Usairways To Cut Workforce 120%

[johnnyfleet]

Feb 23, 2005
Crystal City, West Virginia (SatireNewsWire.com)

USAirways will reduce its workforce by an unprecedented 120 percent by the end of 2005, believed to be the first time a major corporation has laid off more employees than it actually has.
UAIR stock soared more than 12 points on the news.
The reduction decision, announced Wednesday, came after a year-long internal review of cost-cutting procedures, said UAIR CEO & President Bruce Lakefield. The initial report concluded the company would save $1.2 billion by eliminating 20 percent of its 40,000 employees.
"From there," said Lakefield, "it didn't take a genius to figure out that if we cut 40 percent of our workforce, we'd save $2.4 billion, and if we cut 100 percent of our workforce, we'd save $6 billion. But then we thought, why stop there? Let's cut another 20 percent and save $7 billion.
"We believe in increasing shareholder value, and we believe that by decreasing expenditures, we enhance our competitive cost position and our bottom line," he added.
UAIR plans to achieve the 100 percent internal reduction through layoffs, attrition and early retirement packages. To achieve the 20 percent in external reductions, the company plans to involuntarily downsize 12,000 non-UAIR employees who presently work for other companies.
"We pretty much picked them out of a hat," said Lakefield.
Among firms UAIR has picked as "External Reduction Targets," or ERTs, are General Electric, Gate Gourmet, new home of labor friendly Dave, Air Wisconsin, and Quaker Oats. Lakefield's plan presents a "win-win" for the company and ERTs, said Lakefield, as any savings by ERTs would be passed on to UAIR, while the ERTs themselves would benefit by the increase in stock price that usually accompanies personnel cutback announcements.
"We're also hoping that since, over the years, we've been really helpful to a lot of companies, especially after two bankruptcies, they'll do this for us kind of as a favor," said Lakefield.
Legally, pink slips sent out by UAIR would have no standing at ERTs unless those companies agreed. While executives at ERTs declined to comment, employees at those companies said they were not inclined to cooperate.
"This is ridiculous. I don't work for UAIR. They can't fire me," said Bob Baldanza, a gourmet chef with Gate Gourmet. "Reactions like that," replied Lakefield, "are not very sporting."
Inspiration for UAIR's plan came from previous cutback initiatives, said company officials. In January of 2003, for instance, the company announced it would trim 18,000 jobs over two years. However, just a year later, UAIR said it had already reached its quota. "We were quite surprised at the number of employees willing to leave UAIR in such a hurry, and we decided to build on that," Lakefield said.
Analysts credited Lakefield's short-term vision, noting that the announcement had the desired effect of immediately increasing UAIR's share value. However, the long-term ramifications could be detrimental. Said 7-11's chief airline analyst Stephen Wolf,
"It's a little early to tell, but by eliminating all its employees, UAIR may jeopardize its market position and could, at least theoretically, cease to exist."
Lakefield, however, urged patience: "To my knowledge, this has never been done before, so let's just wait and see what happens."
Retirement Systems of Alabama Chief Executive Officer David Bronner ecstatic over the idea said, "This will provide UAIR with the strongest tail wind yet! And will provide us with the further funding needed for the expansion of MDA and the Business Select project already underway!"

This is Rodger Dodger reporting from Crystal City, West Virginia @ SatireNewsWire.com

 

[Pylit]

US Airwayz to become First Virtual Airline
By Under Paid

March 1, 2005(Newzwired)-Top management sources at US Airways revealed today a new plan to return to profitability-becoming the world's first virtual airline.
"We don't need no stinking planes", said Wonder Whiz, director of route planning, marketing, and lead janitor at the company's glass palace in Washington, DC.
"They cost too much to fly, fuel is too expensive, and customers don't want to pay for tickets. Our competition wants to give away tickets for next to nothing. The only way for us to make money and fly airplanes is to have everyone work for free, except for management personnel, who as we all know, are essential to the operation of the company. That was the conventional wisdom, but we have found a new, innovative, and draconian approach to return to making lots of money."
"Our plan is simple. Currently our analyses reveal that we make more money selling seats on our code share partners than we do on our own airplanes. So we will shift our operations to reflect this new business strategy and sell USAirwayz code share tickets only, making money selling our alliance partners tickets. It doesn't matter if THEY make money actually operating the aircraft on the route, WE make money selling the ticket. So, we will, effective sooner than you think, cease flight operations, return or sell all our aircraft, furlough all the resulting non-essential employees (about 99% is our preliminary estimate), close all buildings except for our glass palace and only sell USAirwayz Virtual Airline Tickets via our newer-newest-more improved (really) website. Our tickets will be USAirwayz code share flight numbers operated by our alliance members. Our passengers will be able to fly anywhere in the world not on our aircraft. It is a win-win situation for the company and the consumer."
An ALPO spokesperson commented off the record, "We support our virtual managements new virtual plan and look forward to the increased opportunities for more virtually worthless stock issues. That is all I can say, I must return to filling out my Burger Flipper Application."
The mechanics union said, "There is no virtue in this virtual plan. The virtual lunch counter is closed."
A Bish administration official stated "The president is pleased as punch. He personally telephoned Frank Lorenza and that old guy from the CAB that started deregulating airline workers, er... the industry. What a success for the airline industry and the USA. US Airwayz will finally realize the cost savings it has been searching for to return to profitability and their customers won't have to travel on their airplanes. Virtual airlines look to be the newest trend in corporate america."
As for the virtual workers, now looking for virtually any job, the administration had virtually no comment except to say that real patriotic citizens, such as those virtually unemployed by USAirwayz, should be proud that their company will get off the government dole soon and the virtual benefits should virtually trickle down to them......maybe.

 

[SilentWarrior]

Brilliant articles!! Thanks for the laughs both of you.

Favorite Quotes:

"From there," said Lakefield, "it didn't take a genius to figure out that if we cut 40 percent of our workforce, we'd save $2.4 billion, and if we cut 100 percent of our workforce, we'd save $6 billion. But then we thought, why stop there? Let's cut another 20 percent and save $7 billion.

To achieve the 20 percent in external reductions, the company plans to involuntarily downsize 12,000 non-UAIR employees who presently work for other companies.
"We pretty much picked them out of a hat," said Lakefield.

An ALPO spokesperson commented off the record, "We support our virtual managements new virtual plan and look forward to the increased opportunities for more virtually worthless stock issues. That is all I can say, I must return to filling out my Burger Flipper Application."
The mechanics union said, "There is no virtue in this virtual plan. The virtual lunch counter is closed."