The End Of Operations At Southwest

[svaha4]

This is to notify Ops Agents at Southwest that your job is about to be ended. The new technology is about to make the end of your position, and our culture. The repeated statement that "we can't turn airplanes anymore" has served as the death bell for our jobs and it appears that TWU 555 doesn't have a clue what to do about it.

My advice is to start looking for alternate employment and put your union on notice.

Anyone else with any thoughts?

Tim

 

[diverboy]

From what I understand, the company will not be letting ops agents go.. they will just be letting people leave and not replacing them until the staffing gets down as low as it needs to be.

 

[WNrforlife]

Is there any truth to this rumor? I have not heard about it. Does it have anything to do with the new handheld remote units that they are testing in MAF?
I have been in Ops for 20+ years and don't want to do anything else.

 

[diverboy]

You should have recieved a letter from the union stating that eventually the loading schedules are going to be done in OTIS and then printed and given to the flight crew... with the eventual electronic sending of the loading schedule into the cockpit. The memo also says that no operations agents will be furloughed, however will just let the ops numbers go down by attrition until the station has reached its minimum levels.. So, I'd say if you have 20+ years in ops then you're fine. Even the newer folks like myself are fine. Just probably means that no new ops agents and no transferring stations.. so hopefully everyone likes where they are. 😉

 

[wwtraveler99]

From what I understand, the company will not be letting ops agents go.. they will just be letting people leave and not replacing them until the staffing gets down as low as it needs to be.

Yes, I think you are correct they will start by no replacing those who leave. But when things don't move fast enough for them it is possible they will furlough.

In my opinion this whole change-over precess will take about 5-7 years. At the end of this 5-7 year period you will see the company use other methods to rid itself of excess operations personnal. The one thing our union needs to do is keep ALL of our jiob duties in the contract, especially us doing loading schedules. We have to be the one who print this and hand it to the flight crews. Once this is gone you had better look for other work because the rest of our duties will be sure to follow.

 

[ELP_WN_Psgr]

You aren't sounding very reasonable.

Stop and think about it.

Has the company ever given you any reason to think they want to get rid of people? Quite the contrary....while other airlines were letting the meat axe fall WN refused to give in to the temptation to reduce employee head count....and if there was ever a time when they could have gotten away with it, post 9/11 was one of them.

Times change, technologies change. Computers have meant passengers can book online, eliminating the need for quite so many res agents. Yes, the company consolidates res centers, but res agents are not tossed out on the streets to turn tricks at the Waffle House.

Systems have progressed to where the duties of Opns Agents can be done, by and large, thru automation. Great! You, as an employee, ought to think about the cost savings to the company, how that can impact the bottom line, and how the benefits of a thriving and prosperous company accrue to you, the employee.

You ought to go over to the USAir board and read about greedy management. Your management is not greedy and are not allocating themselves bonuses while the mployees are forced to take concessions. Be grateful.

If the duties of Opns Agents can be done via automation, my take on it is that the company will move you to another position where your skills and talents can be well utilized. I've seen nothing to think otherwise. Yes, you may be disappointed that you have to change duty description somewhat....but life is not without some disappointment from time to time.

Forcing a company to keep job descriptions which are unnecessary is what killed the textile industry and the railroads in this country. From your vantage point, you may say that the company is making plenty of money with Opns Agents, so why get rid of them.

Because the advantage is always to the lower cost producer. There are people out there with lower costs than Southwest Airlines Co. (not many but a few). Eventually, there will be a collision of Southwest & JetBlue, and when that happens Southwest had better have their ducks in a row.

Of course, the collision might not ever happen if Neeleman keeps reading his press clippings and believing that he, like the Pope, is infallible. But right now, Neeleman's outfit is not bound by any labor agreements and they are free to do whatever they want. They pay a lot less than you see in your paycheck, too.

Rather than gripe and moan about the loss of a duty title at WN, you ought to be corresponding with your brothers and sisters who work for JetBlue to see if you can get them to sign some union cards. They are a whole lot more oppressed than you folks at WN.

 

[Tanker]

Right now contactually only an Ops agent or an Ops Supervisor can operate the Ops computers at the gates. So unless Ops changes their contract there will always be at least 1 Ops agent working a flight. Correct me if I'm wrong but doesn't SWA only staff now to have 1 Ops agent per flight. Additionally. you will still need an Ops agent to pre-flight the loads, arrange for fuel. contact maint for the pilots, as well as the other things that an Ops agents does. Just because the baording cards are now counted via the computer & not by hand doesn't mean there will no longer be a need for Ops agents. Same as when the load sheet is done via the computer, you will still need a person to enter the data into the computer. IMO unless SWA changes the job description of CSAs there will always be Ops agents. Their job is just to important.

