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Mr. North
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Re: SWOOP OTS Captains punted from left seat...

Post by Mr. North »

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Re: SWOOP OTS Captains punted from left seat...

Post by jjj »

The concept that the only way to respond to Flair etc was to create another airline is asinine.

WS certainly had all the ability to add another product within the fleet. Rather simple and we didn’t need another high priced CEO.

The concept that without the creation of Swoop as a separate entity the planes would have gone away and we would have conceded the ultra low cost traffic is equally asinine.

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Re: SWOOP OTS Captains punted from left seat...

Post by Mach1 »

aerobod wrote: Tue Oct 09, 2018 1:03 pm Swoop is being built on WestJet lease returns that have had the leases extended. -700s and a couple of -800s that were due to be returned when the MAX deliveries started have been retained and shuffled with newer -800s to build a Swoop fleet with a consistent configuration.
Factually incorrect. This was the lie told to the staff at WJ by management. The newest -800's in the fleet were sent to Swoop, not one lease return went there.
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Re: SWOOP OTS Captains punted from left seat...

Post by lostaviator »

Swoop is about resetting crew costs. Nothing more, nothing less. A giant middle finger from the head of the boardroom table on the day of the ALPA announcement.

Wonder how much money they are saving now with all the screw ups and cancelled flights?
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Re: SWOOP OTS Captains punted from left seat...

Post by countdown »

jjj wrote: Tue Oct 09, 2018 3:51 pm The concept that the only way to respond to Flair etc was to create another airline is asinine.

WS certainly had all the ability to add another product within the fleet. Rather simple and we didn’t need another high priced CEO.

The concept that without the creation of Swoop as a separate entity the planes would have gone away and we would have conceded the ultra low cost traffic is equally asinine.

JJJ
Losing money on every flight is not the way to fight a competitor.

I flew with a guy the other day that was making the same argument and ranting against Swoop. I mentioned how the entire Canadian industry was bleeding during the fight against Jetsgo and just lowering ticket prices is not the way to compete. His response : Whats a Jetsgo?
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Re: SWOOP OTS Captains punted from left seat...

Post by RidersRule »

lostaviator wrote: Tue Oct 09, 2018 4:12 pm Swoop is about resetting crew costs. Nothing more, nothing less. A giant middle finger from the head of the boardroom table on the day of the ALPA announcement.

Wonder how much money they are saving now with all the screw ups and cancelled flights?
Bingo...

It seems there are a lot of people on here who don’t know who Clive Beddoe is.
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Re: SWOOP OTS Captains punted from left seat...

Post by jjj »

Nobody is suggesting losing money to fight a competitor.

The true cost of Swoop is veiled in a shell game of convenient accounting. There was a way to compete for cheaper than starting another airline under the parent company.

The rest of the employee group is starting to feel it too. Go talk to the CSAs in Hamilton that usd to be full time for WestJet and now wear pink. Please don’t have the sanctimonious tone of Tbaylx when the CSA turns to tears - it won’t help.
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Re: SWOOP OTS Captains punted from left seat...

Post by aerobod »

Mach1 wrote: Tue Oct 09, 2018 4:10 pm
aerobod wrote: Tue Oct 09, 2018 1:03 pm Swoop is being built on WestJet lease returns that have had the leases extended. -700s and a couple of -800s that were due to be returned when the MAX deliveries started have been retained and shuffled with newer -800s to build a Swoop fleet with a consistent configuration.
Factually incorrect. This was the lie told to the staff at WJ by management. The newest -800's in the fleet were sent to Swoop, not one lease return went there.
You need to read my comment again, as you obviously didn’t understand it the first time. I didn’t say the lease returns went to Swoop, they were retained in the fleet to free up aircraft and a consistent set of -800s were sent to Swoop.
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Re: SWOOP OTS Captains punted from left seat...

Post by eyebrow737 »

jjj wrote: Tue Oct 09, 2018 7:20 pm Nobody is suggesting losing money to fight a competitor.

The true cost of Swoop is veiled in a shell game of convenient accounting. There was a way to compete for cheaper than starting another airline under the parent company.

The rest of the employee group is starting to feel it too. Go talk to the CSAs in Hamilton that usd to be full time for WestJet and now wear pink. Please don’t have the sanctimonious tone of Tbaylx when the CSA turns to tears - it won’t help.
Hey JJJ, how's the swoop pilot jumpseat ban going? I've denied 3 x 838s so far. Hopefully one of them was you. Keep on trucking bud 🤙
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Mach1
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Re: SWOOP OTS Captains punted from left seat...

