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The SWAPA Number

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The SWAPA Number

1,200 (Professional Standards, Jon Ross)

May 15, 2025 • Season 6

Today's SWAPA Number is 1200. That's the number of cases that Professional Standards has worked in the last 12 months. That's about 100 per month or about three a day. Those are high numbers and well within our control, but we'd much rather see that number of cases go here than over to company channels.

So today we sit down for our annual chat with Professional Standards chair, Captain Jon Ross, to update the membership on a must-listen episode about how pilots need to be as familiar with Professional Standards as they are with any other part of the Company or SWAPA.

If you have any feedback for us at all, please drop us a line at comm@swapa.org or tap here to send us a text.

Tony Mulhare:

Matt McCants:

I'm Matt McCants.

Tony Mulhare:

And I'm Tony Mulhare, and this is our conversation with Jon.

Jon, I want to start by picking up where we left off with when we talked with you last year. We talked about how we have four different, and some people would define that as five different, generations of pilots in the cockpit and all the different hurdles that can come with that and conflict resolution techniques and when to get in touch with your team. But what has come across your desk in the last 12 months that everyone should be aware of?

Jon Ross:

I will say that we're still wrestling through some generational challenges. I think that AQP has helped tremendously with the tools that folks go to the line now with when they come out of the training center. I think that AQP is a very good thing compared to the training center was doing the best they could with what they had, but I think that they were probably tasked at a substantial level compared to what they're tasked with right now. I think AQP has helped things out.

The generational thing put in the other challenge along with generation, race, creed, color, those challenges are still there. That will take us a while to get through that, but I would say that elections have slowed things down. I think that AQP has helped. I think Ops Day has helped tremendously. Our workload ebbs and flows, right? It will never go away. We're human beings. We learn by mistakes.

Tony Mulhare:

So let's say I volunteer for your committee or somebody volunteers for your committee. What does that look like as far as training and onboarding, and how do you get them spun up to then go handle these conversations?

Jon Ross:

I do training about once every 18 months because it's what it's averaged out to since I took over the committee, but I will do training roughly annual. That's the onboarding for my new committee members. It's about a day-and-a-half of talking. It's very much OJI, so I do a lot of vetting to make sure, "Hey, is this really the right person?" The other aspect of the legal piece of it, what are you accountable for, what can you say and not say? But then once someone's trained, the training wheels come off, your name's on the call tree.

Tony Mulhare:

But most of the guys on committee, they've been around a while.

Jon Ross:

Long time.

Tony Mulhare:

So they've seen a lot of the things that are going to come across their desk anyway. They're just now working in a more formal manner as a member of Pro Standards.

Jon Ross:

The original, there was nine of us that made it through COVID ...

Tony Mulhare:

Wow.

Jon Ross:

... that stuck around through COVID. After we had made it through COVID, I'm like, "Okay, here's your guys' chance. It's been brutal. You guys went out, because I'm going to do training next year, and I need to know how many folks are we going to train and I don't blame any of you for being done." Nine for nine, and they've done it a long time now. Right?

Matt McCants:

Jon, COVID was certainly its own little microcosm of issues that were specifically COVID-related in the mask thing and the conversations that came along with that. Do you see changes in what you're talking about other than COVID, or is it normally just a kind of an even flow of topics, even though the frequency might change a little?

Jon Ross:

The number of calls will ebb and flow a little bit. When there are big events, obviously COVID was a big event, and if you take that blip off the radar, I just say human beings, you're not going to get it perfect, right?

Matt McCants:

Remember when we did this last, we had think just wrapped up the contract negotiations, and the volume had kind of decreased a little bit just based on the amount of pent-up frustration guys were feeling towards the end of the contract cycle, and then maybe that eased a little bit.

Jon Ross:

Correct.

Matt McCants:

What are the other events that kind of drive an increase in costs?

