Those Who Fail To Change...

[funguy2]

Many posters are quick to blame management and always point out flaws in other people, but refuse to acknowledge the fundamental changes affecting the industry.

[post="185144"][/post]​

And yet most other airlines have seemed to cope much better than US AIrways with the fundamental changes...

Southwest, being the poster child for coping with the fundamental change (could even be argued as the 'cause' of fundamental change, although I don't believe that to be true), has had a fantastic strategy of fuel hedges and lowering costs through growth.

jetBlue has managed to be profitable through this time, mainly by having cheap labor, flying a lot of hours (i.e. all their red-eyes), and reduced maintenance exposure in the short term.

AirTran has managed to be profitable through this time as well.

America West has even been profitable, with a shift in its brand strategy, some new revenue enhancing ideas, and their labor costs.

Northwest has done reasonably well by controlling costs on the big things (i.e. they decided to operate their DC-9's longer, post-poning a major fleet renewal program)

CAL has done ok as well, focusing on their strength in int'l markets, keeping costs inline, and being an RJ innovator

Yes, the industry fundamentals have changed... And US Airways was completely unprepared for that event.

Now having said that, I understand that the company doesn't have very many choices left. However, I continue to doubt any plan funded by employee concessions. It hasn't worked in this industry yet, and I expect that it will not in this case. Maybe management's negotiations would have been successful if they had a detailed plan of action, including here's what we have already implemented, to accompany their requests for concessions. But the plan has been largely vague and lacking in measurable results.

 

[USA320Pilot]

The only reason Continental is where it is today is due to two bankruptcy proceedings where it cut its employee and other costs.

The same thing holds true for America West.

The LCC's have built better business models with lower labor costs, point-to-point flying, increased productivity, most maintenance/aircraft cleaning outsourced or done by cross qualified employees, 401(k) retirement plans, and until recently a single fleet type.

US Airways is trying to adopt a similar business model, which ALPA's advisors have praised.

Respectfully,

USA320Pilot

 

[dash8roa]

I think 320pilot is dreaming as to u ever turning around.Its been said that for too many years management has tried to keep the old way of doing business.For years they had a monopoly at many small and medium cities in the northeast and gouged the local flier who had little choice in carriers.U has never been an innovative airline,they only responded to the actions of other carriers.Too much time and money has been wasted over the years and the other carriers can sense blood in the water.Delta has been adding many new routes overlaying u's route system which is shrinking and is less attractive to fliers.Swa,airtran,awa.and others cant be stopped.They have planned and executed well over the years and the last region,the northeast will fall soon.
I hope u will last to december as i hope to use my miles for a trip.I do not mean to sound cold because i will lose my job also when u fails but deep down all us have known for some time this day would come.
The moral is low.Just look at the amount of posts on the u section as compared to the other much larger carriers.The money is running out and customers are afraid to book due to all the bad press.

Its been a learning experience.

 

[skyflyr69]

"You are right, every union failed to embrace the changes in the past 3 months. However, they all failed to embrace the changes in the last 15 years as well. The "real" price of airline travel has fallen in 15 years (adjusted for inflation), more efficient competitors evolved during that time, and US Airways costs continued to increase."


Funguy, you are right. i just read a report by the ATA saying airfares have dropped 49.8% since 78 adjusted for inflation.

i can't imagine what it would be like to work under that much competition. at least my company can pass along the increases to our customers.

the traveling public should be thanking their lucky stars for such affordable air travel and the intense competition.

good luck to those in the airline biz.

 

[linemech]

Many posters are quick to blame management and always point out flaws in other people, but refuse to acknowledge the fundamental changes affecting the industry.

Regards,

USA320Pilot

[post="185144"][/post]​

USA320Pilot,

You fail to mention the fact that your chairman (Dr. Bubba Bronner) did not miss one opportunity to inform the media and the traveling public that U would probably not be in business by the end of Sept.

This great revenue creation is just what the doctor ordered to get U through the slowest quarter of the year.

