"we are making money in spite of ourselves"

[PITbull]

Give the guy a break, he's got alot of problems to fix and its not going to happen overnight, at least he's better than Wolfe!

The guy has had his breaks...won't listen to anyone but those who tell him how he can squeeze every last penny from the workers. He's made over $9 million in one year on this gravy train...

... long overdue to perform.

 

[Awa Contract]

amen pitbull

 

[polkadot1]

We also hire folks that have been fired from other airlines.

We can't seem to find any quality new hires. We don't pay enough...

Operationally we're a mess.

You are right about that not paying high enough wages....

They get what they pay for ! In my opinion ~~~~

 

[wings396]

"CEO, Douglas Parker started the meeting out saying that we are making money in spite of ourselves. He said financially, we are doing our job but operationally we are not. He feels we are driving away our customers due to the problems with baggage issues, short staffing and misconnections. The recent security changes have also increased the number of checked bags, which has impacted the operations, as has bad weather. He says they are working on fixing these problems."
In short this means that we are making money do to an upward trend in the industry. What it also means is that as soon as the trend heads south, so will the profits. I remember when the former US East made a profit in the 1996-97 timeframe with Wolfie and his little pal at his side. This was nothing more than dumb luck, and they were as shocked as anyone else was. The profit that they made then had nothing to do with their leadership, or the way that the company was operating at the time. As we all know, it was short lived and the losses were back to stay. Now that Doug has cashed in on his stock options, look for things to go downhill in a hurry. No matter what the final outcome may be, Doug is still sitting on his Millions in the bank. :down:

 

[High Iron]

In short this means that we are making money do to an upward trend in the industry. What it also means is that as soon as the trend heads south, so will the profits.

Which can only mean that ( in this post 3X concessions..."restructuring" ) that non-labor costs remain too high and concessions were/are a de-facto bridge loan till the rising tide lifted the boat.

 

[john john]

A FEW NOTES FROM THE LABOR ADVISORY MEETING.......

CEO, Douglas Parker started the meeting out saying that we are making money in spite of ourselves. He said financially, we are doing our job but operationally we are not. He feels we are driving away our customers due to the problems with baggage issues, short staffing and misconnections. The recent security changes have also increased the number of checked bags, which has impacted the operations, as has bad weather. He says they are working on fixing these problems.

The different labor groups all pointed out the fact that PHL is still the main problem in the system as we all did in the last meeting. The lack of communication needs to be fixed between operations and the employee group system wide. The fact that some of the things the labor group brought to the table seemed new to the Board was surprising to us. Doug was asked if there are any plans for a merger, he did not confirm or deny it during the meeting.

The CWA raised concern with the lack of staffing system wide and at the end of the night in many of the ATO's, we have one closing agent :down: . There are instances when flights arrive at the same time, whether they are late or early and one agent is running from one gate to another trying to meet the planes in a timely manner. The CWA feels the Passenger service employees working the gates at the end of the night are subjected to making a choice between keeping the door secure and running to meet another flight. There are also problems with not having enough agents on duty at the end of the night to safely assist with a straight back or wheelchair customer (commit: One agent can not operate a ramp carry off machine and asst. a passenger safely).. The Union asked that the staffing be reviewed in all of the ATO's East and West. The Union also shared some data that was sent by the SEA customer service agents that show how much money we loose each month due to cancelled flights and protecting customers on other carriers. We asked that the company keep a better tally of the losses we experience due to the number of cancellations due to older equipment still being used in many markets and maintenance delays on those aircraft.

The CWA advised the Board that the new Vice President of Reservations and Inventory Services, Brad Beakley, seems to be open to working with the Union leaders and trying to resolve many of the problems the call centers, East and West, have been dealing with for a very long time. We expressed hope that this relationship continues in this positive direction.

There have been more attempts to settle grievances now, since we have been working with Ron Harbinson, Director, Labor Relations-Ground. He has been willing to step in and help us resolve many of the problems before they become grievances, and we wanted to recognize this progress during the meeting with the BOD and encourage more of the same going forward.

Deltawatch you left out a paragraph
http://www.cwa.net/
The CWA also shared our concerns with the problems we see already with the Shares system vs. the Sabre system in areas such as International ticketing and other areas where Sabre is superior to the Shares system. Doug assured us that the Shares system will be updated and should be up to speed by the time we transition system wide to one computer system.

Let me add my $0.02 cents
And if the system is not updated correctly the AGENTS will figure it out like always.

 

[Dog Wonder]

The one area of US that I deal with the most and am impressed the least is the new IT folks.

There is no part of this company that does more damage to both customers and employees than the arrogant and incompetent folks in IT.

If you could buy them for what they are worth and sell them for what they think they are worth you could live like Doug Parker.

Wait, isn't Parker their ultimate boss? I guess he loves people just like him.

 

[Dog Wonder]

Do you have examples from the employee side?? Lord knows I can fill a thread all by myself.

New computers that replaced ones that had software employees need and used.

All new computers have a standard load, regardless of job function. Even Sabre didn't work on them.

The new computers are pretty but are like tits on a boar hog when it comes to getting you job done.

 

[flynomore]

Do you have examples from the employee side?? Lord knows I can fill a thread all by myself.

===========================================================
One would think email is a simple task. Overnight, the search function changed from [last name], [first name] to [first name] [last name]. Big deal, right?

How many similar first names are there in a company directory of 10000 or so? How many Dave's, David's, Jim's, James', or other shortened names are there?

Calls to IT ended with a "yeah, we know that but it works OK for the other half of the airline." Then one day it changed back. No mea culpa.

Someday maybe the web site will just "work".

 

[deltawatch]

You guys made me think of something else. Delta employees get access to the Internet on their system, they can use mapquest in baggage service to assist with delivering baggage, they can pull up the latest weather radar and offer better advice to psgrs trying to navigate around potential weather problems.

But because USAIR is afraid someone might pull up a porn site all of these tools have been taken away from its customer service reps.

Don't tie one hand behind the customer service reps back, just fire anyone caught on an inappropriate site.

 

[nycbusdriver]

A FEW NOTES FROM THE LABOR ADVISORY MEETING.......

CEO, Douglas Parker started the meeting out saying that we are making money in spite of ourselves. He said financially, we are doing our job but operationally we are not. He feels we are driving away our customers due to the problems with baggage issues, short staffing and misconnections. The recent security changes have also increased the number of checked bags, which has impacted the operations, as has bad weather. He says they are working on fixing these problems.

What Parker is REALLY saying is that, "We in the Tempe HQ are doing our job of raking in the cash. You folks out there at the stations are screwing up the whole operation by not doing your jobs. We can't afford to properly staff and equip the operation, because that will interfere with the cash-raking in Tempe. So, just suck it up and work longer-harder-better-happier and we MAY let you keep your inadequate paycheck for a little while longer. After all, we let you fly for FREE!!!!"

I keep telling you all -- Parker is Franke with a candy coating

In the east we don't know much about Franke. But my thoughts of Parker were that he is Siegel without the big mouth. I think we're on the same page, though.