Good Morning Coffee Question For You...

[Rico]

Fine, see ya... Best of Luck to you. (waves)













What...?


Why are you still here? Why have you not left this "Cooked Goose" yet?

What are you dpoing wasting your time on these discussion boards rather than Monster.com or updating your resume...?

Ahhh, waiting to see if someone else will give instead of you, thought so. <_<


"This place is going under" must be code for "delay a little while longer and hope someone else takes the hit for me", gotcha. (wink)

 

[High Iron]

Fine, see ya... Best of Luck to you. (waves)
What...?
Why are you still here? Why have you not left this "Cooked Goose" yet?

What are you dpoing wasting your time on these discussion boards rather than Monster.com or updating your resume...?

Ahhh, waiting to see if someone else will give instead of you, thought so. <_<
"This place is going under" must be code for "delay a little while longer and hope someone else takes the hit for me", gotcha. (wink)

[post="185210"][/post]​

Got it wrong again there snappy. ( It's so easy debating someone who think they know what you think )

Nah, I'm thankfully afforded the flexibility of waiting till the official "game over" comes, whether through furloughs or liquidation. Nothing personal, more lucrative that way. Since many have put their time in and seen their careers eroded in part by hideboud management, they've every right to try to affect a change for the better. Now that it's in the courts hands, there's a better chance of better leadership than before, slim as it may be. Besides, I like the challenge B)

Nah, not waiting for someone else to take a hit in my stead, not unless you'd like the honors. So simmer in your false bravado hiding fear of what the RC4 will do ( or the IAM,CWA,AFA ) and enjoy the ride.

I'm at the top of my game here: Keep 'em comin ace, keep 'em comin. Got all the time in the world....all the time in the world..........

Tsk

 

[Rico]

Hmmm, thats fine too.

The whole process favors a change in your fortunes long before the company or little ol' me.

And as smug as you seem now, I am betting you will be 23% less smug in a short while.

As the kids like to say... "Ownage"

 

[diogenes]

If the company's best solution to the problem is to lower our pay and benefits to that of a new hire at an LCC and to also negatively adjust our seniority and to implement massive layoffs then why should we(I) not be happier and better off starting over at a proven and successful competitor who will fill at least the local void?

[post="185188"][/post]​

And why should we let the b@#$%$#ds get away with it?

 

[High Iron]

Hmmm, thats fine too.

The whole process favors a change in your fortunes long before the company or little ol' me.

And as smug as you seem now, I am betting you will be 23% less smug in a short while.

As the kids like to say... "Ownage"

[post="185216"][/post]​

Smug? That's the pot calling the kettle black. You ought to review your own posts of months gone by. You push....I push back.

Never heard of "ownage". Not much of a pop-culture whore. I wear ball caps bill-forward, my pants cover all below my beltline and I don't drive a riced-out Civic.

23% less sucks, but we'll see what happens. Like I said, I'm prepared. I feel bad for all those that are NOT prepared. ( well, almost all B)

 

[DCD]

And why should we let the b@#$%$#ds get away with it?

[post="185217"][/post]​

Hopefully there is a third choice and we are able to wake up from this bad dream with our carriers intact. But if we can't, then Usair’s demise and our possible subsequent placement with a new airline is to me better then leaving Usair and allowing them to contaminate the industry and my back yard i.e. local airport.

 

[funguy2]

Ok... I went out and found some efficiency data for select airlines from the second quarter of 2004... I had selected a few airlines. Interestingly, not all of the airlines provided all of the information required for the comparisons. For example, I would have included Continental if I could find their Full-Time Equivalent Employees... So here is the raw data:

Airline FTE Employees Aircraft (Mainline) ASM's (in millions)
AmWest 11,936 140 7,552
Alaska 10,136 110 5,209
jetBlue 5,781 57 4,657
Northwest 39,154 436 22,764
Southwest 31,480 405 37,155
United 59,700 524 36,235
USAir 26,880 282 13,519

FTE's per aircraft (Second Quarter)

