Southwest Pilot Deal Caps CodeSharing
Andrew Compart andrew_compart@aviationweek.com 
Southwest's tentative new five-year contract with its pilots union includes a commitment to increase the carrier's fleet size to 568 aircraft by the end of 2012, and places a cap on the amount of capacity the airline can put on codeshare flights to Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean, union officials said yesterday.
The board for the Southwest Airline Pilots' Assn. voted March 26 to endorse the tentative deal with the airline and submit it to the membership for a ratification vote. The current contract became amendable on Aug. 31, 2006, and the new one would last until Aug. 31, 2011.
The airline's current contract with the pilots, as first amended in 2006, already included a commitment to grow the fleet by 5% a year, said Carl Kuwitzky, president of the Southwest Airlines Pilots Assn. But the union agreed to waive that requirement for 2009 and 2010 because of the economic downturn.
Southwest said earlier this year that it was suspending its fleet growth plans through at least 2010 because of the recession, with a rescheduling of its Boeing order and plans to offset deliveries of new aircraft with the retirement or sale of other aircraft. The airline plans to reduce its fleet size from 537 at the end of 2008 to 535 by the end of this year.
But under the terms of the new contract, the fleet would grow a bit in 2010, ending the year at 541 aircraft, and reach that 568-aircraft level by the end of 2012. Kuwitzky said the result is that the 2012 year-end fleet size will be the same as it would have been at the end of 2010 if the union had not waived the 5% growth requirement. If circumstances lead Southwest management to conclude the airline does not want to grow that much, it would have to come back to the union to amend the agreement, Kuwitzky said.
The contract would prohibit domestic codesharing, except for codesharing on interisland regional jet service in Hawaii, and cap the amount of Southwest codesharing to Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean to 6% of the airline's available seat miles. Codesharing for Caribbean interisland regional jet service also would be permitted.
Codesharing has become a bigger issue with the union because of Southwest's recent deals to begin codesharing to Canada with WestJet late this year and to Mexico with Volaris in 2010.
Southwest would not be allowed to do longer-distance codesharing, which the contract refers to as "far international" unless it comes back to the union to negotiate an amendment to the contract. Kuwitzky said the union is not necessarily opposed to such codesharing, but "we didn't want to open the barn door and say, 'Do whatever you want to do.' That's what we have today...I want them to have to come to us."
Under other terms of the tentative contract, pilots would get a 2% pay raise for each of the first three years of the deal--two of them retroactive for 2007 and 2008--and 0% to 3% raises for the final two years of the contract based on the airline's profitability. The company also would phase in a two-percentage-point increase in its 401(k) match, from 7.3% to 9.3%, between 2009 and 2011.
The pilots, in return, agreed to give Southwest more flexibility in pilot crew scheduling by allowing for fewer duty periods.
AviationWeek.com photo by Benet Wilson