Even if it is true that people refuse to acknowledge the fundamental changes affecting the industry, I don't think Dr. Bronner and the rest of your management team even know what the fundamental changes affecting the industry are. :down:


Regards,

linemech

 

[Aryeh]

Ah, but 'Chuck Darwin' also spoke these fine words. Perhaps, you missed it:

"As for a future life, every man must judge for himself between conflicting vague probabilities." - Charles Darwin (From Life and Letters)

[post="185121"][/post]​

It's not that many aren't aware of the many economic challenges the airline industry is facing. However many of us witness from being on the inside, that every time the company seeks major cost cutting, mgmt has a blind eye regarding their culpability. Essentially, many of the same people continue doing what they've always done wrong, yet convincing their superiors of the opposite. They never truly see what they're doing wrong, because they've got a bar charts t to prove any point, so they don't need see things from an employee's or customer's on-the-ground perspective.
Management, thinking it not the problem, seeks solutions the easy way, our compensation. The only true changes are to our pay, the others problems just continue.
Why would anyone choose an impoverishing rate of pay, especially when all else remains the same?

 

[funguy2]

The only reason Continental is where it is today is due to two bankruptcy proceedings where it cut its employee and other costs.

The same thing holds true for America West.

The LCC's have built better business models with lower labor costs, point-to-point flying, increased productivity, most maintenance/aircraft cleaning outsourced or done by cross qualified employees, 401(k) retirement plans, and until recently a single fleet type.

US Airways is trying to adopt a similar business model, which ALPA's advisors have praised.

Respectfully,

USA320Pilot

[post="185164"][/post]​

America West and Continental did not prepare for the downturn of 2001-9/11/01 through their bankruptcies of the early-90's. While those companies do have the advantage of lower employee costs, those were not the items they have relied upon since 2001 to ride through this storm or even proper during it.

America West almost failed, in spite of its low employee costs, due to a financing agreement due to be signed the week of 9/10/01. Obviously after the terror attack, the deal did not get signed, AWA got an ATSB-backed loan, closed its CMH hub, retooled its fare structure, shifted its stratedy to LCC pricing, and worked on its operational performance (which had been bad in 2000). None of these implemented items were a result of the 1991 bankruptcy.

Continental floundered after is 1991 bankruptcy as well, moving towards a third bankruptcy in the mid 1990's until Gordon Bethune implemented the "Go Forward Plan". Until then, even with their low employee costs, the company was on the verge of liquidation due to generally poor service, a mis-matched fleet, no consistent image, horrible employee relations, etc. Bethune changed all that. By the time the terror attack occured, CAL had built a strong brand, major international hubs at EWR and IAH, and re-fleeted its entire Express operation with RJ's, and of course, fixed many of the employee relations nightmares. All of these items have helped CAL weather the storm, none of which are a direct result of their BK in 1991 nor of their lower employee costs.

In other words, low employee costs are not the primary reason for these airlines relative success since 9/11/01. The employee costs are built into the structure of those airlines, which were flexible enough to adapt and change with the post 9/11 storm.

 

[funguy2]

skyflyr69: Thanks for the data...

Aryeh: intereting point, and true of many, many companies, not just airlines. But still true, nonetheless, and applicable to US Airways, in my opinion. The CEO's have changed, even some of the VP's, but there are many directors and middle management who have been with the company in some form for a long, long time.

 

[ClueByFour]

The only reason Continental is where it is today is due to two bankruptcy proceedings where it cut its employee and other costs.

Nope. That was half of it. The other half was the aggressive expansion of international flying and the way in which it was done (using the ETOPS 757s to thinner transatlantic markets, EWR-HKG, and the premium commanded by CO-Mike), jumping into the RJ game bigtime before everyone else thought of it, aggressively expanding two of the biggest O&D markets in the country (EWR and IAD), fleet rationalization before that was popular, and (until the latest meltdown) treating the VFFs very well. CO did all of this while asking their employees to take a bath on costs, thus inspiring confidence in the labor group. A win-win. I personally think Gordo is a buffon, but he did turn CO around. A leader.

CO had nothing like the franchise that US enjoys (enjoyed) in the east (where 60% of the population lies) before they turned it around.

The same thing holds true for America West.