Then, I did some ratios for comparison. The first one was FTE's to AC. I think HighIron made the point that basically, this is a non-stat because US Airways is a different animal from Southwest, and to some extent, all airlines are unique. Here is is anyway. Of course, this is the number of employees per aircraft (rank order from most effiecient):

1. Southwest 77.7
2. America West 85.3
3. Northwest 89.8
4. Alaska 92.1
5. US Airways 95.0
6. jetBlue 101.4
7. United 113.9

I guess what I take away here is that US Airways is in the middle of the pack, certainly not in the very effiecient range (Southwest and America West) but not as inefficient as UAL. Although, UAL's "in-efficiency" is probably connected to its large fleet of wide-bodies... Thus, illustrating HighIron's point.

I find jetBlue's placement here striking. I suspect it has to do with 2 things... 1. A small rapidly growing company and 2. Extensive red-eye system (more utilization means more crews/aircraft... jetBlue's utilization was about 2 hrs more than America West (13hrs/day vs 11hrs/day)

ASM's per employee (2nd Quarter)

Next, to look at HighIron's point, I took FTE's to ASM's. After all, if ASM's can be the unit measurement for revenue (RASM) and costs (CASM), why not efficiency? The idea here is to remove the bias of aircraft size and stage length, to the extent possible. So below is the number of ASM's each FTE employee, on average, produced during the quarter:

1. Southwest 1.18mil ASM's/employee
2. jetBlue 1.24 0.81mil ASM's/employee
3. America West 0.63mil ASM's/employee
4. United 0.61mil ASM's/employee
5. Northwest 0.58mil ASM's/employee
6. Alaska 0.51mil ASM's/employee
7. US Airways 0.50mil ASM's/employee

So, here, we see that jetBlue goes to its place as highly productive. I conclude from this that my suspicion in FTE/AC was right... jetBlue's placement was largely due to utilization... When we look at this, jetBlue's employees are the second most productive. Also, notice how much more efficient United has become... FTE/AC was deceptive because UAL has large aircraft. Notice that not only is US Airways at the bottom of the pack, but each Southwest employee produces more than twice as many ASM's than a US Airways employee. That is significant, in my opinion.

ASM's per aircraft (Second Quarter)

Finally, from an aircraft utilization standpoint, I present how many ASM's each aircraft produces:

1. Southwest 91.7mil ASM's/AC
2. jetBlue 81.7mil ASM's/AC
3. United 69.1mil ASM's/AC
4. America West 53.9mil ASM's/AC
5. Northwest 52.2mil ASM's/AC
6. US Airways 47.7mil ASM's/AC
7. Alaska 47.4mil ASM's/AC

The standout here is UAL at #3. This has to do with UAL's large wide-body, long-haul fleet. Having a large number of B747-400's and probably using them efficietntly obviously helps UAL here since each mile a B747 flies, it produces roughly 250 more seats than a mile flown by a 737/320. US Airways, again, near the bottom, since its aircraft are on the smaller size and used inefficiently.

My Conclusion:

Not only are Southwest's employees twice as productive as US Airways' employees, but also their aircraft are scheduled twice as effectively. Even to get to America West level of productivity, for US Airways in my opinion, will be very difficult, and emulating jetBlue/AWA wages/work rules/contracts will not automatically translate into those efficiencies, as the airline would have to be scheduled differently to make that happen (i.e. more red-eyes and long-hauls like both jB and AWA). Given US Airways focus on the east, and focus cities at LGA and DCA with night-time slot controls AND perimeter rules. US Airways will probably not be able to make significant gains on stage length or red-eyes, making increasing productivity more difficult to acheive.

 

[Rico]

Interesting FunG...

You spent some time on that obviously, thanks for doing so.

 

[Winglet]

Even to get to America West level of productivity, for US Airways in my opinion, will be very difficult, and emulating jetBlue/AWA wages/work rules will not automatically translate into those efficiencies, as the airline would have to be scheduled differently to make that happen (i.e. more red-eyes like both jB and AWA).

