Vp Meeting In Phl

[firstamendment]

Bob,

Jetblue is a young company. If all the US employees were at 3 or 4 year wages then OF COURSE we would be making money hand over foot. Do you really think it's fair to even compare a very young company to us? I have 17 years with US. Even if the f/a's gave our way of scheduling right over, it still doesn't take in acct that our hourly wage is double theirs just because we no longer have but a fraction of f/a's on B scale. That is management's fault for not offering a descent retirement buyout.

How long have you been with your company or if you are paid on experience, how many years have you been doing what you do? Are you willing to go back to what YOU first made 17 years ago or make whatever you did when you first sought that career that paid on your years of experience?

With this management, it is never enough. Their goal is to run US Airways into the ground. The question is WHY?

 

[USA320Pilot]

Pitbull & Firstamendment:

Pitbull, I fully understand the job issue and I do not want to see any invountary furloughs, which is why I asked the rhetorical question of is there a way to permit productivity changes and simultaneously prevent current employee job loss. Unfortunately, the employee to aircraft ratio speaks for it self and is a problem.

Firstamendment, your time of service (TOS) comment regarding US Airways and JetBlue is accurate and further increases the labor expense differential between US Airways and the LCC's.

Regards,

Chip

 

[PITbull]

Chip comments: Unfortunately, the employee to aircraft ratio speaks for it self and is a problem.

PITbull replies: So when did management have this epiphany with a/c employee ratio being not competitive????????

Was it before or after concession round #1 and/or 2??????

I personally don't have a problem with this ratio. I know that our group is down to FAA minimums. I'm sure the pilots are at FAA minimums. So what employees are we talking about???? Yup, ground folks.

Not on board with this.

 

[USA320Pilot]

Pibull:

I am naturally an optimist and I constantly look for win-wins (that's a subjective comment). Can it be done? I do not know, but I would like to think so.

Regards,

Chip

 

[oldiebutgoody]

Pibull:

I am naturally an optimist and I constantly look for win-wins (that's a subjective comment). Can it be done? I do not know, but I would like to think so.

Regards,

Chip

Why wouldn't the company consider "buyouts" or early retirements rather than furloughs? They have fought this idea tooth and nail since they assumed the helm of this sinking ship. They won't even allow the F/As to use voluntary furloughs prior to involuntary ones, even though it is in their contract to do so. These guys have proven themselves to be very untrustworthy at every step of this game.

 

[USA320Pilot]

Pitbull:

Pitbull said: "So when did management have this epiphany with a/c employee ratio being not competitive?"

Chip comments: Your insinuation is valid and for whatever reason management did not go after productivity to match LCC's. I believe they probably recognized they pushed as far as they could, however, looking back if they had to do it again, they might now regret not proceeding with a S.1113 motion to attack the productivity issue.

Who knows?

Regards,

Chip

h34r:

 

[Furloughedagain]

Pilot productivity could certainly be improved and yes, it might result in additional furloughs and downgrades.

From the last year and a half of flying 90 - 100 hrs a month I realize that the 85 hour cap and flexible scheduling (passing, dropping, 9-hour resv callout) at US Airways was darned near a vacation.

 

[PITbull]

Chip,


You maybe right with your assumption with the 1113 Bk letter. I will tell you this, if management would have nulfied our contracts, we would have been free to do a job action. Yes siree.

 

[AOG-N-IT]

Pibull:

I am naturally an optimist and I constantly look for win-wins (that's a subjective comment). Can it be done? I do not know, but I would like to think so.

Regards,

Chip

Why wouldn't the company consider "buyouts" or early retirements rather than furloughs? They have fought this idea tooth and nail since they assumed the helm of this sinking ship. They won't even allow the F/As to use voluntary furloughs prior to involuntary ones, even though it is in their contract to do so. These guys have proven themselves to be very untrustworthy at every step of this game.

Oldie,

I have heard the company address the subject of "Buy-Outs and early retirements. The answer was the same for both...If we had the money to do this? we wouldn't be here asking for what we are to begin with.

Don't take tha as me supporting this position...but that's their claim.

 

[USA320Pilot]

Improved productivity can be a good thing, but the company should use it to increase ASM's, which would lower unit costs and increase revenue with the same amount of employees.

Could the route network be grown, CASM lowered, and RASM increased to create a win-win with productivity changes?

Regards,

Chip

 

[tadjr]

So what employees are we talking about???? Yup, ground folks.

Not on board with this.

