Mirror, Mirror On the Wall: What About US Airways After All?

[700UW]

I doubt a combined US/B6 would have more market share than DL, AA or the "new" UA currently have or will have in the NYC area.

I all ready posted in another thread if US and B6 merged they would have 34% of the JFK/LGA market, more than any other carrier, if the Feds wont let DL and US swap slots, do you really think they would approve a merger that would give one airline a majority of flights in a market?

 

[signals]

I can not imagine two work cultures that are further apart than US and B6.

Thank God for small favors!

 

[Richard]

Folks,

One member is already suspended. Stop making personal remarks aimed at individual posters.

 

[signals]

I all ready posted in another thread if US and B6 merged they would have 34% of the JFK/LGA market, more than any other carrier, if the Feds wont let DL and US swap slots, do you really think they would approve a merger that would give one airline a majority of flights in a market?

Don't you mean 'already', Capt. Kettle? B6 dominates the JFK market and LGA is a market for the losers in my humble opinion. The Kettle market sort of speak!
B) B)

 

[VAflyGal]

I don't claim to know what all the numbers say, but rest assured there is an advantage to the split operations. My understanding is that every group has agreements with the exception of the pilots. If there was an advantage to putting things together they would have done something to get them together.
[/quote]

Flight attendants don't have an agreement either. We have more open sections than not and the company wants to revisit and rewrite sections we closed in agreement 3 years ago.
We are the two largest labor groups in the airline. The company continues to stall. It's frustrating as all get out.

 

[SparrowHawk]

I all ready posted in another thread if US and B6 merged they would have 34% of the JFK/LGA market, more than any other carrier, if the Feds wont let DL and US swap slots, do you really think they would approve a merger that would give one airline a majority of flights in a market?

Well they would if one of the merger partners took a friendly stroll through Bankruptcy Court.

On another front no one has mentioned how does the merger deal with LH's investment in B6? Given that LH has like a 25% interest one would assume that US/B6 would remain in Star.

 

[Travelpro72]

Based on percentages of B6 at JFK and US at LGA it still looks like a combined operation wouldn't have as big a percentage over UA, DL and AA. If so very little. Also good point about the LH investment in B6. Maybe it's not the best option but I personally can see it working. As for Airtran......what would the combined airline do with BWI and ATL?

 

[redheadtempe33]

Flight attendants don't have an agreement either. We have more open sections than not and the company wants to revisit and rewrite sections we closed in agreement 3 years ago.
We are the two largest labor groups in the airline. The company continues to stall. It's frustrating as all get out.


Not to nitpick (but I will anyway), pilots and FA's actually only make up about 33% of employees. FA's are the largest group, then fleet, non-contract, gate/fleet, then pilots, maintenance, and then reservations. It always annoys me when the fate of airlines (and I'm not just talking US - WN/F9/RAH auction) seems to live or die on the decisions of the pilots (or pilot's union) when they only make up 13% of the workforce. Yes - with no pilots there would be no airline, but the same could be said for mechanics, FA's, baggage handlers, etc.
ANYWAY. If you really want a contract, complain to your union. I would bet the company would love to have a joint FA contract. It would put even more pressure on the pilots to work it out.

 

[Dog Wonder]

obscure blogger.

 

[wings396]

Why doesn't anybody state the obvious? US has a great merger partner with Air Trash! US has the Kettles and Air Trash has the trailer/ghetto trash. It's a marriage made in heaven and at least they have the American-made Boeings rather than that Euro-Trash AirBus!

Sure, that ATL hub will compliment CLT very well.

 

[wings396]

Trust me as a NYer , my friend , if a US/B6 were to happen, Senator Schumer would be voted out of office at the next term. US Airways monopolizing of dinky Upstate airports was what we NYers were led to believe would stop with B6. US swallowed Empire and others because of their cut-throat tactics. Most thought B6 would fall into the same fate. It didn't!

A B6/AA merger would be very welcomed since both airlines target the same competitors, so it seems. But B6 is now a leader and is being followed by others and unions aren't a welcome to the B6 overall plan...so it seems. Just my humble opinion and observation B)

FWIW, US didn't "swallow" Empire. Piedmont purchased Empire in 1984 to expand their presence in the upstate NY area. Shortly after the PI/US merger, US found a way to destroy all of what Empire and Piedmont built as well as killing the Florida Shuttle that utilized the F-28 fleet. Had US kept what they inherited in the merger we wouldn't even need to discuss B6 today. US had it all, and gave it all away. If they want to buy anyone or anything, lets make it something that we never had before.

