US Airways Pilots Labor Thread 4/15-4/22

[ableoneable]

Sigh!..

This is a new one.

What does that kind of sigh look like? Is it anything like being really aggressively neutral?

 

[electricjet98]

A merger will bring about a few things. One is increased liquidity. ANother is excess employees, probably as much as 1,500 pilots in the flight department. Based on Nicolau, this would mean about 1,100 of those extra jobs are sitting out east.

With the upcoming trial, the collapse of our business environment at home and global economic uncertainty, times will be interesting indeed. Best of luck to all.

I don't have the seniority lists in fron of me or the seniority of people currently furloughed. Does anyone have the hire date of the east pilot that follows the currently most senior furloughed west pilot using Nicolau? How about the hire dates of the two groups if the 1500 number is accurate and Nicolau is used?

 

[electricjet98]

Sigh!..and here it was long the west's claimed "innocence", in that you all just wanted "what was brought to the merger. It's so very heartwarming to see the true nature of the west's "Righteous Position" once again

"INTEGRITY MATTERS"

And lets not forget what the east brought to the merger...FURLOUGHS!

 

[tazz]

Really tazzie? Just how much would you actually care to wager? Outside of my not agreeing with your Nic obsession/"It's ALL about MEEE!!"/etc..what's your suggested metric for evaluation?

If you've any honest and amusing wager that you've the spine to actually back up = PM with the details

Have you now resorted to schoolgirl namecalling? Tazzie? Really? I do not gamble, not a penny. The statement was rhetorical. Your actions, however, would win me some money if I were to. Were you or were you not part of a pilot group that agreed to the use of alpa merger policy. Were you not part of the same group that agreed to binding arbitration? Have you not been a beacon of all that is wrong with the results of that arbitration and excuse maker in chief of all the reasons why you and your group are not men of your word which resulted in this subsequent fallout?

 

[Pi brat]

---We interrupt this tirade by our most prolific poster for this important new bulletin---

This just in from the bureau of labor statistics- North Carolina has their highest unemployment rate ever. It is now fifth highest among states in unemployment- 10.5%.

Wachovia, once the crown jewel of the banking renaissance and headquartered in Charlotte, NC, collapsed in a heap of toxic loans brought on by the epic housing bust this past year.
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/laus.nr0.htm

This also just in from Market Watch:

Air passenger revenue is down 23% yoy
http://www.marketwatch.com/News/Story/Stor...p;siteid=yhoof2

What does this mean? USAirways is hurting. Either they merge or they die- period. The crushing debt load from the highly leveraged buyout of USAirways isn't going away. The inherited high cost structure from the east has crushed any chance of Parker competing on his old home turf, as evident by his cutting and running from Las Vegas and significant scaling back of flights in Phoenix. All that is left for Parker is to merge or go bankrupt.

So, in two weeks, I opine that any seniority integration issue will have to be addressed by the court which will have the least financial impact on the company, as Wake has already intimated in he will consider in pretrial court papers. Obviously, leaving both pilot groups separate imposes a significant financial burden on the company and won't be an option for remedy. Separate operations will also make USAirways less attractive for a merger. What this means is all remedies from the court case are leading to the establishment of a combined pilot list with Nicolau seniority. This at least resolves the financial burden to the company and allows Parker to move forward with another merger, which he has repeatedly stated is in the best interest of USAirways and the industry as a whole.

A merger will bring about a few things. One is increased liquidity. ANother is excess employees, probably as much as 1,500 pilots in the flight department. Based on Nicolau, this would mean about 1,100 of those extra jobs are sitting out east.

With the upcoming trial, the collapse of our business environment at home and global economic uncertainty, times will be interesting indeed. Best of luck to all.

Implementing the Nic award would be a tremendous burden to US Airways. 175 west furloughed pilots would have to be recalled and retrained for east positions and additional east pilots would be furloughed and paid pretty large furlough pay, so be careful what you wish for with the judge taking the company's health in to account.

On the topic of the east raising the west's CASM, I really don't get that. What has Tempe adopted from the east that has raised it's costs out west? Each leg this company operates has a different CASM, so averaging them out has raised the overall costs, but not each legs costs. In previous mergers US brought everyone up to TOS, and in in the case of PI, added hundreds of employees to staff the way US did. Overall we have lowered the pilot head count and the only increases I know of were in customer service, but they should have been offset by the gazillion dollars saved by switching to Shares.

It must be rough living life so bitter and wanting doom for your co-workers.

 

[BoeingBoy]

Each leg this company operates has a different CASM, so averaging them out has raised the overall costs, but not each legs costs.

Even discounting East crews/planes flying what were West routes and vice versa (which changes a legs average CASM) you can't just ignore the overall average CASM. That's because that overall average has to be matched to break even and the East system wasn't breaking even prior to the merger - hence 2 bankruptcies.