Jon Ross:

I think that the elections. Obviously, we live in a society that is charged or edgy as it is now. The election, let's call it like it is, our work group is generally a conservative group. The election went generally in our work group's favor. I can tell you that the edge of politics is somewhat gone. Politics and religion, you can't go there because it becomes passionate very quickly, and you won't change someone's opinion. It is what it is.

There's a few things that will separate a crew faster than, "Okay, you bring up those subjects. It's either you think like me, or I don't want to talk to you anymore," stuff that you would expect, contract challenges between us and the company. Things are going well between us and another organization, other work group. We are a cross-section of society, and society, for the most part nowadays, is kind of edgy in one direction or another.

Matt McCants:

Did you see a spike last summer or during the conversations between SWAPA and the Company and the Elliott Investment Group and some of the angst and anxiety that was caused by that?

Jon Ross:

A little bit. What was interesting was, it's funny you bring that up, the conversation would be what do you think is going to happen?

Matt McCants:

Uncertainty.

Jon Ross:

Yeah. So the uncertainty of the younger individual that is not as experienced in the industry looking to the more seasoned individual that's been here in the industry for quite a while ago. What do you think is going to happen? And I'll be the first one to tell you. I'd have FOs ask me, "Hey, well, what do you think is going on here?" And unfortunately, "Man, I'm just another village idiot flying airplanes. I'm an engineering background. I don't know enough about business to know what the right answer is."

Tony Mulhare:

Yeah. I think the real common theme here with COVID, with politics and elections, with outside investor presence, with announcements that we see from the company, it is uncertainty. Uncertainty brings people to positions of opinion. And when more opinions start getting thrown left and right, that's when the disagreements arise. We are a society of people that live off of headlines that we see every day, no matter how we consume it, and it generates thoughts and discussion, and the discussions sometimes turn sideways. And professional is the first part of your title, professional standards. Maybe it's something to reemphasize of, "Yeah, have your opinions outside of work. For sure, you have the right to that as an American, but when you're in the professional environment, it's time to put on another hat." Would you agree?

Jon Ross:

Absolutely. Our work group specifically, it's type As, right?

Tony Mulhare:

Sure.

Jon Ross:

So the opinion of a type A becomes very biased in one direction or another because you're probably not going to change your opinion or the other individual's opinion. It brings up a good point. So how do I wrestle that, right? Okay, Jon and Tony are flying together, and how do we wrestle through, "Okay, Jon's doing stuff that is frustrating Tony. How do I keep the team together?" Let's use the example of keying the mic on the yoke. It's day two of a three-day. We're an effective team. We're probably not going to send each other Christmas cards, but we're wrestling through it. And at the end of day one, Jon's done stuff that Tony's frustrated with, but we're not bringing that up, because we want to keep, "Hey, man. I'll wrestle through it and keep the team together."

Tony Mulhare:

You're letting it build.

Jon Ross:

Yeah. So we get to day two, and Tony's flying the airplane in gusty winds, weather isn't optimum, and Tony's hand-flying, Jon's keying the mic, talking to Tower, talking to approach. Every time he keys a mic, the yoke's moving a lot, because Tony's hand-flying, it's bumpy and he's got a pretty good grip on the yoke to key the mic to have a conversation. That's incredibly frustrating. And now, you get on the ground at the end of day two, Tony's pissed off, but Jon doesn't know what Tony's pissed off about because Tony's just caging that up.

So here's what I would ask, and it goes back to, I've said this in the past, it's how you deliver it. So you get to the gate and you read the checklist, and at that point, Tony goes, "Hey, Jon. I got something that it's going to really help me out, just a technique item. Man, if I'm hand-flying the airplane, you were a really heavy hand on the yoke when you keyed the mic. If I could ask you to use the console. You're in a max, use the cowl switch, right? It would really help me out and make me feel more comfortable in that environment." Pretty much a softball way to do it, very professionally done.

Tony Mulhare:

Yeah. This is that me, we, you thing that you talked about last time.

Matt McCants:

And 90% of us would respond to that by going, "Dude, I didn't even think about it, and of course I will. Yeah, man, great. My bad. I'm sorry."

