Dave's Friday Phone Message

[ClueByFour]

Grented, I've only flown about 10-12 domestic segments this year, of which one (PIT-MDT on a Tuesday night) had empty F seats.

 

[BoeingBoy]

Clue,

Flying 15-16 segments a week, I know that a good chunk of them are full. These are usually the segments with high % of business travel or segments that are oversold. However, I would guess that half or more have empty f/c seats. If we could average an extra $100 for one upgrade on 10% of our flights, how much money would that be per year? Hint: about $12 million per year in "free" income. Only extra cost is free booze, free "meals on wheels" on longer flights., and incentive to employee who sold the upgrade.

 

[Twicebaked]

On another occasion, I personally asked the flight attendents to help clean the cabin because we were way behind schedule. If we all pitched in, our customers would make their connections. The Flight Attendants refused and sat in the back of the plane reading while a sole utility man and I cleaned the 757.

That is absolutely stupid to think a flight attendant would do that.
First and foremost, we DON'T GET PAID TO CLEAN THE PLANES.
Second, why should anybody pick up the slack because the company cut the staffing levels too low.
Thirdly, the company would think that there is not a need and cut EVEN MORE cleaners.

You are a pilot...what if someone else did your job for you and they cut more pilots.
Would you like that?
Don't sell your own co-workers up the river.
I am sure that they mean nothing to you, but they mean alot to someone else.
You may not appreciate them, but the passengers and flight attendants do.

Tell you what..call ALPA and tell them to have all the cleaners fired and the pilots will clean the planes.

If that is your idea of sticking together, I certainly don't want you on my team.

Hey any utility folks on here...don't turn around in front of this captain he'll throw a knife in your back.

 

[AOG-N-IT]

Back on the subject of "Dave's weekly message" itself.

By his own words "Everything is on the table" , As we know and fear those words are directly leveled at the actual employee numbers , benefits and compensation levels in his eyes.

I say that if in fact "Everything is on the table" ??? Then maybe his levels of compensation and that of the CCY gangs need to be on the table too.

We hear week after week how They draw the comparison between U and the invading LCC's...and how WE need to lower our costs to compete with the said invaiders...yet no mention of their gross over compensation and numerical imbalance is ever drawn in kind.

Here is but another reason that trust is tossed out the proverbial window. If the comparison is going to be drawn? Then draw the comparison across the board.

Should we continue to lose money as its posted that we do...why are we paying visionless leaders premium wages??? Vs. that of profit making CEO's at the wonderous LCC's???

I know in my Dept....I'm often called upon to work overtime or even short handed , so I know it's not an employee to Acft ratio problem in all areas. The recent debacle in Heavy MT. about the attempt to mandatory people to work the Thanksgiving Holiday also says that we are clearly under-manned to accomplish the work. Thankfully the mandatory threat was reduced to a Voluntary request...and peace was restored for the moment.

The short version is this....The Employee's are not the reason for our failures...it's the vision and lack of action that is knee-capping us in most respects.

The fact that an outfit once labled as "America Worst" can recieve ATSB Loans and then turn itself around in the same time frame should speak volumes about what's wrong...and where the faults lie , as they always have..

 

[A320 Driver]

USA330,

The point is you were doing his job. Grievance was rightly filed. Just as you would not want someone doing your job or having your job outsourced to the regionals, it runs along the same line. Respect each others jobs, honor their contract. We have 32 stations that we assist in cleaning, we honor our contract, and others.

I watched this exact same scenerio play out at Eastern airlines. Helped a guy throw a bag one evening and got chewed out over it. I surely don't know what the answer is, but you can bet we will not last at our current rate of losses. I for one am not interested in having my pay and benefits reduced again. I work 33% more than I did 15 years ago for less pay. Flight crew "soft time" is down from 20% to the 5% range. Our reserve system is somewhat padded (in their opinion) but they still manage to run out of crews every month.

I don't know what labor group management is targeting for cuts, but if there is featherbedding going on (and I have NO idea if there is), you can bet they want it overwith. Personally, I don't understand the fare argument Dave talks about. If we haul 100,000 people per day and have a 1 million dollar per day short fall on expenses, we would only have to average a $10 per head increase to break even. Sounds fairly simple to me, but that's the way I try to reason it out. If the laws of supply and demand are applied, then why would we ever have denied boardings? Doesn't that mean that the geniuses at the top under-priced our product? Not only are we not getting all potential revenue for that flight, but we have the additional expense of giving away tickets.

Just a few thoughts...jump in there and set met straight if I have this all wrong!

