Pilots, Us Airways Remain At Odds

[to much time to quit]

I have been lurking for some time now as I too am involved in the airline life. Reading some of these posts clearly shows that they are some very frustrated people out there that hate their jobs and it seems their very life the way some write.

I feel that if things were that bad for me personally I would be moving on instead of posting hateful thoughts and accusations. I see a few posters seem to live to post nothing but extremely negative and down right nasty posts aimed at management.

I have a little, not qualified as a professional mind you, just a little background in psychology. I think the airlines employees are where it’s at if a good doctor of psychology wants to make a small fortune trying to figure out the airline employees state of mind and then setting a course for healing that troubled mind.


Life doesn’t begin and end in the airline business so ease up some you posters, stop and smell the roses, live your life a few days without the nastiness and see if it makes your outlook seem a little different. Never hurt to try.

The airline doesn’t stand a change if the people who make it work hate everything around them including themselves.

Thank you casy, after reading your evaluation and diagnosis I feel much better already. I just went outside and planted some flowers and pet and fed my dog. You saved me a ton of money also since I won't need to see a shrink and pay the health deductables from my insurance whos costs have risen over 500% in the last couple of years along with my pay, sick time, vacation and many other benefits being reduced. And on top of that Usairways is still being run by a bunch of lying corporate raiders who will continue to try to drop the middle class to a lower level. My life is not miserable and I really do like myself. What I dislike our people like you that seem to know everything about the plight of every airline worker. I'm curiuos how you to our involved in the airline life? How much schooling have you invested? What other jobs did you have to have to get to this level? How many years of your life have you been with the same company and watched the revolving ceo door open and close with no better business plan. Your probably some new hire express employee who hasn't watched thousands of your friends and coworkers go out the door after 14 years of service never to return. :angry:

 

[jimntx]

And, FWIW, with all the downtime everyone complains about, it seems like the company's inefficiencies actually result in rest time throughout the day, or am I missing something?

I know it seems that way, but ask yourself how much rest you get when you are delayed in an airport and the only place to sit is one of those molded plastic chairs placed closer together on a frame than the coach seats on an LCC?

Most stations for any airline do not have any sort of rest facilities for crew members away from the concourse unless it is a hub airport--sometimes not even then. If it is a hub, but the wait is due to a mechanical, you have to wait at the a/c in case it gets fixed, you can go as soon as the mechanic signs off on the paperwork.

You mentioned in one of your posts that you spend a lot of time on airplanes, and I'm sure you do. But, I bet that on a flight from LGA to LAX, you nap at least once during the flight. The FAA strongly disapproves of that behavior by cockpit and cabin crews.

 

[usair_begins_with_u]

PORTION DELETED BY MODERATOR

Along the lines of pay and consessions, I would feel much better as a US labor employee agreeing to TEMPORARY cuts until the new plan is in place. Seeing how Lakefield/Bronner et al are such airline geniuses, they should be able to get the carrier back in tip top shape in no time, and then they should restore pay back to non poverty levels. You simply cannot force 80% of your employees to drastically cut their standard of living in a two week window, thats just not reality. Anyone can tighten the belt, knowing their forgone pay will rewarded in the future, its another thing to say you're entire career has just become eternally devalued, LIVE WITH IT. When Uair becomes profitiable again, the first place that profit needs to go is back to the employees, because heh.. it's really their money. No one I know would ever agree to a life time pay cut.. which is what these bozo's in CCY are asking for. I now understand full pay to the last day.

 

[BoeingBoy]

PHL is the only mainline station that I know of that has a dedicated "rest" room. PIT used to have one, but that space is now used by MAA.

Jim

 

[to much time to quit]

casyjones is a freakin moron. Oh wait.. am I going to get another board time out for that? I didnt enjoy my last one, I had to log in with different names to read. Im addicted to this board now. but I digress....

No one I know would ever agree to a life time pay cut.. which is what these bozo's in CCY are asking for. I now understand full pay to the last day.

Next time you get banned just delete your cookies and you will be able to read all day long. Trust me on this, I think i'm among the top ten cornfielders. Although your comment concerning casy is 100% correct. And it won't be long before everyone has the full pay until the last day attitude. Of course there will always be that group of people that no matter how many years they get lied to they will continue to cave in feeling life without usairways is no life at all. Pathetic.

 

[mweiss]

The point I was trying to make, was that there are NOT MANY professionals that would even accept a job which dictated that they are away from from MORE THAN HALF of every month

Um, BULL$#IT. You gave your response to the following post:

With travel time to/from client sites, I work approx. 280 hours/month, and that does not include time spent in hotels (but does include time spent in cabs, in the air, etc.).

You were playing a stupid game of one-upmanship, despite his clear notation that he was not including hotel. I may not be as old as you, but I sure wasn't born yesterday. <_<

By the way, did you GET A JOB YET?