 

[Jetsetter2Ord]

FWIW, US didn't "swallow" Empire. Piedmont purchased Empire in 1984 to expand their presence in the upstate NY area. Shortly after the PI/US merger, US found a way to destroy all of what Empire and Piedmont built as well as killing the Florida Shuttle that utilized the F-28 fleet. Had US kept what they inherited in the merger we wouldn't even need to discuss B6 today. US had it all, and gave it all away. If they want to buy anyone or anything, lets make it something that we never had before.

So you mean the Sandcastle didnt cause that??

 

[wings396]

So you mean the Sandcastle didnt cause that??

No, the damage was done long before they came onto the scene. These were they days of Crystal City, and those idiots did more downsizing and damage than Tempe can even dream of. Just to name a few the PSA west coast operation, the hubs in DAY, SYR, BWI, PIT, the Florida Shuttle and so on. Some of the hubs were going away due to their close proximity to other hubs, but they went far beyond eliminating overlap.

 

[SparrowHawk]

So you mean the Sandcastle didnt cause that??

The Sandcastle, in fairness does many things well. What I along with many others fault is their attitude towards Employees and Frequent Flyers. Doesn't it bother you that at the very top you are viewed as a vending machine with arms and legs? Pilots as glorified bus drivers, etc, etc.

As the article points out US maintains a "Labor Cost Advantge" (Translated = They pay you squat) and given the current size of US the ONLY way for them to remain viable is to raise wages in exchange for work rule concessions. The author is likely correct in his analysis. If we agree that the author is correct then the ONLY way for US to maintain the cost advantage is get the types of contracts that are required in order to compete. To have even a remote prayer of that happening they need to change their tune with workers quick, fast and in a hurry.

Yes WN pays more! Alot more! There number of employees to aircraft is 20 to 30 percent less than US. Now there are several reasons for that. work rules being one of them and the one that is easiest to address. If you raise wages and relax work rules you can do it in a way that will LOWER overall cost and make the airline even more competitive while increasing employee satisfaction which will ultimately flow through to the Customers complaining less which lowers customer service cost, etc etc.

The problem with US and Labor Relations is that for the past ten years all that's been seen is stick and no carrot, to the point where most employees wonder if Bug Bunny stole all the carrots and turned left at ABQ!

Doug & Scott have done an absolute marvelous job of informing both customer & employee that they don't factor into the equation of their fanatical obsession with low costs. This is why you hear some posters mention that "US knows the price of everything and the value of nothing" or "The high cost of cheap"

Classic example is SHARES. Post merger US chooses SHARES. OK, fine CO uses SHARES. Fast forward and we find out that SHARES requires 20 to 30 percent more keystrokes per transaction. This in turn raises the time it takes to move people through the airports. Increases customer unrest AND means MORE agents are required. This POS SHARES has now inbedded an additional 20 to 30 percent more labor required structurally into the system for as long as SHARES is the IT platform for ticketing.

Additionally LEADERS are supposed to be forward looking. Doug preached "Consolidation" with the zeal of Robert Tilton, Jimmy Swaggart & Gerry Falwell all rolled into one. Well now it's here and the only other SHARES user, CO is merging with UA. now then does anyone here foresee US/CO chosing SHARES when the goal of Star is to migrate to the common platform Amadeus? Soon US will be the only carrier using SHARES. How long before EDS sends them the "Effective June 1 20xx EDS will no longer support SHARES" letter. Or worse begins to gouge for support, How then was this decision wise? Answer is, it wasn't, what it was was cheap AT THE TIME

Part of why a guy like Doug gets millions per year is to have that forward vision and the ability to exploit opportunities..When it came to SHARES he didn't look more than about 4 quarters out. BAD MOVE. I can only wonder just how much this one decision has cost US. It cost one CIO his job so far and the system is still a steaming turd in the airline IT cesspool.

I happen to think that Doug Parker would be an EXCELLENT CFO of any enterprise. It's his strength. Put him with a dynamic leader like Gordon Bethune and US Airways would be a profitable, growing airline that small and medium sized citites would beg them to fly to. As it stands now US is just "there"!

 

[Dont call me Shirley]

Thanks, SH for the best and most lucent post these pages have seen for a long time indeed. (One can only hope EDS pulls the plug on SHARES, that would force US to get a "real" system like Amadeus. ) Low labor costs in the only thing US has going for it. How long can that last? Can Doug and Scot really expect to get away with "we can't pay what the others pay, because we're smaller and poorly run"? Of course that does not stop them from pocketing "industry leading" exec pay.


(sigh)