A320 Driver :unsure:

 

[wings396]

All that I can hope for is that they leave the Expressed people out of any additional concessions. We are already classified as the working poor with heating assistance and food stamps in some cases. If they take anymore HUD assistance will be next along with state funded medical benefits for the children. The sad thing about this is that we are not eligable to collect one cent of a partial unemployment check because we are still workng a f/t job. If we left the company and took a similar paying job elsewhere we could collect. Makes a lot of sense HUH... By the way unemployment pay is right in line with Express top pay. Yes I could have left the company, but with 20+ years in I needed to keep my foot in the door with hopes of a better company someday. :huh:

 

[OldGuyinPA]

Art at ISP as usual is right on. Our fares are a joke...

David and his motley crew just don't get it. America West obviously does. Modify the fares to somewhere in the middle. I'm tired of seeing people flying around for $20-25 per leg, while we try to charge $1500-2000 for a full Y8 fare. See it everyday. We will increase revenue if we have reasonable fares. The customers are smarter than you think, maybe smarter then you......David. How long will we have to listen to ....it's our cost (employees) that bring us down. We could work for free and it still wouldn't be enough for the Crystal Palace.

I wonder how much longer Dr. Dave will put up with ... Avis David....?????

 

[ITRADE]

Art at ISP as usual is right on. Our fares are a joke...

David and his motley crew just don't get it. America West obviously does.

Mmmm.....Would you be willing to accept HP's wage structure?

 

[usfliboi]

Its so amazing to me that rumors are more important than the facts. He may or may not ask for more from employees.... I think untill its a fact, its a rumor. Lets spend our short life on the facts and not crazy rumors and spouting anger.... who does it help?

 

[AOG-N-IT]

Art at ISP as usual is right on. Our fares are a joke...

David and his motley crew just don't get it. America West obviously does.

Mmmm.....Would you be willing to accept HP's wage structure?

....ask yourself the same question Itrader !! If the answer is No ?? Then you know how we feel as a group..and what our answer is to your stupid management serving question!! We are not the ones that put U in the shape it's in..your type is !!

You whine about the Venom directed at you a times...but we know a self proclaimed elitest when we see one...and we've seen more than our fare share too !! You are nothing more but a cut from the same gib that has ruined our country and our airline. I hope you continue to fly with us...but your opinons stink on ice.!!!

Enjoy your next visit to "The Peoples Repubilc of China"....with any degree of luck , they'll keep you next time !! :down: ...or maybe your superiors will transfer you against your will at a lowered salary rate?

We'd have to breakout a wheel of cheese to go with your whine then !! wouldn't we?

 

[nycbusdriver]

I don't help clean the airplanes because I don't get paid to do it, and others do.

However, the response alludes to something that seems to get missed by the well-compensated utility workers and rampers: Yes, we as pilots would not like it much if utility/ramp did our jobs, but the fact of the matter is YOU CAN'T POSSIBLY do our jobs, while anyone with four healthy limbs can do yours. Your threat is empty. The only other groups on the property that can say this are the licensed mechanics doing FAR mandated maintenance work, and the dispatchers.

Until you invest some hard-earned cash and years of grunt work into an FAA license, you can be replaced in a week or less by almost anyone. And Dave will do just that at the earliest opportunity. The thing that truly amazes me is how he allowed the IAM to revote their TA last year. I would have taken the rejection to the judge and asked for a free hand on the IAM contract. I'll bet Dave is kicking himself now in light of the Airbus heavy maintenance fight.

 

[700UW]

CaptBud and A320, you have to be kidding?

Let Johnny O from MESA fly all our airplanes and replace the highest labor costs in the company and have his slaves fly your jets and replace you. Don't like it do you? Well that is what you are proposing for all the other groups.

This company flies into 89 mainline stations, they are Utility at only 8 stations on all three shift and the remaining 10 are third shift only and Utility are the lowest paid organized group the company has. The next time you want to help the utility folks out, maybe you should volunteer to clean up the vomit, wipe down the lavatory where a passenger has missed the bowl or maybe get in the lavatory servicing truck and service the aircraft's lavatories.

Just as now when three federal court decisions say the Airbus work is IAM covered work, what does this company do, it still fights its own employees and the labor agreements that Dave and Company have agreed too. So Dave wastes millions on lawyers and parking airplanes and leasing more airplanes that only have two months or less flying time as they fall into the same dilemma as the the rest of the airbii that are running out of time. More money wasted. I for one would like to see my coworkers brought back so maintain our own airplanes as the "Alabama Slammer" has proven you get what you pay for from vendors.

Just over a week after ALPA ratified its first concessions the company turned around and bought 76 seat RJs when the CBA limited it to 70, another slap in the face to labor and spun it out in the media and made ALPA look bad telling everyone the big bad pilots won't let us fly these 76 RJs, so the company gives more planes and more money to Johnny.

This so-called team of executives needs to go, they have no trust from the employees, not one ounce of creditability, I for one won't give them a cent. They have lied since they came to this company and have done nothing with over $1.1 billion from employees and $1 billion from vendors. And for your so-called featherbedding, you can read my IAMAW Mechanic contract and see there is none, we have lost more Mechanic and Related employees then your group has, there is nothing left to give.


