Very nice !!

Since this is a Southwest thread, I thought I would post this article that came out today regarding Southwest's 39 straight years of profitability. It's a pretty good read and makes you think about the simple approach Southwest takes and what the rest of the airlines do. Here's the link:

 

http://www.slate.com...s_success_.html

Thing is..is that from a flight operations standpoint, SWA isn't as simple as it used to be. For example, SWA is now starting to introduce (or will be in the near future) de-rates, and reduced climbs, and also variable cost indexes. They used to only use assumed temperature reduced take-offs, and all flights used the same CI of 20. A couple years back, the brought online VNAV and A/T, both of which they hadn't used before that, and also changed the displays from EFIS/MAP to PFD/ND. They are also getting ACARS printers, which even though a small change, makes the airplane more complicated. (Can you imagine how much the paper alone is going to cost?!) On a broader note, SWA used to be good at serving the "underserved" airports (e.g., DAL instead of DFW, and MDW instead of ORD) For the past couple of years, they have opened stations at many airports, which some people never thought that they would serve (LGA, EWR, ATL, BOS, etc...) Also, we know that they recently received ETOPS certified aircraft, and are planning on serving international routes, which if you told me that even two years ago, I wouldn't have believed it in a million years. So we are seeing a very evolving SWA, and many people (a lot of employees) don't know where the company will be in 5-10 years, at the current rate of growth/changes.

Personally, I just find it very incredible that they weren't using VNAV or A/T. A lot of hand-flying and becoming absolute masters of trim. Also, staying on-time and accurate as far as cruise speed/wind goes....I feel like there's a lot of talent in there somewhere to keep the flights going, on-time, and flying accurately without those 2 features.

Actually, a pilot I talked to said that he liked it better without A/T. This was due to a lot of the fast spool ups, and also all the changes during cruise. When your in turbulent air, your IAS is constantly changing, and the A/T tries to keep up with that. Without A/T, there aren't as many thrust changes, leading to PAX comfort, and possiably even fuel savings.

They didn't use autothrottle? This I never knew. I wonder if they had it armed? Not a wise choice if they didn't since you lose alpha protection. I always scratched my head on why SWA never used some of the technology available. They use to not even use autobrakes before the chicago incident. Crazy.

Yeah, up until a couple years ago, they never used A/T. If you search for cockpit pictures, you can see either an "INOP" sticker over the VNAV and A/T, or manually placed covers to prevent them from arming the A/T, and activating VNAV. They still don't use Auto brakes level 1, as that is not authorized.