The SWAPA Ride Report: Displacements Update, FAA Denial Letters Update, and Contract Q&A Artwork

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The SWAPA Ride Report: Displacements Update, FAA Denial Letters Update, and Contract Q&A

February 28, 2025 • SWAPA

In this week’s edition, SWAPA Communications staff member Ella Ziober updates the membership on the displacements that resulted from the April vacancy and important eligibility requirements for having Domicile Right of Return (DRR). There are currently 141 Pilots across the system in both seats who have a DRR.

She also highlights a few points from our Benefits & Aeromedical Committee and Government Affairs Committee, including the recent FAA decision to indefinitely delay the implementation of denial letters for airmen required to submit for information on a medical certificate application. She quickly touches on the first meetings between SWAPA and the Company on its partnership with Icelandair before diving into this week’s top five questions from Contract Admin. This week’s Q&A includes questions about pay on vacation month-to-month overlap, training travel pay, and JA versus an unscheduled overnight. The podcast notes provide links to the relevant sections of the Contract and the Scheduling Handbook for easy reference.

Displacement Resources page

Airline Partnerships - Section 1 video

Section 15.C.7.b.5 - Hotel Accommodations

Section 2.T - Vacation Pay

Scheduling Handbook

Section 2.K.3 - On-line Scheduled Pay

Section 14.E - Vacation Adjustments

Section 9.K.4.m - Monthly Overlap Correction

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.

Welcome to the SWAPA Ride Report for Friday, 28 February. The SWAPA Ride Report is your source for headlines, news, and answers to commonly asked questions regarding your Collective Bargaining Agreement. I’m your host for today, Ella Ziober, from the graphics staff in SWAPA Communications.

As a quick reminder, we have provided links to the referenced contract sections and other content in the show notes of this podcast.

Ok, let’s start today with an update on displacements. In the April vacancy which closed this week, there were 37 Captains and 85 First Officers displaced from around the system. In fact, pilots were displaced from seven bases across the system due to the impact from secondary displacements. Bases that saw displacements include Atlanta, Nashville, Denver, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Oakland and Phoenix. There are now 141 pilots with Domicile Right of Return across both seats.

There are a few important contractual touches to point out in reference to displacements.

Not every pilot that has been displaced is entitled to Domicile Right of Return, or DRR. To be eligible for DRR, a pilot must have been displaced from their top choice in their current seat at a 100% contingency. So, if you’ve been displaced from Phoenix, but Dallas is your first choice, you are displaced for the purposes of expense reimbursements in Section three of the contract, BUT… you do not have a Domicile Right of Return back into Phoenix. Likewise, if you were displaced from Houston that you bid with a 50% contingency, but Dallas is your top 100% contingency bid, again – you would be displaced but not have DRR back to Houston.
The other important part of this to understand is the difference between a primary and secondary vacancy. Primary vacancies are only those vacancies listed in the Crew Planning vacancy numbers that are sent to your wnco email and posted on SWALife. For instance, in the April vacancy, the posted vacancy only showed positive numbers for First Officers in Nashville and Baltimore and those two bases along with the addition of Chicago for Captains. Since we are still referencing Contract 2012 DRR language, 50% of those listed numbers, rounded down, go to DRR eligible pilots. For instance, the April vacancy showed 3 Captain positions available in Midway, so there would only be just one vacancy position reserved for a Midway Captain with DRR. A secondary vacancy happens when a pilot voluntarily moves due to bidding into another domicile or seat. Secondary vacancies are filled in seniority order without regard to DRR. That is why you may see pilots get awarded a base even there are pilots with a DRR that are still displaced.
As a reminder, the Contract 2020 provision of 100% DRR for posted vacancy numbers is not scheduled for implementation until 2026, though we are working with SWA IT to possibly move this up. Please refer to the Displacement Resources page under the Resources tab on swapa.org for more comprehensive information on this topic.
Finally, if you are displaced with DRR – do not change your vacancy bid or you could lose your DRR.

Moving on to a quick note from our Aeromedical and Benefits Committee – did you know that hydration is an important safety focus even outside of the hotter summer months? There have been several instances around the industry of dehydration causing safety issues for pilots – be on the lookout for a more in depth discussion in the March RP – but in the meantime, keep drinking water and be aware that even just a 8000 foot cabin altitude is a dehydrating environment.