If you take the lower CASM side (West) that's making do against WN, then add the high CASM side (East), something has to support the resulting high CASM. When the economy turns south, it's the low RASM flights that go since they're reducing the average RASM the most.

In other words, without the merger the West would probably have dropped the lowest RASM flights out west while the East would have dropped the lowest RASM flights in the East (with the generous assumption that East would even be in business without the merger). The merger meant that more West flights got dropped (more lower RASM flights out there) and fewer East flights got dropped (since they're generally higher RASM than out west). So the merger allowed the transfer of some of the furloughs from the East to the West.

Jim

 

[Pi brat]

Even discounting East crews/planes flying what were West routes and vice versa (which changes a legs average CASM) you can't just ignore the overall average CASM. That's because that overall average has to be matched to break even and the East system wasn't breaking even prior to the merger - hence 2 bankruptcies.

If you take the lower CASM side (West) that's making do against WN, then add the high CASM side (East), something has to support the resulting high CASM. When the economy turns south, it's the low RASM flights that go since they're reducing the average RASM the most.

In other words, without the merger the West would probably have dropped the lowest RASM flights out west while the East would have dropped the lowest RASM flights in the East (with the generous assumption that East would even be in business without the merger). The merger meant that more West flights got dropped (more lower RASM flights out there) and fewer East flights got dropped (since they're generally higher RASM than out west). So the merger allowed the transfer of some of the furloughs from the East to the West.

Jim

Hmmm.....will have to reread this tomorrow after cocktail hour has expired and reply.

I think I get what you are saying, and agree, but the west's theory is that the higher CASM of the east has spread to the west like the plague, and I disagree. I think they are suffering what we did at PI-we were doing well and assume that it would continue forever. Would they be better if the merger had not happened? Would we? I don't know because we can't see "What if", but I doubt that either would be here with out it. The east's higher RASM helped out last year, the west's lower CASM is helping out this year.

I wish the Nic award had not created this divide. It did, and I'm not sure we can overcome it, no matter what happens with the trial. I have tried to understand the west's position and have some sympathy, but after all the b.s. post on here I have become hardened and couldn't care less.

 

[luvn737s]

I think when the verdict comes in and is implemented, you'll find that there was alot of anxiety over nothing. Some folks will lose, most will stay nearly the same, and there may be a handful of winners.

Alot of wasted somach lining over nothing.

 

[Pi brat]

I think when the verdict comes in and is implemented, you'll find that there was alot of anxiety over nothing. Some folks will lose, most will stay nearly the same, and there may be a handful of winners.

Alot of wasted somach lining over nothing.

On both sides.

 

[BoeingBoy]

but the west's theory is that the higher CASM of the east has spread to the west like the plague, and I disagree./quote]

The higher East CASM has spread in that the whole airline has to average a higher RASM than the West did alone to achieve a given financial result. In economic conditions like we're experiencing now, increasing the average RASM means operating fewer low RASM flights - raising fares is not the answer when the the question is how low to drop fares to keep load factors up. So the higher CASM East brought to the merger results in cutting more West flights than East since a larger percentage of the lower RASM flights are in the West because of all the competition with WN. So in that sense it is like a plague that initially appeared in the East system but the symptoms are now affecting the West system.

Jim

 

[EastUS]

Have you now resorted to schoolgirl namecalling? Tazzie? Really? I do not gamble, not a penny. The statement was rhetorical.

OK = Fair's fair here. I'll humbly apologize for the "tazzie"....and will properly return to the more formal and fully dignified "tazz"

You're likely very wise not to gamble on the validity of your assertions.....and I can certainly understand the "rhetorical" part

Back to the regularly scheduled programming...

 

[lynyrdskynyrd]

With a few exceptions, this forum just brings out the worst in all of us. I know it does with me, more than I would like. It won't necessarily be pretty always, but we'll all live through it and be all right.

 

[nycbusdriver]

With a few exceptions, this forum just brings out the worst in all of us. I know it does with me, more than I would like. It won't necessarily be pretty always, but we'll all live through it and be all right.

I agree, and AMEN!

 

[EastUS]

With a few exceptions, this forum just brings out the worst in all of us. I know it does with me, more than I would like.

It won't necessarily be pretty always, but we'll all live through it and be all right.

1) Well said, and fully agreed for myself as well.
2) We'll all certainly survive a chatboard...Let's just hope for the best on the "be all right" part, whatever happens.

 

[toganoflex]

I think when the verdict comes in and is implemented, you'll find that there was alot of anxiety over nothing. Some folks will lose, most will stay nearly the same, and there may be a handful of winners.

Alot of wasted somach lining over nothing.

And we were within two weeks of TA'ing a contract when Nic came out and the east bailed on negs because they didn't want to implement the list.

More wasted than just stomach lining.