Why doesn't US do this? Because it does nothing for them. If Southwest offers an employee a buyout and the employee accepts and Southwest in turn decides to hire a new employee to take the old one's place, they hire a junior, bottom payscale individual. Enter cost savings for Southwest. If US offers the same buyouts and they then try and replace the former employee with a new one, they get a senior furloughed employee back on the books (higher pay, costlier benefits) so their is no real advantage to US to swap in and out senior payscale employees.