 

[wwtraveler99]

Right now contactually only an Ops agent or an Ops Supervisor can operate the Ops computers at the gates. So unless Ops changes their contract there will always be at least 1 Ops agent working a flight. Correct me if I'm wrong but doesn't SWA only staff now to have 1 Ops agent per flight. Additionally. you will still need an Ops agent to pre-flight the loads, arrange for fuel. contact maint for the pilots, as well as the other things that an Ops agents does. Just because the baording cards are now counted via the computer & not by hand doesn't mean there will no longer be a need for Ops agents. Same as when the load sheet is done via the computer, you will still need a person to enter the data into the computer. IMO unless SWA changes the job description of CSAs there will always be Ops agents. Their job is just to important.

Well let me give you a little background about how our job has progressed. In the begining everything was typed manually. It took about 20-30 minutes to close-out a flight. Yes we did all the things above as you have mentioned. We took care of fuel, preplan flight loads, aircraft swaps, gate changes, deal with customers, customer service, ramp, maintenance, dispatch, answer phones, and all this under time constraints. Over the years SWA has made things eaiser (this was the first step). Things became automated. The time spent closing out flight was reduced to what it is now, approximately 10 minutes.

Now responding to your comment "as when the load sheet is done via the computer, you will still need a person to enter the data into the computer." If this were how it is going to be the fine I would'nt be worrying. The problem is all this information we use for the load sheet will be sent directly to the computer and then directly to the cockpit and flight crew. When all is said and done will will be ticket takers. Why not have customer service do this? Fuel loads can come from the crew to the fuelers. In the years down the road there will be only a few duties that will need to be done by an operations agent. Now there will be one agent on duty. So why have that one person here it can be done by others who are here to make them more productive.

I am not saying that the position of operations will be gone next year. I think it will be a number of years. If SWA was to guarentee our jobs and only remove staff by attrition I would be ok with that.. I also think all others current operations agents would be ok with it as well.

I have a lot invested in this company. Not only as an employee, but as a shareholder. I want to see SWA last for many many more years. I also don't want to be forced to seek other employment, even within SWA, unless it was by choice.

 

[SWAFA30]

But right now, Neeleman's outfit is not bound by any labor agreements and they are free to do whatever they want. They pay a lot less than you see in your paycheck, too.

I would gladly swap paychecks with a jetBlue flight attendant any day. They start off at $20 an hour, we only make $14.67 to start. It took me just over 5 years of service to cross the $20 mark. Some of their departments might pay less than SWA but entry level inflight service ain't one of em.

 

[ELP_WN_Psgr]

FA30:

Here's a question for you, and I dont know the answer....this isn't a set up deal:

But I seem to have heard something along these lines, which is why I asketh....

In the inflight service dept over at JetBlue, aren't FAs hired on a term-limited type contract?

Seems like I heard something that they are hired on a 3 yr contract....and at the end of the contract the FA can be axed with no recourse to grievance or anything at all like that. Just "thanks for 3 yrs, here's the gratitude of a thankful airline,now go away."

It sounded to me when I heard it...that it was a way for Neeleman & pals to discriminate against older people.....that it was a way for him to ensure that he always had a junior stable of FAs and NOBODY ever acquired any seniority.

I could be wrong but that was the story going around when they commenced operations 3-4 yrs back.

If I were Parker and the FAs wanted to take me up on a deal like that, I'd pay 'em $20 an hr. That would be a bargain.

As far as your current pay is concerned, I imagine it will be rectified soon enough. I saw an offer the company had made several months back and was mystified as to why you all hadn't pounced on it. It looked good to me. Heck, it looked so good that my wife had already decided I needed to apply for a FA job as soon as I retire from my current occupation.

Of course I would do it for $14.67, so what do I know?

 

[SWAFA30]

FA30:

Here's a question for you, and I dont know the answer....this isn't a set up deal:

But I seem to have heard something along these lines, which is why I asketh....

In the inflight service dept over at JetBlue, aren't FAs hired on a term-limited type contract?

Seems like I heard something that they are hired on a 3 yr contract....and at the end of the contract the FA can be axed with no recourse to grievance or anything at all like that. Just "thanks for 3 yrs, here's the gratitude of a thankful airline,now go away."

It sounded to me when I heard it...that it was a way for Neeleman & pals to discriminate against older people.....that it was a way for him to ensure that he always had a junior stable of FAs and NOBODY ever acquired any seniority.

I could be wrong but that was the story going around when they commenced operations 3-4 yrs back.

If I were Parker and the FAs wanted to take me up on a deal like that, I'd pay 'em $20 an hr. That would be a bargain.