Our Negotiating team and Economic & Financial analysis Committees have also had their first Section 1 compliance meetings with the company since the Icelandair partnership began. Initial reports are positive and both sides are in agreement on the data sharing parameters that will begin at the next meeting once a full month's worth of passenger compliance data has been recorded. The Company is pursuing other partnerships, and we expect more later this year. Everything regarding Section 1.F of our CBA has been in compliance so far. If this discussion and words like PDEW sound like Greek to you, there is a great video called “Airline Partnerships” on the E&FA committee page on swapa.org that explains how these agreements work and how our contract protects us.

For upcoming implementation items, Release until Check In is on target for end of March. SAC is creating education material for the Pilot group including screenshots from the testing lab. SAC is also contributing to and attending company Scheduler training on Release until Check In which begins this week

Also, If you are calling in sick or acknowledging a reserve assignment, SWAPA suggests that maybe, just maybe, no really pretty much every time, you simply click the button in CWA. The call to Scheduling could be delayed due to disruptions in the operation, the call increases their workload, and also, IT'S A RECORDED LINE! So, unless you need to have a conversation with crew scheduling, it’s probably best to just hit the easy button.

Enough on that, now, let’s dive into Contract Admin’s Top Five…

First up, a pilot asked: If I get stuck in Dallas after my training, do I get additional pay? And if so, is it still compared to the trip pull I already had?

So, Yes, you do get additional pay for having to be in Dallas an additional night longer than planned. If you cannot travel out of Dallas after your training event as originally planned due to delays or cancellations and stay an additional day, you will be compensated with an additional 6.5 TFP on top of the pay you were already going to get. Even if your trip pull was higher than the daily training pay, the 6.5 is due on top of that. Look at CBA Section 15.C.7.b.5 for the reference here.

Next up a vacation question, a pilot asked: I had vacation that falls over 2 different months. The first 3 days in the previous month didn’t have a trip pull and they paid me 3.75 per day for 11.25. The next month I had a trip pull of 26.00, but they only paid me 15 TFP. Am I missing pay?

No, that vacation pay is correct. Vacation blocks are always looked at as a whole, even when they cross over two months. You will get the higher of 3.75 per day average, which is 26.25 TFP, or the trip pulls over the 7 days. Since your trip pulls in both months equaled 26 TFP and the daily average pays 26.25, you would get the average, which is the higher of the two. They paid the first part of that in the first month at 11.25, so in the new month they owed you the other 15. CBA Section 2.T covers vacation pay. As an important note, 3rd party apps cannot look back at previous months, so you can get inaccurate information when planning your bid. However, Vacation weeks that touch two months can be very lucrative if you are able to pull a pairing in the first month, and another pairing in the second month. There’s a great section in the new Scheduling Handbook starting on page 238 that explains the details. We’ll link it in the show notes.

Next question: After my flight was cancelled, I was RON'd into a day I had a turn scheduled. They pulled the turn illegal and didn’t pay me JA pay. Should I get pay for both?

No, You would not get pay for both. JA pay applies when you are scheduled to work on a day off. Since you were already scheduled to work that day, you do not get JA pay, but the higher of what you flew, or what you originally were going to get paid that day plus any applicable overrides. However, CBA Section 2.K.3 states that if a reassignment results in an unscheduled overnight between pairings, you are due Duty Period Minimum, DPM, which is 5 TFP. That additional pay is added on to the day you did not get home.

Here's a question on vacation shifting: I was awarded a 3 week block of vacation, I traded the first week, does that break up the other two weeks for VA shifting?

No, it does not. Those other two weeks are still part of the block bid. If you want to shift them separately, you would need to trade out of one of them and back into it again to break them up. Then you could shift them separately. See CBA Section 14.E for the reference.

Last question for today, I have a 3 day reserve block on my board at the end of the month and my new bid has a 3 day reserve block the day after. They left all 6 days on my board; don’t they have to change it to 5 days?

No, if your new bid line is legal with your existing trips/reserve blocks, no overlap correction is needed. CBA Section 9.K.4.m and n talk about overlap corrections being limited to 5 days. If they didn’t need to make a correction, there is no overlap, and all 6 days of reserve would be legal.

Last but not least, as someone who flies on Southwest pretty frequently, a special thanks to those pilots of Flight 2504, and to all of you out on the line, for keeping us safe everyday.

That’s all for this week’s Ride Report. As always, the transcript of this podcast is available on swapa.org. If you have any feedback for this podcast or any of our comm products, please send us a note at comm@swapa.org We’d love to hear from you. The next episode of the Ride Report will be released on Friday 14 March.

Fly safe, fly informed.