Well, I can tell you from personal experience, its not the ground folks in my city. We currently are down to 2 agents at the gate per flight and 3 rampers on a team to unload/load. You could cut more, if you dont care when the flight gets out. Part of the problem is scheduling. We have times with 0 flights on the ground and then have 3 or 4 at the same time. You need a minimum to work whats there so you're going to be overstaffed at times if you're trying to cover the minimum needed when you have flights. Either add flights during the in between times, or let them come in and go out without the wait times to make a bank back into the hub. I think you'd be hard pressed to find many (I'm sure there are some) cities that arent stretched thin at times during the day so I dont know where you could cut more unless the hubs were all rolling hubs and not banked or more flights were added during the "down times".

 

[AOG-N-IT]

Improved productivity can be a good thing, but the company should be used to increase ASM's, which would lower unit costs and increase revenue with the same amount of employees.

Could the route network be grown, CASM lowered, and RASM increased to create a win-win?

Regards,

Chip

On the subject of broadening the route system..I could not agree more.

What is preventing us from flying more transcon flights between our so-called focus cities like BOS , LGA ? I realize that rules limit what we can or can't do out of DCA...but are we pushing that to the limit of those rules?

We do have one fly in the ointment however...regardless of how you split the hairs , the fleet is decreasing as the Airbus acft continue to drop from use...this in itself is aggravating the employee to equipment ratio that's being talked about so much.

The sad part with this is...it's 100% within the comanies ability to prevent this...yet they elect not too. The legal battles are eating up cash as much as anything else....a team of lawyers can drive up the costs of a RASM/CASM as fast as anything can.

 

[bigbusdrvr]

Improved productivity can be a good thing, but the company should use it to increase ASM's, which would lower unit costs and increase revenue with the same amount of employees.

Could the route network be grown, CASM lowered, and RASM increased to create a win-win with productivity changes?

Regards,

Chip

The biggest problem with rout expansion is it must be done prior to implementing productivity enhancements. Why? Because they (CCY) blew out the window any form of trust between mgt and labor with their boorish behavior and actions.

So what do you say are the chances dave will ink the promise to not furlough and expand prior to the productivity changes?? No way. because he would not even try!!

 

[PITbull]

Bob,

We have lost 20,000 jobs. Employees need to be reduced? How about senior mangement ranks? Do they get to stay? Why? Why can't a VP handle 3 and 4 departments? Why do you need Directors, when you have managers in the same dept., Plus you pay mangers less because of the job classification.
I like my idea better.


Will we take money to clean? You bet. Take money to board too, as there are plenty of boarding duties, before and while passgrs embark, and we don't get a wage. We have in our contract 32 stations that we clean. Mangement can delete these stations and replace them with new stations. But the count can not exceed 32. Sooooo, they will have to wait until section 6 negotiations. We still serve meals on the flight with FAA minimum staffing. We work average 13 hour days and can't be scheduled over 15. SW has a duty day of 10.5, their wage is $47.77 per hour. Keep in mind the average is a 20 hour work week. They make approx $7.50 more than our f/as here at U per hour. We gave the company a new reserve system that is nothing short of slavery. Company ownes the reserves all month long. If you want to break guarantee, you have to fly your days off. Sick, was a wipe out to our employees, probably all employees. They stole that bit of language right from us AFTER ratification. Still needs arbitrated. Medical leaves are being denied, folks are being harrased for calling in sick, LTD folks are being harrased, OJI (work injury) folks are being challenged as soon as you claim an injury. We have given much cost savings in the LTD and OJI arena in the winter restructuring, but they continue with harrassing f/as who acquire Long term illnesses or work related injuries. Medical costs have sky rocketed for the employees and go up again in Jan. In approx 7 or 8 years, employees will be footing the entire bill for health care under an offered "group plan". Period. Federal Reform is necessary. But first there must be "letigation reform", before there can be medical reform, IMO.

The reason why LUV does so well, is they have a simple fare structure, with no frills, Low fare airline, that has a consistant product, over utilization of their hard assets/planes/gates and a great Labor/mangement relationship. All great ingredients for success. This is a carrier that "sets the demand" which takes care of the capacity, and that is why they don't have need for small jet flying. Again IMO.

NO! I'm done with this mangement. I am counting the days for section 6.

 

[PITbull]

Bob,

Who is "they"?

Are you implying that Senior management owns the company? I am sure that RSA has a bigger stake. But ALL employees have a stake. So I am not sure you know that Labor collectively, are the second largest stake holders. We are also board members, in addition to being the foundation builders who implemet "the plan" as employees. So what constitues ownership?

There would be no ATSB guarantee, or emergence from BK, if Labor didn't concede, for whatever reasons we conceded, we saved the company. And we saved it to save ourselves from the street. So, to say we are owed nothing, is a an empty statment.

Just to be clear.