Jon Ross:

Yeah, and I will tell you the bulk of the conversation I have with the folks, they don't know what they're doing wrong, because the other individual is there to try and keep the team together, and this is regardless of which side of the console, right? I will tell you the outcome of Ops Day I think has helped my committee out tremendously, because it's a re-evaluation of the person that you look at in the mirror, right?

Tony Mulhare:

Sure.

Jon Ross:

Okay, how can I be more professional? How do I make this work better, whether I'm flying or whether I'm monitoring? Whether I'm on the right side of the console or the left side of the console, we're all peers. So how do I make sure that we function, I'm treated as a peer, I'm functioning as a peer, and I'm letting the other individual know, "Hey, this is stuff that I don't appreciate. It has nothing to do with you personally. It's just a professional observation of if you could take and use a cowl switch, it would really help me on to max. If you do music console switch, it would really help me out." That individual, I'll tell you the bulk of the time, and, "I don't realize I do that. I'm sorry. That's a great point."

Tony Mulhare:

And it could be anything that somebody does, right? This is just a specific example that probably has come across your desk, but it can look like anything out there. That's a good representation of bringing your professional self and professional communication method to our work environment. However, another place that you see a lot of traffic and get work on your team's plate is on social media and the phones, i.e., WhatsApp groups, group texts, all these different things. I think it's time we remind everybody that hey, those come with professional attachments, too.

Jon Ross:

Absolutely, and I appreciate you bringing that up. Here's what I would ask folks to think about what occurs with social media. The second, third-order effects of when you hit the send key are pretty significant. There's another one of your peers at the other end of that, right? Would you want someone throwing that at you? How do you want to be treated. If that's the way you want to treat folks, it all comes back to that.

And the other aspect of the social media piece and all of the texts and apps and stuff is it's easy to type it. Here's what I would ask. Let it sit there overnight and then wake up when you have a hangover and decide whether you want to send it. Because once you send it, you are accountable for it.

Tony Mulhare:

Yes.

Jon Ross:

And the accountability piece, I've had numerous conversations with folks, it's going to happen. If you think you're getting into hey, this is a confidential group chat that is not valid, and I want folks to think real hard about what you're doing and saying on those, because accountability is going to happen. I will tell you everything I do with my committee, by and large, it's all over the phone. It's a conversation between us. The only accountability for the conversation between us is we had a conversation. There's nothing written down. It's all confidential. By the time we're done, if I take notes, I destroy the notes. If anybody ever asked me, "Hey, did you guys have a conversation? You had a conversation? What was it about?" "No, I had a conversation. That's it." Everybody has plausible deniability. When you hit the send button, plausible deniability goes away, and now you're accountable for what you just said.

So I would ask our members, it's easy to get on the keyboard and get frustrated. Been a long day, you want to get on and vent, vent it, type it out, call me, vent on me, but wait until the next day that you decide do you really want to send that, because if you send it ...

Tony Mulhare:

You can't ever take it back.

Jon Ross:

No. You're going to be accountable for it.

Tony Mulhare:

Right. Yeah, and that accountability is derived from our guidelines for employees, our social media policy. You are accountable to those documents when you arrive at this company.

Jon Ross:

Like we talked about before, these are our peers, right? Do they know they're doing it? Did you give them a chance? Did you talk to them about it? Okay, if Jon does X, Y, and Z, that frustrates Matt, Jon probably doesn't know he is doing X, Y and Z. And then it becomes the death by a million paper cuts. Okay, this little thing there, this little thing there, that little thing there, and then we let that thing teakettle up to where, okay, something happens.

Here's the other aspect of why I would ask that you bring those points up as they occur, right? I ask my FOs every time, whether I'm flying or monitoring, I'll say, "What could I do different? I probably know what I'm doing well. I don't know what I'm not doing well, and I would like for you to have enough respect for me to tell me, 'Hey, you know what, Jon? Using flaps 1, 2, 5, every flap position in between, maybe not what we're wanting to do.' Fantastic point. You're absolutely right, and I need to get better on that. Thanks for bringing it up."

