ALPA that encouraged them to bid these positions saying that there was going to wage parity or very close to it. Clearly they were in no position to make such promises, no one really could make any promises.

Cloak,

You're wise enough to know ALPA made no promises, formal or informal.

The only thing that we are guilty of, was being an optimist. No one imagined that we would make less than a tenured WS FO while being held as a hostage during a implementation dispute.

As you know, optimism was a desirable trait of a WestJetter.

[SwoopStar]

SWOOP'S GEOGRAPHY PROBLEM

Please allow me to comment on the myth that the business model of SWOOP will provide a good quality of life schedule.

Most ULCC's operate on a roster consisting of sets of "mornings" or "evenings" and no overnights. This is a favorable point of a ULCC pilot. For example, a Ryan Air or JetStar pilot is home every night. They either drop off their children at school in the morning or pick them up in afternoon all while sleeping in their bed every night. It's hard to put a price on that.

However this is NOT the case for SWOOP. Ryan Air has shorter stage lengths and JetStar flies up and down the East Coast of OZ. SWOOP flies East-West over 4 time zones and a sparsely populated prairie. Further, SWOOP is limited to a small subset of secondary airports to prevent overlap with mainline. This results in longer stage lengths which should mean less days worked, however the opposite is occurring. Why? RED-EYES. LOTS of them.

In order to maximize utilization, SWOOP's network is shoe horned into as many red-eyes as possible. Presently, there are fatiguing red-eye returns to LAS and YEG out of YHM while the YXX-YHM red-eye was converted to the opposite, a 9.5hr credit 3-day with 2 full days in YXX. This particular pairing occurs 6 out of 7 nights of the week. There is no right way to schedule a red-eye and they are inevitable and frequent. So while a large stage length should promise less than 15 days worked, the reality of red-eyes is that one should expect to be block 18 DAYS in a 30 day month and 19 DAYS in a 31 day month.

This is SWOOP's geography problem. Couple it with the LOU and the result is a poor quality of life. Any Swoop pilot will tell you this. And it's not likely to improve.

[goingnowherefast]

I'm sure Jazz, Porter and every 704 operator would be happy to hire a swoop pilot. Likely better WAWCON too.

[cloak]

oh please. Your ignorance of managements intentions is laughable ....

Do you seriously expect to influence the audience by starting your arguments with such emotional and abusive retort?!

[cloak]

SwoopStar, you do bring up some valid points about optimism and also challenges of geography. Optimism is great, so is patience. Optimism also needs to be balanced against realism. And the past belongs in the past; moving forward bears most fruits. Swoop's schedule too will likely transform over time. The challenge in Canada as you say is its geography and now the added pressure of duty limitations in some cases work against an ideal schedule.

[Airbrake]

Me Greenway has stated on LinkedIn that external applicants are now welcomed. I can only guess that the internal applicants were lower than the requirement.

['97 Tercel]

"We have attractive terms and conditions..."

[goingnowherefast]

That's great to hear! When was the LOU signed? I must have missed it.

[lostaviator]

I agree with the sentiment above about the ship slowing changing course with a few new faces around here. HOWEVER, there is just one face I think we need to change out to fix this situation and his name has already been mentioned above. Anyone arrogant enough to sit in a classroom and tell the class "we don't need WestJet" when we are paying your salary, needs to be shown the door if moral is ever to improve after this whole Swoop business. He was GGG's find, and I don't think his morals and direction align with that of our new top brass.

[CaptainHaddock]

Me Greenway has stated on LinkedIn that external applicants are now welcomed. I can only guess that the internal applicants were lower than the requirement.

The posted attachment from Mr. Greenway makes me physically ill. Boasting that you get on the WestJet seniority list if you come to Swoop. It’s like he’s gleefully running a Bowie knife down the underbelly of WestJet.

[goingnowherefast]

Looks like WJ management is finally figuring out there's a pilot shortage, that they shot themselves in both feet, and are too stubborn to admit their mistake.

[SwoopStar]

As an update, WestJet and SWOOP have separated recruitment. SWOOP remains confident and boasts that they've received a "strong response" regarding recruitment.

Below are a few thoughts for new recruits.

The 50 or so pilots who wish to bid back to WestJet will NOT be allowed on the next bid. Further, the Company will uphold the two year position freeze when a CA downgrades to FO. This likely means that many SWOOP CAs will NOT bid back to WestJet FO. This will limit, if not eliminate, the DEC opportunities.

Last year, WestJet delayed the arrival of the last 3 aircraft from spring 2019 to fall 2019. WestJet has found that mainline can make more money off a 738 in the summer than SWOOP. SWOOP recently cancelled the YEG-OAK route and substituted YLW-LAS. I suspect this latest move shows how limited SWOOP is allowed to grow to avoid overlap with mainline.