Yes. Thanks for asking.

 

[mweiss]

Any time I am away from my home in connection with the airline then I am at work ... If you don't think that is work, then you have never experienced it.

I spent a decade as a road warrior. I spent far more nights in hotels than at home. My point isn't that it isn't work, but rather that there isn't a single profession anywhere that treats it as such. So you can boo hoo about it all you want, but you're not so special that you should be the only profession on the planet that gets to include it as working time.

BTW, PITbull, what were you saying about nobody claiming that it's work???

 

[mweiss]

IIRC, the difference in mainline CASM is approximately 0.1 cent per ASM.

I followed you up to this point. Where'd the 0.1 come from?

 

[BoeingBoy]

mweiss,

If you calculate the overall mainline CASM with a) furloughed pilots flying the extra 15% ASM's from increased a/c utilization, and B) current pilots flying the extra ASM's, the difference (using my numbers which are partially guesswork, particularily the benefits cost per ASM) is about 0.1 cents per ASM.

Jim

 

[BoeingBoy]

Sorry, but "B)" seems to translate to a smiley face.

Jim

 

[BoeingBoy]

Also, BTS's numbers for a/c operating cost can be easily determined per "flight hour" (not block hour), but not per ASM. I had to make some assumptions to get the ASM figures. They were that the 737 and 320 series that had increased utilization flew 350 miles per "flight hour", which combined with seating capacity yielded cost per ASM.

Jim

ps - I tried to make my assumptions conservative, but left the cost of the a/c in the incremental cost as a fudge factor.

 

[mweiss]

...the difference (using my numbers which are partially guesswork, particularily the benefits cost per ASM) is about 0.1 cents per ASM.

If your guess is right (that pilot benefits cost 0.1¢ per ASM), that's probably reasonable enough to recall. How much more would it be if the extra 15% were handled by only recalled employees (FAs, rampers, agents, etc.)?

I ask because it doesn't seem fair to recall only pilots for this.

BTW, if you don't want the B) to become a smiley face, you can uncheck the box that says "Enable emoticons?" below the post text box.

 

[BoeingBoy]

My guess for benefit cost is 0.4 cents per ASM - about 1/3 of total pilot cost per ASM. The 0.1 cent per ASM is the difference between mainline CASM with and without furloughed pilots being recalled to fly the extra time (as opposed to current pilots flying 90 or 95 hours).

As for other employee groups, obviously F/A's could be recalled which would add to the incremental cost of the extra flying. Since the only way to get the extra 15% utilization from the existing fleet is some combination of rolling hubs and more P2P flying, my assumption is that not much increase in manpower (personpower?) on the ground would be needed. However, I purposely left the a/c acquisition cost in the incremental cost to cover any other added costs.

Jim

 

[BoeingBoy]

Ok, here's the math of upping the cap on hours worked to 90 or 95 and flying the extra ASM's with current pilots vs keeping the 85 hour cap and using recalled pilots to fly the extra ASM's....



1st qtr mainline ASM's: 12,988,000,000
1st qtr mainline CASM: 11.68 cents (round to 11.7 cents)

Total cost (12,988 million X 11.7 cents): $1,519,596,000

Assumption: 15% increase in a/c utilization = 15% more ASM's.

12,988,000,000 X 15% = 1,948,200,000 new ASM's

Incremental cost per new ASM = 5.8 cents (includes full pilot cost and a/c acquisition cost).

Cost of flying new ASM's with recalled pilots: $112,995,600

Cost of flying all ASM's with recalled pilots: Total cost / total ASM's or

($1,519,596,000 + $112,995,600) / (12,988,000,000 + 1,948,200,000) or

10.93 cents


Now assume that the flying is done by current pilots. Assume that the incremental cost goes down 0.4 cents - the cost of benefits per ASM since the hourly pay is the same no matter who flys the extra time.

New ASM's total cost (1,948,200,0000 X 5.4 cents): $105,202,800

Cost of all ASM's ($1,519,596,000 + $105,202,800): $1,624,988,000

New mainline CASM for all ASM's: 10.87 cents.

Admittedly, I may have punched the wrong button on the ole calculator somewhere, so it anyone wants to redo the math have at it. And admittedly I used the 1st quarter numbers - any concessions that affect CASM or incremental cost will change the numbers some. And, again, I left the a/c acquisition cost in the incremental cost number to provide a cushion for extra costs in other workgroups.

Jim

 

[mweiss]

OK, now I see where you're getting the numbers from. Your 0.1 is the CASM delta amortized over all ASMs, rather than the incremental ASMs. I understand why you did that, though it would not make sense to use those numbers when determining the profits to be extracted from the two different approaches.

On a related topic, how'd you come up with the 0.4¢ CASM for pilot benefits?