Instead of letting it sit there by day three of a four-day, and I'm doing stuff that's frustrating Matt, and Matt is just fuming about it. Now the challenge is you get to the point where, "Oh, well, we're just going to have to go around. There's no way he's going to make this happen. We're human beings. I want a little revenge. Matt's pissing me off. Okay, Matt, we'll just see how this works out." Well, I knew we were going to be behind fast. Saw that coming. We don't want to get to the point where we want a failure. I want to win by letting the other person do something wrong, because then we're completely, we're not a team. We're now two individuals that are sitting there with one of us with this extra grind, and the other one has no idea what's going on.

Matt McCants:

So that specifically is an example of something that is a pilot-to-pilot issue, something going on in the cockpit, whether it's nonstandard or a procedural issue. How much of your volume of calls is those kinds of things? "I just don't know how to tell someone, 'Hey, man. You're nonstandard,' or we get into an argument over a technique or something like that," versus the things that aren't necessarily pilot-to-pilot that are just people-to-people, race, gender, creed, sex, religion, et cetera? What does that volume of call look like, and how are we doing in those regards?

Jon Ross:

I would say probably maybe a quarter is technique. Let's use the checklist. Okay, 10,000 feet client checklist. Individual reaches up, touches the top of the console, and then goes rattles it off. You've done it a million times. How do you approach that without calling that individual out? They're not being what the norm would expect, what the company expects from us. I would say that's probably maybe a quarter of the time, it's things like that. The other 75% of the time is probably it's interpersonal, it's other issues. I will also say technique is probably another quarter of that as well. So probably half my calls are not following procedures or things like that. And then also, "Hey, this is my technique." "Well, dude, you're preaching it like it's in the book. I don't see it in the book." The rest of the time, I'd say the other probably half is it's just personality challenges. So if you are making disparaging remarks about someone’s race, gender, color or creed. It simply has no place in any professional environment, certainly not in the cockpit and the company policy makes that very clear.

Tony Mulhare:

What I'm hearing a lot from you, to bring this back to part of your title, professional standards, we are professionals at work. We talk about this all the time, that we are an industry of professionals. And if you look at it that way, one thing you can do in this process that helps, whether the argument is procedural or it's about some different personality traits that you have, is to focus on that and take the person out of it, the personal portion of this out of it. And if you've heard of The Four Agreements, there's a book called The Four Agreements that talk about a couple of key tenants, and one of them is to not take anything personally, and especially when you're at work, when you're in a professional environment, remove the personal touch from whatever feedback you're getting. When you don't take things personally, you're typically going to progress down the line a lot better. The second one of those agreements is to not make any assumptions. Don't make assumptions. So if we're not taking things personally and we're not making assumptions, are we going to get to a better place?

Jon Ross:

That's a fantastic point. If I'm critiquing how you're flying the airplane, it is nothing against you as a human being. It's just how you fly the airplane. That's our chosen profession. I should be able to critique you, and I would hope you critique me. And you're absolutely right. You have two relationships with everybody you work with. There's a professional relationship, and then over a three or four-day period, you build a friendship. You learn about each other's families generally and what's going on in their worlds. So we could go fly airplanes and we get done, and I would expect you, "Hey, Jon. You messed this up. You probably could have done this different. I would've done that X, Y and Z," you're bringing those points out to me as us being professionals. Then after that, "Hey, man. We closed that box. Okay, let's go to dinner." And their understanding that there is a separation there, I think at times, is very challenging. It's easy for us to take things personally. Hey, man, don't. This is all professional, right?

Tony Mulhare:

Nor should we be making assumptions about the people that we're working with and anything that goes on top of that, right?

Jon Ross:

Correct. We talked about this a bunch before about the generational aspect, and you can apply the challenges from the generational aspect to pick any other category, race, religion, creed, whatever you want to pick that challenges in how we interact are incredibly similar, and it all comes down to treating each other with a level of respect. How you got here is how you got here. There's no one standard path. There are many different paths. If you look at people's careers, that path timeline may have been years, that timeline may have been radically reduced over what you experienced as a captain or what they experienced as a captain or a first officer. The simple fact is, "Hey, man. We were all smart enough to want to fly airplanes at Southwest Airlines. We all chose that this is our retirement job, right?"