As far as your current pay is concerned, I imagine it will be rectified soon enough. I saw an offer the company had made several months back and was mystified as to why you all hadn't pounced on it. It looked good to me. Heck, it looked so good that my wife had already decided I needed to apply for a FA job as soon as I retire from my current occupation.

Of course I would do it for $14.67, so what do I know?

I actually briefly considered jumping ship to jetBlue when they first started up few years back. I'm sure a jetBlue lurker will correct me if I am wrong but if I remember correctly, they offered 3 different employment options. "Crew 2000" which I believe was a 1 year contract. The job description on their website suggested that the 1 year contract might appeal to a college student wanting to take a year off or others just looking to get in make some money and get out. The second was a job share position where 2 people interviewed together, got hired together and shared a schedule. Finally, there was the regular F/A job. I am pretty plugged in to the F/A community and I have not heard anything about jetBlue making their F/As quit after a certain period of time. Again, I'm a jetBlue lurker will give set us straight if we have got it wrong. Considering the fact that jetBlue is non-union can't their employees be fired with our without cause anyway?

As far as our contract goes, the membership and the negotiating team found the company's offer unacceptable. Management and labor remain light years apart on compensation. Our starting pay looks good if you think about it from the typical 160 paid hours per month full time job. But, you have to remember that our schedules as built usually, pay around 90 hours per month. Again, $14.67 looks pretty good until you understand that a new hire is forced to sit reserve and reserves are only guaranteed 93.5 paid hours per month. That comes to $1371.65 per month before taxes. When reserves fly they do earn $2/hr in per diem but excluding irregular operations, junior flight attendants often don't do much reserve flying so you can't count on making per diem with any consistency unless you are a lineholder. So in exchange for 4 to 5 nights per week away from home you would be earning about 16 grand before taxes and per diem.

Contract negotiations have been in mediation since early fall and recessed just before the holidays with zero progress. Talks are scheduled to resume later this month so we'll see what happens. Personally, I'm not expecting any real progress anytime soon. Both sides really seem to have dug their heels in and are not likely to budge. I expect the mediator to declare an impasse pretty soon if there is no significant progess in the coming weeks. Both sides have said they would reject binding arbitration.

 

[WNrforlife]

I wish we they would go back to the old Ops uniforms we had in the mid-late eighties. They were real classy, gray slacks, red tie, white shirt.

Our current uniforms are kind of dated and make me feel like I'm one of those "hospitality" folks at Disneyland.

The current uniform doesn't command much respect from the travelling public. <_<

 

[svaha4]

Well....how are things going out there, Ops Agents? Hope you've all gotten a good look at the future. By now, some of you are now assigned to "zones" working under the new "STAR Program"....isn't it peachy?

In case you've missed the memos, you are being automated out of a job. Wake up and smell the fumes.

I'm advocating to all that we institute a general boycott of the upcoming Message to the Field. No protests, no comments, no shouting-down. Just a boycott. Stay home, take your SO to the movies, take the kids to the park.....just stay away from the "kool-aid dispenser". This company has refused to deal with our Flight Attendants, wants all ground personnel replaced by techno-heads and still stands upright, lying to us that everything is swell. How stupid they must think we are. For those who follow the company line,.......think of how sheep look as they are lined up for slaughter. The new Southwest management has to go! So, let's show them the door by not showing up at their little propoganda shows.

....and trust me, I've got plenty more to add later, Stork.

 

[Diesel8]

jetBlue has not let anyone go, because their contract expired. That would indeed be very bad for morale and would only foster bad relations between management and employees. Something that is not very good for business.

 

[chase]

As a pilot I can confirm what the book "The Southwest Airlines Way" says is very true. The role of the ops agent at SWA is unlike any other similar job at other airlines.

As the author correctly points out the ops agent is the key ingredient to information flow & our on-time performance. He/she collects data from multiple sources yes, but more importantly the human interaction that is called for can never be duplicated by a machine. Sorting out passenger problems, handling the FAs with cool, calm & professionalism during offloads, bag checks, etc. Dealing with the massive egos of pilots, mx, dispatch & a myriad of other folks requires tremendous skill. I view the automation of the job as a way to ease the burden of the paperwork to allow for more/better interaction between all of these players. OAs are distributor of news, information & support to so many folks that their job is the cog in the wheel in my opinion to making our on-time operation the envy of many others.

The book is an interersting read & clearly explains the uniqueness of this position at SWA. I was unaware that at other airlines 1 OA would be working multiple flights & may never have any contact with the pilots other than over the radio. I don't foresee this happening anytime in the near future. Will we need to replace excess ones, no but the job market is secure I believe.

chase