[tivert]

> Southwest Airlines was a major contributor to this as the largest purchaser of 737s in the world, because you know, god forbid Southwest's pilots had to get certified to fly a new plane once every 50 years.

I would guess Southwest's goal is more of a staff flexibility thing: if all their pilots are certified to fly all their planes, scheduling could be much easier and more effective. I don't know anything about airline management or pilot certification, but my guess is pilots are typically certified to only fly one kind of aircraft at a time, and don't typically maintain multiple certifications.

However, as much efficiency that strategy may have gained them over the last several decades, it's not one that's reasonable to maintain anymore.