Unions For Llc's

[mweiss]

If you took all the LCC's, including SWA and AWA, they have less than 800 planes and while they are growing, they are flying about 25% of US passengers. ( In comparison, AA's website says: The combined network fleet numbers more than 1,000 aircraft.)

So what? These LCCs are adding capacity to an industry with depressed demand (temporary though it may be). Their costs are such that they can profitably fly people around at fares that would (and do) create staggering losses at the legacies. In other words, they are setting new price points. You don't have to be at 50% of the market to set price points. You just have to be big enough, and "big enough" is pretty small if your competition has multiple price points in order to capture as much of the area under the demand curve as possible.

What is forcing these economic changes, I think, is the current economy that is not too stellar, the very high cost of fuel, internet booking services and a few airlines that are horrendously mismanaged.

These are all contributing factors, and even if there were no LCCs the legacies would likely be losing money because of this. However, the LCCs have exacerbated the problem to the extent that the legacies are losing far more money today than they did in the early 90s.

 

[Winglet]

Unionism is completely broken in this industry.

AA's, U's and now UAL's unions have prostrated themselves before management and are now nothing more than company controlled unions extracting a 1.5% of members pay for the purpose of giving the perception that the workers are represented. It's all a charade.