Post by Mach1 »

aerobod wrote: Tue Oct 09, 2018 7:39 pm
Mach1 wrote: Tue Oct 09, 2018 4:10 pm
aerobod wrote: Tue Oct 09, 2018 1:03 pm Swoop is being built on WestJet lease returns that have had the leases extended. -700s and a couple of -800s that were due to be returned when the MAX deliveries started have been retained and shuffled with newer -800s to build a Swoop fleet with a consistent configuration.
Factually incorrect. This was the lie told to the staff at WJ by management. The newest -800's in the fleet were sent to Swoop, not one lease return went there.
You need to read my comment again, as you obviously didn’t understand it the first time. I didn’t say the lease returns went to Swoop, they were retained in the fleet to free up aircraft and a consistent set of -800s were sent to Swoop.
Right you are. Shouldn't post when tired.

However, the management did tell the pilots that the lease returns would be going to Swoop, not that they would be staying in the WJ fleet to allow the transfer of owned aircraft to swoop.
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Re: SWOOP OTS Captains punted from left seat...

Post by jjj »

eyebrow737 wrote: Tue Oct 09, 2018 7:40 pm
jjj wrote: Tue Oct 09, 2018 7:20 pm Nobody is suggesting losing money to fight a competitor.

The true cost of Swoop is veiled in a shell game of convenient accounting. There was a way to compete for cheaper than starting another airline under the parent company.

The rest of the employee group is starting to feel it too. Go talk to the CSAs in Hamilton that usd to be full time for WestJet and now wear pink. Please don’t have the sanctimonious tone of Tbaylx when the CSA turns to tears - it won’t help.
Hey JJJ, how's the swoop pilot jumpseat ban going? I've denied 3 x 838s so far. Hopefully one of them was you. Keep on trucking bud 🤙
So one man's JS ban is righteous and the other is not? You are a true defender of the faith eyebrow.

Have a nice day.

JJJ
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Re: SWOOP OTS Captains punted from left seat...

Post by jjj »

eyebrow737 wrote: Tue Oct 09, 2018 7:40 pm
jjj wrote: Tue Oct 09, 2018 7:20 pm Nobody is suggesting losing money to fight a competitor.

The true cost of Swoop is veiled in a shell game of convenient accounting. There was a way to compete for cheaper than starting another airline under the parent company.

The rest of the employee group is starting to feel it too. Go talk to the CSAs in Hamilton that usd to be full time for WestJet and now wear pink. Please don’t have the sanctimonious tone of Tbaylx when the CSA turns to tears - it won’t help.
Hey JJJ, how's the swoop pilot jumpseat ban going? I've denied 3 x 838s so far. Hopefully one of them was you. Keep on trucking bud 🤙
So one man's JS ban is righteous and the other is not? You are a true defender of the faith eyebrow.

Have a nice day.

JJJ
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Re: SWOOP OTS Captains punted from left seat...

Post by aerobod »

Mach1 wrote: Tue Oct 09, 2018 8:18 pm
aerobod wrote: Tue Oct 09, 2018 7:39 pm
Mach1 wrote: Tue Oct 09, 2018 4:10 pm

Factually incorrect. This was the lie told to the staff at WJ by management. The newest -800's in the fleet were sent to Swoop, not one lease return went there.
You need to read my comment again, as you obviously didn’t understand it the first time. I didn’t say the lease returns went to Swoop, they were retained in the fleet to free up aircraft and a consistent set of -800s were sent to Swoop.
Right you are. Shouldn't post when tired.

However, the management did tell the pilots that the lease returns would be going to Swoop, not that they would be staying in the WJ fleet to allow the transfer of owned aircraft to swoop.
Thanks for reading again, I know I can mis interpret a lot when I’m tired.

It was certainly an option a couple of years ago to use -700s when Swoop was first discussed and was seen as the least disruptive path, but it obviously was not workable, as one of the basic ULCC principles is maximum seat capacity for an aircraft with a given range that meets the mission needs, the -800 is far more efficient in this respect at 189 seats and the economics are well known from Ryanair operations. The issue with the -800s is that a lot of the early ones had significant configuration variability from a systems and ETOPS perspective, the later ones before MAX delivery are much better in that respect, another important factor in ULCC service. The decision on which aircraft was made in a very pragmatic manner.

Also from an accounting perspective, Swoop costs are very tightly monitored and any mainline service provided to Swoop has to be logged under Swoop accounting codes. Before I retired from WestJet IT we had to justify and identify WestJet IT services provided to Swoop at full economic cost, Swoop IT then had to determine whether WestJet or external providers would be more cost efficient to meet their targets. They are very tightly controlled to hit the 7c CAD ex-fuel CASM that has been publically discussed with analysts. Although they are not a separate public company, they are treated effectively as separate from a budget, profit and management perspective, much more than Encore is.
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Re: SWOOP OTS Captains punted from left seat...

Post by RidersRule »

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Re: SWOOP OTS Captains punted from left seat...