Tony Mulhare:

Yeah. This is the team that we both play on now.

Jon Ross:

We are teammates, right? I tell folks all the time, "We're peers. If you're not treating each other like a peer, that's going to be problematic." Peers is another word for respect as far as I'm concerned. If people aren't respecting each other, it's not going to work well. So okay, Tony, you should be able to call me out on something, and I need to have thick enough skin as a professional and take that on board.

Matt McCants:

That requires me to have a certain level of humbleness to take on that critique. And I think it's important for us when we're in those environments to remember that I'm trying to be a better pilot today than I was yesterday. I'm trying to learn something new from this first officer that maybe just came out of school and is maybe a little bit more current on the procedures and the systems that I am. I can glean something new from him, and hopefully, I'm able to teach that first officer something they didn't know about the airplane yesterday or something along those lines so that both of us leave the trip, the pairing a little bit better as pilots than when we started. Because I don't know about you guys, but I've thought I've been close a couple of times, but I've never had the perfect flight, right?

Jon Ross:

Yeah, no, that could not be more correct. Humility goes a long way, right? All the world is a classroom. The day that you stop learning is the day you become dangerous. This business is dangerous, it's not forgiving. And if you think you have it all suit-cased, that's complacent, right? Complacent is a tough word in this business. So complacency a lot of times goes with ego. "Hey, man. You just can't let that get into the cockpit. You be professional, learn." Look at Ops Days, look at what has occurred in our organization over this last year. That person you look at in the mirror, you need to answer them. You have people's families in the back of the airplane. That's a lot of responsibility. You need to take enough professionalism in what you do to own that and go, "I'm going to do the best I can. I'm always going to learn. I'm here to get better." When your FO points something out, "You know what? That's a valid point. I really appreciate that." The day you stop learning, it's not good.

Matt McCants:

So Jon, one of the things I think that we're battling all the time and I think is always a good reminder and we can never really foot-stomp this enough is when we have those conversations, and let's say the conversation just is going south, I'm trying to tell you something about, "Hey, get your hand off the yoke," and you're just not taking it from me, and I'm getting more and more frustrated or whatever the case is, that wouldn't be necessarily something I would go to the chief pilot about, but let's say it's something that's really non-standard, and so it's something that I want to go talk to somebody else outside of us, because I'm just getting frustrated with you, and this pairing isn't going very well, and I'm ready to go do something else. Remind us what is the difference between when I call you or somebody on your committee staff versus when I call chief pilot for that conflict resolution. Walk us through those two different paths and the ramifications of those two different paths. I just don't feel like we can touch on that enough.

Jon Ross:

No, and that's a very, very good point. Realize that one path that you described, the chief path from the word go, there's no changing that path, right? If you go to the chiefs, the chiefs cannot unhear things, and they have obligations. If you tell them certain things, they're held by company policy, obligations that they have to act on things that you tell them.

Tony Mulhare:

They hear certain words, and they have to act on them.

Jon Ross:

Absolutely. Realize, first of all, if we resolve nothing, you always have the option to go in another direction. You can always go back to the other path. So if we cannot resolve something, okay, you have other options. And if you come to us, we're going to say, "Hey, man. What are the expectations? The fact that you're reaching out to us means you're probably wanting to resolve this at the lowest level. It wasn't working between the two of you, but I don't want the Company get involved. It just wasn't working with us. Fantastic."

And I'll tell you the bulk of what I do is just that, and you know what? Folks just weren't openly communicating, and by the time I get done, everybody's learned something, including me. The person that called me originally, there's something to learn. It's not a one-way street. They're going, "I didn't think about X, Y and Z." The person that they called on, I have a conversation with that individual. Generally after 5 to 10 minutes of defensiveness, which we're human beings, I understand that completely, after you break that wall down and go, "Hey, man. Let's talk about how this went down," and you view it from their perspective. "Well, I had no idea that I was doing that. I didn't realize that that's the way I was coming across."

