ualdriver said:
You'll notice that no personal attack was made toward you, csrgal, until after your post#5 on this thread. I have disagreements with MANY people on this thread/forum, yet, as I wrote, the gloves don't come off until some punches are thrown my way. Consider your post#5 the "first punch." I have little respect for ANY employee on the property, pilot, csr, mechanic, or otherwise who is so bitter and angry that they need to post something like that.
You don't believe in job actions if it screws over the passenger? That's very altruistic of you. I guess you'll just take whatever the company is about to hand your group next week with a big smile on your face and a "Thank you very much may I have another?" Unions, unfortuately, are a necessary evil in this business and I wouldn't blame any union for having to put their foot down sometimes, whether the customer gets caught in the middle or not. Its unfortunate, as was the Summer of 2000 (or what may start to happen as early as next week), but that's the way it is in the airline biz. It's up to the customer to decide whether they want to fly us again with all our warts and imperfections. So far, they're still coming.
JetBlue is a great non-union airline with breath-taking non-union wages to show for it. Perhaps a carrier change is in order to a non-union shop so that you may avoid the potential union actions you despise so much?
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I think you made your point, all four times.
I agree with your earlier point on the myth of over capacity. With airplanes flying at historically high load factors capacity is not the problem, there is more to this whole game than we are seeing.
Some light can be shed when you piece together statements from corporate execs and government officials.
The CEO of NWA recently made coments about the "resetting of wages", Herman Bonilla(of the Bush Administration) and the FAA charter both speak of the governments objective to emphasize the "availability of of a variety of adequate, economic, efficient and
low priced services".
In this industry it sometimes pays to lose money, especially when they can use losses that can be easly recouped to "reset" wages for a long time.
Labor was able to win back some of what they lost through the 90s, but it did not last long. While at least one carrier may fail, probably USAIR, its doubtlful that UAL will be eliminated. Isnt UAL the same carrier where Bush told the mechanics they could not strike because they provided a service that was essential to the economy? How much higher were the load factors then than they are now?Isnt UAL the airline that the government prevented from merging with USAIR because it would eliminate competition? So how could allowing both to dissapear not create an even worse situation than allowing them to merge? Instead of one major carrier dissapearing now two would be dissapearing!
There is only one way to stop this slaughter, that is for all the airline unions to get together and threaten to shut the whole thing down if any contract is abrogated.
As long as we keep moving airplanes everybody else is happy. The passengers that fly cheap, the Hotels the airlines help fill, the airports that collect the landing fees and the rents, the banks that lease the airplanes, the Saudis that sell us the fuel at jacked up prices that ate up whatever funds our previous concessions provided, everybody else is riding high on the record high load factors and the millions of people that we move while we are all in a pathetic self destructive race to the bottom. What we need to do is simply STOP. Shut the whole thing down!!!!!!!
When the planes sit on the ground, when the hotels sit empty, when the airport is as quiet as a golf course, when the fuel just sits in the tankers and when people stay home instead of traveling and spending money then this madness will stop, but its up to us to do this. The question is will we?
