SWA Pilot Correspondence

Airline Pilot Questions & Answers
1

Greetings,

This forum/community has proven to be very helpful. Thanks to all that have helped answer critical questions.

I was hoping I could correspond with, and ask a few questions of, a Southwest Airlines pilot offline.

If anyone is a Southwest pilot, and willing/able to reach out, please contact me at jduff22@hotmail.com

Thanks again

2

Hi Joshua,

I’m a pilot at Southwest but would prefer to keep any correspondence over the forum (and allow it to benefit others). Please ask any questions you’d like!

Jordan

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3

Aha! I knew there was someone here that was at SW. I tried searching schedules and the forums for recent schedule updates on SW, but haven’t found anything recent (within the past year).

Jordan, are you still at SW? If you are, would you mind providing any info on some questions?

How long have you been there now and what does your QOL look like?
What is an average schedule like, days on versus days off?
When it comes to the AM/PM schedules, what the earliest report times and the latest release times?
Someone told me the max work days was 12. A guaranteed 18 days off a month sounds too good to be true. Are ya’ll actually getting 18 days off?
How’s the moral there? APC forums are so negative and it’s hard to get a real feel for how things are going there.
For how long you’ve been there, how things are going now, and how it’s been since you were hired, would you recommend SW?

Any information you can provide is greatly appreciated!

4

Hi Kyle,

I don’t think Jordan is on the forum anymore, but I think Sergey just stated there recently. He might be the best person to ask. There’s also a YouTuber called Big Ern who’s a captain for SWA who puts out good content.

5

Thanks for the heads up, Jake. In browsing earlier, I think I saw Sergey went to AA. I have seen Big Ern before, maybe I’ll browse through his stuff. Thanks!

6

Actually I believe Sergey went to SWA.

Adam

7

@forourspam (Sergey) is at Southwest.

Brady

8

Oh yeah, I just commented earlier on a thread about his updates LOL. Guess I’ve reviewed too many threads this morning to keep track of who went where.

9

Kyle,

I have many close friends at SWA and can answer a few questions until someone else jumps in.

  1. QOL is one of the best in the industry. While SWA might not be the highest paid in the world they have some of the best work rules around. I’m always amazed how little my friends work.

  2. This varies with how you bid, just like every other airline.

  3. VERY early and VERY late. Their latest contract also introduced “redeyes”.

  4. Not true, the language states lines will not be built with more than 15 work days. That means 15-16 days off.

  5. Moral was bad because they wanted a new contract. The contract just passed this week (with 93% voting yes). Safe to say that’s a happy pilot group.

  6. 3 - 20yrs. All are happy and fully recommend.

Adam

10

I appreciate the info, Adam. It’s good to hear that people with many years there recommend it.

11

I’m only finishing my first month on the line here at SWA, so I would say, Adam’s take is probably more accurate than mine would be :joy: I was doing my IOE and started consolidation this month, but still ended up with 16 days off. Moreover, I got to do all of my trips out of my desired domicile although I will be in BWI from February and until further notice, which is an excellent QOL improvement for me who has never had to commute on days off in my flying career. The morale is high, the camaraderie is excellent and I’m having a blast out here (and so are all of my classmates). APC is chock full of trolls and keyboard warriors so I would not put too much faith into what you read there. Check in with your flying buddies, find out who went to SWA and ask them for their first-person account. That’s your most trustworthy source

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