Enerjet/Indigo's plans are still unknown but it is suspected that they'll fly between primary cities, like YYZ-YVR, given the size of their A321NEOs. This will necessitate SWOOPs redeployment from YHM/YEG to elsewhere to chase Enerjet/Indigo. The consequence is either more deadheads and overnights, or a forced moved of which only 8000$ is covered, as per LOU. Employment as a junior will be precarious given the flexibility SWOOP requires to remain resilient.

With 300+ employees to support and only 6 aircraft, SWOOP is in a difficult position. Costs must be saved at every opportunity, including using extreme interpretations of the poorly written LOU. Every SWOOP pilot diligently reviews each paystub.

For example, a pilot on reserve receives a 4.0 credit. One pilot was called out on a multiday pairing with the first day being a deadhead. Deadheads are paid at a rate of 1/2 the length of the flight. This pilot lost the original 4.0hrs credit and received the lesser 1-2hrs credit for the DH. There are multiple more examples, all of them being grieved.

[pacman007]

make no mistake enerjet is not going after swoop......they will do directly after mainline Westjet and AC. They will be what Westjet used to be...swoop will be left in yxx and yhm and lose money for ever. Westjet is huge trouble I think. what is Westjet going to do if enerjet flies yvr- yyz? put swoop in it and canablize there maininle product? or just reduce fairs and loose money? the good news in all this is swoop will go away and Westjet pilots will have a new company, based out of yyc, to go work for! all this adds up to major pain for Westjet...

[Demeter]

Oh brother. Thanks for the business update!

[aerobod]

make no mistake enerjet is not going after swoop......they will do directly after mainline Westjet and AC. They will be what Westjet used to be...swoop will be left in yxx and yhm and lose money for ever. Westjet is huge trouble I think. what is Westjet going to do if enerjet flies yvr- yyz? put swoop in it and canablize there maininle product? or just reduce fairs and loose money? the good news in all this is swoop will go away and Westjet pilots will have a new company, based out of yyc, to go work for! all this adds up to major pain for Westjet...

As YYZ/YVR return flights compared with YHM/YXX automatically incur a cost penalty of approximately $40 per passenger (Higher AIF and airport charges), with everything else being equal between Swoop and EnerJet in terms of ULCC costs, Swoop will still attract people with a return cost including taxes and fees of less than $300 (as low as $247 for some dates in May at the moment), when EnerJet has to charge $40 more for the same margin, assuming they have access to “cheap” A320neos from the Ingigo Partners 430 aircraft order, as opposed to having to fund more expensive purchases themselves.

WestJet and AC already have more hub traffic through YYZ and YVR than direct passengers, EnerJet and Swoop won’t be able to tap that market if they stay as ULCCs with point to point traffic only, if they start hubbing they will incur ULC level costs and lose their cost advantage.

WestJet / Swoop has been evolving to specifically take on ULCC competition, so far Flair hasn’t made much of a dent in their business, EnerJet backed by Indigo Partners is much better funded, but has no magic formula that WestJet / Swoop doesn’t already have access to. ULCCs don’t have many operations out of major airports, Ryanair only operates a fraction of their flights out of major airports such as FRA, so EnerJet may have to abandon major airports in time to be cost competitive with other ULCC competition operating from low cost airports.

[CaptainHaddock]

No need to go into details swoopstar

The majority of Swoop pilots can’t wait to get out, the majority of pilots that can go to Swoop (WestJet FO’s and Encore Pilots) want nothing to do with it. It’s a pay cut from WJ right seat to Swoop left seat (unless you are very junior), and it is far worse working conditions then they have at WJ and Encore.

[yvrpilot82]

Another update. While WJ pilots have to wait an extra week this month for their schedule due to the MAX issues. All employee groups travelling for business are now eligible for an upgrade to business class. With the only excluded group from this being "deadheading Westjet pilots".
FAs can be in Business, pilots stuck in middle seats in the back end.

[Kaykay]

Another update. While WJ pilots have to wait an extra week this month for their schedule due to the MAX issues. All employee groups travelling for business are now eligible for an upgrade to business class. With the only excluded group from this being "deadheading Westjet pilots".
FAs can be in Business, pilots stuck in middle seats in the back end.

Ouch. Bit of a slap in the face.

[daedalusx]

Another update. While WJ pilots have to wait an extra week this month for their schedule due to the MAX issues. All employee groups travelling for business are now eligible for an upgrade to business class. With the only excluded group from this being "deadheading Westjet pilots".
FAs can be in Business, pilots stuck in middle seats in the back end.

Sounds like a great way to increase the amount of pilots booking off for fatigue.