Post by cloak »

Anger and hatred repel reason, logic and enlightenment. They also destroy their hosts first; do a quick research on the effects of anger and hatred on oneself...
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Re: SWOOP OTS Captains punted from left seat...

Post by RidersRule »

Cloak,

It’s funny that you say that, a lot of your posts come across as angry. Just saying.

I will say I briefly went down that road with the 26 OTS guys then decided it wasn’t worth it. Life’s too short.

Although I am extremely happy with how it turned out. Mr Kaplan made chicken salad out of chicken sh!t. It’s the best we could hope for given the situation.

Cheers.
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Re: SWOOP OTS Captains punted from left seat...

Post by eyebrow737 »

jjj wrote: Tue Oct 09, 2018 9:05 pm
So one man's JS ban is righteous and the other is not? You are a true defender of the faith eyebrow.

Have a nice day.

JJJ
No no, not at all, in fact I have come around to you and your rubber gloved colleagues hard won and lengthy arguments on right and wrong.

Pilots who do anything that lowers the standards, should in any way be punished against grievances of the common good.

So bearing that wonderful realization (thanks again!) I have started a list of things I consider detrimental to our profession and will ban all violators from my cockpit.

First and foremost will be airline pilots who have demeaned the profession by donning rubber to pick up trash in front of passengers and also taking away our brother and sister aircraft cleaner jobs ( stay strong comrades, I got your back)

Of course I can't say that I speak for the entire industry like WestJet pilots do, as to what is right and wrong but maybe together we can make a difference.

Hopefully in the future negotiations these violators will be able to act as professional pilots and give the cleaning jobs back to our comrades who have suffered so. They will then be welcomed back into the JS with open arms and rousing songs of kumbaya.

Next I'm working on pilots who offered to work for free or pay for their type ratings.

One step at a time my comrades.
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Re: SWOOP OTS Captains punted from left seat...

Post by cloak »

RidersRule, not to put you on the spot, but since you are so keen on this conversation contrary to my usual practice I share with you that generally speaking angry is one who constantly uses a profane and vulgar language, because one cannot "win" with reasonable debate. That's the other thing, one who is angry debates to "win" the argument, whereas an enlightened person seeks to understand and offers one's perspective to discover the truth. It was good that you deleted your previous post, just not worthy of someone who is not "angry"! cheers.
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Re: SWOOP OTS Captains punted from left seat...

Post by J31 »

Westjet 737 fleet Oct 18 2017:
737-600 (13)
737-700 (56)
737-800 (49) includes 800MAX

Total 118
--------------------------------------
Westjet 737 fleet May 14 2018:
737-600 (13)
737-700 (54)
737-800 (54) includes 800MAX

Total 121
-------------------------------------
Westjet 737 fleet Oct 10 2018:
737-600 (13)
737-700 (54)
737-800 (51) includes 800MAX

Total 118
------------------------------------
Swoop 737 fleet Oct 10 2018:
737-800NG (5)
All year 2015 build.

------------------------------------
Oct 2017 to Oct 2018 Westjet took delivery of (6) 737-800MAX and (2) 737-800 NG

Source http://wwwapps.tc.gc.ca/Saf-Sec-Sur/2/C ... c&m=%7c%7c
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Re: SWOOP OTS Captains punted from left seat...

Post by Dizzy D »

cloak wrote: Wed Oct 10, 2018 11:10 am RidersRule, not to put you on the spot, but since you are so keen on this conversation contrary to my usual practice I share with you that generally speaking angry is one who constantly uses a profane and vulgar language, because one cannot "win" with reasonable debate. That's the other thing, one who is angry debates to "win" the argument, whereas an enlightened person seeks to understand and offers one's perspective to discover the truth. It was good that you deleted your previous post, just not worthy of someone who is not "angry"! cheers.
How is the view from your high horse?
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Re: SWOOP OTS Captains punted from left seat...

Post by RidersRule »

My previous post that I delayed just related to not banning anyone from the sumpseat, but I decided I didn’t want to wade into that mud hole...staying out of conversations that lead to the swamp so to speak

So I’m not sure how it relates to your point.
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Re: SWOOP OTS Captains punted from left seat...

Post by aerobod »

J31 wrote: Wed Oct 10, 2018 12:32 pm Westjet 737 fleet Oct 18 2017:
737-600 (13)
737-700 (56)
737-800 (49) includes 800MAX

Total 118
--------------------------------------
Westjet 737 fleet May 14 2018:
737-600 (13)
737-700 (54)
737-800 (54) includes 800MAX

Total 121
-------------------------------------
Westjet 737 fleet Oct 10 2018:
737-600 (13)
737-700 (54)
737-800 (51) includes 800MAX

Total 118
------------------------------------
Swoop 737 fleet Oct 10 2018:
737-800NG (5)
All year 2015 build.