Wrong again. America West not only took the cost savings, but rationalized it's fleets, fundamentally altered it's route structure into a hybrid hub-and-spoke/point-to-point model, retained first class despite all of this, and rationalized it's fare structure.

US has had years (before and after the first bankruptcy--where they extracted mammoth cost savings from all labor groups) to do something innovative, and completely missed the mark. It's an epic failure of both strategic and operational leadership. I'd submit to you that if the rank-and-file (or union leadership) had any confidence that the current management team could turn that around then you would not have seen the second Chapter 11 filing. All the current team knows how to do is beat labor. A trained monkey can beat labor. Nothing else of any significance or innovation has actually happened since little Dave first came to town (outside the confines of cost-smashing in Chapter 11--reference the trained monkey).

US cannot even lay a winning strategy and execute it (remember when those E-170s were gonna be the "competitive LCC response?"). Had Bonderman wanted into the game when Alabama Dave outbid him, US would not be in the shape it's in today.

Suggesting that "the latest plan" won't work without labor "participation" is a farce: labor's contributions are the plan. I can run a profitable enterprise with what was the Allegheny Commuter route structure if everyone on the property is making minimum wage with no bennies. Alas, it's not quite that simple, and the folks in CCY have proven for years that they lack the ability to devise and/or execute a winning strategy, much less make the case to labor to "trust us" on even more givebacks.

They will be teaching the last 15 years of US' existance in a better business school near you as a textbook example of "what not to do" for years.

 

[WestCoastGuy]

What amazes me is the fact that this group is CCY feeds off itself. It does not see the forest because of all those damn trees. They totally rely on labor concessions to solve the problems that have been with company for years. Over the years, Ive made numerous suggestions the "Ideas that fly" program, "employee suggestions", etc, etc, only to have every single suggestion shot down. I think it's all about the old story of the Emporer Has no Clothes. The pecking order in CCY will only respond to ideas if they think of them..not those overpaid line workers. They dont see the whole picture....

 

[High Iron]

Awesome posts gang...focused and hard-hitting.

"Sunlight is the best disinfectant."

 

[PITbull]

USA320 -

While I agree with the above quote, can't the same be said for the company as a whole and not just applied to the employees?

How many years have we talked on here about how to improve the airlines productivity and utilization rates to no avail. There has been no real change in how we operate out PHL hub, except to add additional flying. They haven't depeaked the hub, improved a/c utilization rates, employee productivity, etc.

Any idea why? It has been over a year since 'it was being looked at". Even DL sees the benefits of rolling a major hub, and will be making ATL a rolling hub by Feb. Yet we still struggle along with only minor changes here and there.

When is the company REALLY going to look at changing their broken business model. When will we see real and speciifc schedule changes that address productivity and utilization? Announcing a FLL mini-hub and Go-fares seem more like competetive responses versus real structural changes to the fundimentals of the airline.

[post="185081"][/post]​

The company will make the necessary changes when someone "snaps out of it" and removes Jerry Glass from being "front and center" of everything.

When the light bulb finally goes on...and the focus is no longer on the employees and "busting" us up, then they will operate the airline.

Until such time, we will continue to limp along....hopefully it won't be to late.

 

[cavalier]

ob·ses·sion (Ãb seshÆÃn), n.
1. the domination of one's thoughts or feelings by a persistent idea, image, desire, etc.
2. the idea, image, desire, feeling, etc., itself.
3. the state of being obsessed.
4. the act of obsessing.
[1505–15; < L obsessi$n- (s. of obsessi$) blockade, siege, equiv. to obsess(us) (see OBSESS) + -i$n- -ION]
—ob·sesÆsion·al, adj.



Jerry Glass should be addressed Jerry almighty. He does everything including stopping certain union leaders from moving on even though they possess "multiple degrees†and makes sure EVERYONE knows this but stays put because of.....O B S E S S I O N......

Too bad degrees don’t come with common sense. God only hands out his virtue to those worthy.

 

[PITbull]

I thought I was suppose to be on someone's "ignore list'...

talk about obsessing...

 

[700UW]

I think it is more like stalking.