You need to learn something about being in a union, it means being together as a group, respecting each other and honoring other labor groups contracts and not try to save your own hide out of someone Else's.

Union: an organization of workers formed for the purpose of advancing its members' interests in respect to wages, benefits, and working conditions

Dave came onboard, we all took two rounds of concessions and all the airline analysts have publicly come out and say you can't shrink to profitability and it is not the labor costs it is inept management who does not know how to run an airline.

I for one would expect the board to take vote of no confidence against Dave and his Team and show them the door and bring people in here who know how to run and airline and treat its employees with respect and honor all CBAs.

Time for a reality check for all, I hope you would take the time to experience it, instead of pointing fingers and wanting to take from everyone else except yourself. You have to remember everyone out here is trying to make a living to support their families just as you are, something you might want to take into account before you post again. I know it pains me when I tell my kids that we can't do this or we can't do that because Dad does not have enough money do to the concessions we have all ready given, I for one can't afford one penny less in my paycheck.

NYBUSDRIVER, as a former Utility who went and got his A&P, I think you need to walk a mile in a utility person's shoes before you spout off.

Do you have hazard waste training?
Do you have infectous and communicable disease training?
Ever clean up after someone puking or get stuck in the hand with a used needle?
Ever crawl into a fuel tank to clean it up?
Ever crawl into the hellhole and clean up a skydrol leak?
Ever clean was an airplane when it is almost freezing or 90 degress outside dressed in full hazmat suits?
Ever get spilled on when dumping a lavatory goes aray?

As a former unlicensed not licensed employee I have learned not to throw stones at others, you want to talk about responsiblity?

You fly a plane from PIT-PHL, or shall I say you takeoff using autothrottle and then the autopilot flies the plane to PHL and then you let the computer autoland it.

I remove and replace a part on the very same airplane, I am responsible for that repair until someone elses replaces it. That could be one hour or five years. Now who has more responsibility?

Like many people have said before in life, if you live in a glass house, you should not throw stones.

 

[michael707767]

Art at ISP as usual is right on. Our fares are a joke...

David and his motley crew just don't get it. America West obviously does.

Mmmm.....Would you be willing to accept HP's wage structure?

We are just about at the America West wage structure.

 

[nycbusdriver]

NYBUSDRIVER, as a former Utility who went and got his A&P, I think you need to walk a mile in a utility person's shoes before you spout off.

Do you have hazard waste training?
Do you have infectous and communicable disease training?
Ever clean up after someone puking or get stuck in the hand with a used needle?
Ever crawl into a fuel tank to clean it up?
Ever crawl into the hellhole and clean up a skydrol leak?
Ever clean was an airplane when it is almost freezing or 90 degress outside dressed in full hazmat suits?
Ever get spilled on when dumping a lavatory goes aray?

As a former unlicensed not licensed employee I have learned not to throw stones at others, you want to talk about responsiblity?

You fly a plane from PIT-PHL, or shall I say you takeoff using autothrottle and then the autopilot flies the plane to PHL and then you let the computer autoland it.

I remove and replace a part on the very same airplane, I am responsible for that repair until someone elses replaces it. That could be one hour or five years. Now who has more responsibility?

Like many people have said before in life, if you live in a glass house, you should not throw stones.

I stand by my post. Most of the tasks you mention are done under your FAA license. As a licensed FAA mechanic, you cannot be quickly replaced by the company by anyone walking in off the street. Sorry, but utility can. In fact, I worked for 10 years for an "absorbed" airline that managed to keep their airplanes cleaned WITHOUT union utility workers. In fact, they were contract workers at every station and they did a marvelous job. The only line cleaning done by employees was done on overnights by customer service agents!

In fact, I'll bet none of our competitor LCC's have utility workers, and they manage to meet FAR requirements.

While your smug comment about the pilots' use of autopilot may make you feel good, the fact is that I'm paid for the times that the automation DOESN'T work and that the normal systems break down. Somehow I'll bet the people saved when an airliner makes an uneventful landing when an engine blows up are grateful that they have a licensed, experienced pilot in the cockpit and not a utility worker.

 

[700UW]

Once again you avoid the questions poised to you.

And Southwest does have aircraft cleaners at selected stations, if you don't have the manpower to properly clean the plane is it that utility workers fault or the company?

And like I said , the mechanics have a greater responsiblity then a pilot, another fact you ignored.

Guess you can't come up with a real answer when you are wrong, any relation to a certain other captain who posts on this board?

And at MAE you had unlicensed mechanics working on the very airbus you might fly, and you see how many problems that has caused, Dave really cares about you and the passengers.

Don't worry your group can blindly believe and follow Dave, as I still have my pension and you trusted him and lost yours.