------------------------------------
Oct 2017 to Oct 2018 Westjet took delivery of (6) 737-800MAX and (2) 737-800 NG

Source http://wwwapps.tc.gc.ca/Saf-Sec-Sur/2/C ... c&m=%7c%7c
An additional 2 MAX 8s were received in Sep 2017. While the 8 MAX 8s and 2 -800s were received, 7 -700s leased from BOC came up to lease end, 5 were extended to allow the -800s to be transferred to the Swoop fleet and not shrink the mainline fleet, only 2 of the -700s (tails 255 & 260) were given back at lease end.

There are quite a few more -700s and -800s for lease expiry in 2019 (6) and 2020 (5). With 6 MAX deliveries in 2019 to offset lease returns, the mainline fleet can be kept constant or slowly growing while Swoop takes aircraft from the mainline fleet by using lease extensions on the aircraft that are coming to lease end.
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Re: SWOOP OTS Captains punted from left seat...

Post by Diadem »

countdown wrote: Tue Oct 09, 2018 6:49 pm Losing money on every flight is not the way to fight a competitor.

I flew with a guy the other day that was making the same argument and ranting against Swoop. I mentioned how the entire Canadian industry was bleeding during the fight against Jetsgo and just lowering ticket prices is not the way to compete. His response : Whats a Jetsgo?
When NewLeaf/Flair announced that they were going to start service to Mesa, WestJet started service to Mesa despite already operating to Phoenix, for the same price as NewLeaf was going to charge; the latter cancelled the route before it started. WestJet has enough brand loyalty and connections to make running a new competitor out of town viable, and they have the financial clout to survive a bit of a battle. If WestJet wanted to, they could match Flair's prices on the routes on which both operate and force the latter out of business, potentially without losing money considering their connections and loyalty.
Instead, management decided to set up a direct competitor, with no connections or loyalty program, and replace WestJet service with Swoop on several routes. It's hard to see how Swoop could do much besides exist in parallel to Flair, which will push fares down far more and affect WestJet's financial stability in the long run far more than simply going head-to-head using their traditional product.
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Re: SWOOP OTS Captains punted from left seat...

Post by Blue42 »

Mach1 wrote: Tue Oct 09, 2018 8:18 pm
aerobod wrote: Tue Oct 09, 2018 7:39 pm
Mach1 wrote: Tue Oct 09, 2018 4:10 pm

Factually incorrect. This was the lie told to the staff at WJ by management. The newest -800's in the fleet were sent to Swoop, not one lease return went there.
You need to read my comment again, as you obviously didn’t understand it the first time. I didn’t say the lease returns went to Swoop, they were retained in the fleet to free up aircraft and a consistent set of -800s were sent to Swoop.
Right you are. Shouldn't post when tired.

However, the management did tell the pilots that the lease returns would be going to Swoop, not that they would be staying in the WJ fleet to allow the transfer of owned aircraft to swoop.
Management never specifically said which tails would be going to Swoop! They said exactly what he explained, leased aircraft would be retained to start up and expand Swoop. They never said the leased aircraft would be the ones going to Swoop.
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Re: SWOOP OTS Captains punted from left seat...

Post by aerobod »

Diadem wrote: Wed Oct 10, 2018 2:34 pm
countdown wrote: Tue Oct 09, 2018 6:49 pm Losing money on every flight is not the way to fight a competitor.

I flew with a guy the other day that was making the same argument and ranting against Swoop. I mentioned how the entire Canadian industry was bleeding during the fight against Jetsgo and just lowering ticket prices is not the way to compete. His response : Whats a Jetsgo?
When NewLeaf/Flair announced that they were going to start service to Mesa, WestJet started service to Mesa despite already operating to Phoenix, for the same price as NewLeaf was going to charge; the latter cancelled the route before it started. WestJet has enough brand loyalty and connections to make running a new competitor out of town viable, and they have the financial clout to survive a bit of a battle. If WestJet wanted to, they could match Flair's prices on the routes on which both operate and force the latter out of business, potentially without losing money considering their connections and loyalty.
Instead, management decided to set up a direct competitor, with no connections or loyalty program, and replace WestJet service with Swoop on several routes. It's hard to see how Swoop could do much besides exist in parallel to Flair, which will push fares down far more and affect WestJet's financial stability in the long run far more than simply going head-to-head using their traditional product.
When a competitor is small and unstable in the market, using the approach WestJet did with Mesa against NewLeaf will work quite quickly. Now Flair has some momentum and a lower cost base (NewLeaf had the problem of Flair markup when they bought lift from them). With David Tait now in charge at Flair and his broad experience in the industry, the airline with the lower cost will win, in this case that is not WestJet mainline.
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