So on the occasion that I don't think that it went well, I would call the other individual back that reached out to us and said, "I don't think that I resolved much today. I think that that individual's wrestling some other challenges right now that I can't get through to." And the person who called me the first time can certainly take it in another direction.

So once you've turned on the chief, you cannot turn that off, right? Now, let me also, this is going to take some time. If you're on a trip and we land, and we got a 45-minute turn and you've got to get the airplane ready for the next leg, are we going to be able to resolve this that quick if it's at the point where this is no longer just they're frustrating me, now it's a safety issue? You call scheduling, you tell them, "I am more than happy to fly. I just do not want to fly with Jon Ross for safety reasons."

Matt McCants:

And I'd like to point out, just as a quick aside, that we have now added that as a checklist on the SWAPA app. Just to remind our listeners that if you're feeling frustrated with the other person you're flying with, we have the professional standards checklist there on the SWAPA app under the Line Ops tab to help guide you through that conversation and that call with scheduling and then your call to Pro Standards.

Jon Ross:

I appreciate that. Scheduling will generally reroute the first officer. Sometimes they may do something different, but here's what I will tell you. If it's a safety aspect, nobody's ever going to fault you for doing what you think is safe, and only you can make that determination. Once you have made that determination, I will tell you I talk to people on a regular basis, that phone call is a challenge. It takes a lot of fortitude to make that call, because, "Wow, this is a big deal, right? I'm changing the dynamics of what I'm doing the rest of the day." But I will tell you once you make the phone call, I tell folks all the time, "Hey, man. You're doing what is safe, and therefore, it's right." So take a deep breath and let this go. Be proud of yourself for doing what you think is safe, and that's a good thing. Get rerouted, away you go. Sometimes, the chiefs will want to talk to those folks. Sometimes, the chiefs will, "Hey, professional standards can handle the whole thing." I handle those type of issues weekly.

Tony Mulhare:

So that happens quite often where the chiefs will say like, "Hey, man. I think you guys can handle this. Would you mind taking this on and just get back to me if we don't think we have some resolution?"

Jon Ross:

It happens all the time. Now, the Company's always going to have the first option. You're getting separated in Grand Rapids, middle of a first go of the morning, and you two decide this isn't going to work. All right, there's going to be some impact on this system for what is going on. The Company's probably going to want some explanation, "How did this happen? How can we prevent it in the future?" So in those cases, like I said, you did what you think is safe and therefore correct. If you have to explain it, you have to explain it, and that's okay. You reach out to your SWAPA rep and ...

Tony Mulhare:

There you go.

Jon Ross:

... You don't talk to your chief without your reps there with you, but they're just there figuring out, "Okay, how did this happen and what happened?"

Matt McCants:

Jon, what parting message would you like to give our listeners today?

Jon Ross:

First of all, we're doing a great job of taking care of each other. I think that the culture's aligning well. What I would ask is we have a high caseload, but you always have a high caseload. We're here to take care of each other. If you're having a challenge on the line, don't get frustrated, don't get bent out of shape. Before you're going to take it to the company, hey, man, give us a call. We're maybe going to give you some tools you didn't have before, some ways to wrestle through challenges that hopefully those tools will be with you for the rest of your career.

Matt McCants:

We want to thank Jon for stopping by for his annual visit in the 41,000-foot view of what's happening in the world of professional standards. If you have any suggestions for upcoming podcasts or any feedback you'd like to share, please drop us a line at comm@swapa.org. We welcome any comments or recommendations.

Tony Mulhare:

Finally, today's bonus number is 12. That's the number of committee members at Pro Standards. You can find their contact information on the SWAPA app, and no matter whether you contact one of them individually or the Pro Standards hotline, they will reach out to you. Regardless of the conflict, we here at SWAPA stand behind our recommendation to make them your first call.