[post="185236"][/post]​

Which is why U isn't going to make it with this ridiculous "hybrid" model. First of all U management is the worst in the industry. If these clowns ran JetBlew, it'd be out of business inside of two years. Secondly, the economy is going to stay in a depression as far as airlines are concerned. Fuel prices are going to stay sky high and Iraq is going to continue to hemmorage the US literally and economically. Third, the carriers that are making money have ground feed, not expensive partial RJ feed at 15-35 cents ASM and paying fee-for-departure. Fourth, the route system stinks and fifth, after pummelling and punishing employees while they pay themselves $4.7 million dollar bonuses, management has negative credibility and a hostile workforce. U will have to pay greatly sub-par compensation relative to the LCCs. Many U folks have hit their bottom price on compensation. However, judging from A320s insistance that they drop the bar lower, it sounds like there's a lot more downside room on pilot compensation before he reaches his "bottom dollar."

 

[insp89]

funguy2, ............................................. Would you further define "Full Time Equivalent Employees", FTE's ? [ Are these numbers supposed to take into account the cost that is incurred by airlines that have their work outsourced] ? I noticed these numbers include only "Mainline", I find it interesting that these numbers evidently do not reflect Mid Atlantic Airlines, you know, the "airline within an airline." I find these numbers do not do justice to airlines that support commuter airlines and operations such as[ TED-United ] and [ Usairways - Mid Atlantic ].

 

[AC/CF]

While we are comparing manpower, does anyone know how many res agents are at SW?

 

[funguy2]

funguy2, ............................................. Would you further define "Full Time Equivalent Employees", FTE's ? [ Are these numbers supposed to take into account the cost that is incurred by airlines that have their work outsourced] ? I noticed these numbers include only "Mainline", I find it interesting that these numbers evidently do not reflect Mid Atlantic Airlines, you know, the "airline within an airline." I find these numbers do not do justice to airlines that support commuter airlines and operations such as[ TED-United ] and [ Usairways - Mid Atlantic ].

[post="185244"][/post]​

Well, I used the FTE from each carriers Second Quarter data, so I suspect it might be slightly different for each carrier.

For US Airways, I used the FTE's from the US Airways mainline tab of the sheets provided. I specificallt excluded all "Express" partners. So even though MDA Employees work for US Airways Inc, they are only counted in the Group sheet (which I suspect includes the other WO carriers as well). Notice that the 282 aircraft number also excludes MDA's 22 E170's. I expect (although rely on the accuracy of the information provided by USAirways in their financial reports) that the ASM number also excludes MDA.

As a rule, I believe FTE's include all employees directly employed, with Part-timers pro-rated into full-timers (i.e. if Part-Time equals 20 hrs/wk, then 2 part-timers = 1 full-timer...). Honestly, I don't know what kinds of contractors the FTE numbers include. They appear to exclude "Express" employees (for all carriers), but probably include mainline employees who work Express airplanes (i.e. if America West has its employees work Mesa airplanes, for example), or other contracts (i.e. US Airways employees working Independence Air aircraft at EWR where IAir has contracted with USAir). It might include consultants or other "temp" type workers... I can't say for certain. Its a good question, though, because if US Airways has a lot of these contracts or situations (vs the others) the data is skewed. (And I assume Mainline-Express employees may be counted here even though they work Express airplanes... definitely room for issue).

 

[PITbull]

Got it wrong again there snappy. ( It's so easy debating someone who think they know what you think )

Nah, I'm thankfully afforded the flexibility of waiting till the official "game over" comes, whether through furloughs or liquidation. Nothing personal, more lucrative that way. Since many have put their time in and seen their careers eroded in part by hideboud management, they've every right to try to affect a change for the better. Now that it's in the courts hands, there's a better chance of better leadership than before, slim as it may be. Besides, I like the challenge B)

Nah, not waiting for someone else to take a hit in my stead, not unless you'd like the honors. So simmer in your false bravado hiding fear of what the RC4 will do ( or the IAM,CWA,AFA ) and enjoy the ride.

I'm at the top of my game here: Keep 'em comin ace, keep 'em comin. Got all the time in the world....all the time in the world..........

Tsk

[post="185214"][/post]​

High Iron,

You are the best! I'm there.