I would like congratulate Southwest Airlines management and investors for another record-setting quarter. Some highlights from today's announcement include:

 

One important topic from today's announcement is the early retirement of the Classic fleet. Earlier this year, the Company announced plans to retire the remaining 737-300s by mid-2018. Since they failed to reach an agreement on segmentation that was acceptable to our membership, the Company decided that they need to accelerate the schedule into the third quarter of 2017. While this decision removes some uncertainty from the Company's fleet planning, management must still address the fact that, regardless of the FAA guidance on Classic/MAX flying, our current contract does not permit the Company to fly the MAX.  With deliveries potentially as early as next spring, it would seem logical that the Company would like to negotiate a contract before that time. A contract that enables our airline to take advantage of the incredible efficiencies the revolutionary new 737-MAX provides.

Our Platform provides the Company with a solution to its fleet problem and permits Southwest to grow and remain the incredibly profitable low-cost leader it is today. Make no mistake; today's announcement is not the result of a Pilot group desiring market rate compensation. It is the product of a management decision to protract negotiations for four years, thus leaving themselves with very few options. In fact, a business decision made two years ago, which would have prevented this situation, resulted in the loss of 88 B-717s to Delta at a cost of $137 million.

With the legacy-style management team that runs Southwest today, their course of action was a fairly predictable one and one that we expected. Delta canceled an aircraft order after a failed Pilot TA and later quietly reinstated much of it. United announced it was reducing service in Houston in response to city approval of our international service and then quietly returned.  It seems likely our management will quietly mitigate much of the impact of the departure of the -300s in coming months. With record profits and the highest margins of all time, it is beyond belief that our CEO will not make adjustments to protect his number-one priority: Wall Street. Management has a number of levers it can choose to pull such as added shoulder flights, increased daily utilization, and additional used aircraft. This is merely a play from the legacy-style playbook our management has chosen to use in an effort to sow the seeds of fear and uncertainty in our Pilot group. SWAPA will remain unified in resolve to achieve a contract worthy of the most productive Pilots in the industry.  For now, we will continue to breathe through our nose, watch, listen, and be ready to resume talks again next month.

Finally, I would like to address our planned tweets this morning. Gary Kelly appeared on SquawkBox early this morning. A technical problem resulting in the loss of the video feed limited the journalists to a shortened interview. There was only time for Mr.Kelly to briefly talk through earnings and answer a couple of questions regarding fares. While we are disappointed that we did not get a chance to get our questions to him through the media today, there will be other opportunities in the future. Please stay engaged and watch for more opportunities to get involved. Speaking of being involved, please take the time to RSVP for the downtown or MDW (or both!) informational picketing events in Chicago on May 18. 

I wrote about the "playbook" management would likely attempt to execute in last month's RP. To no one's surprise, they have initiated its execution and taken the predictable course of action. We stand ready to move on with growing our Company's bottom line and competing in the airline marketplace once the Company is ready to recognize the worth of the Pilot profession and our efforts that have directly resulted in the current incredible performance of our airline. 

Leading Forward,