Bad news

[Ukridge]

Cosmo - "the 227th anniversary of the U.S. Declaration of Independence!" You mean the Unique Democratic Transaction? You never know, there might be a merger between these two countries again. One has already heard talk of "Washington west and Washington east" as well as "London west and London east!"
Cheers

 

[ual06]

If I every get back over there, I sure would like to set up Ukridge to a number of Pints and a
Steak and Kidney Pie. Perhaps even have a round of Darts.

 

[Borescope]

Interesting, you should write this Chip. There was a question asked the other day by Bizman about the very thing your last link pertaints to (Pension issues). I think we are in for a rude awakening when it comes time to exit BK.

 

[USA320Pilot]

Ukridge:

United Airlines Update
As you know, I have recently commented on United Airlines in-court restructuring and its effect on US Airways. Specifically, I have written at length on the www.usaviation.com US Airways message board in the following threads:

"Is there discontent at US business partner UA?"


Complete Story: [url="http://www.usaviation.com/idealbb/view.asp?topicID=5535&sessionID={E4FBEBAE-13D3-4E99-8592-B0DCFBAA0455"]http://www.usaviation.com/idealbb/view.asp...92-B0DCFBAA0455[/URL]}

"Is US' business partner UA stuck in a quagmire of mud?"

Complete Story: [url="http://www.usaviation.com/idealbb/view.asp?topicID=5660&sessionID={E4FBEBAE-13D3-4E99-8592-B0DCFBAA0455}"]http://www.usaviation.com/idealbb/view.asp...2-B0DCFBAA0455}[/URL]

"US business parter UA plans to return to basics, Business blueprint presented to creditors"

Complete Story: [url="http://www.usaviation.com/idealbb/view.asp?topicID=5808&sessionID={E4FBEBAE-13D3-4E99-8592-B0DCFBAA0455}"]http://www.usaviation.com/idealbb/view.asp...2-B0DCFBAA0455}[/URL]


Meanwhile, it’s come to my attention UA chief executive officer Glenn Tilton is now echoing many of my thoughts on the complexity and press to test issues I described in the threads listed above. For more information on Tilton’s comments interested parties can call UA’s code-a-phone at 800-393-6682 (800-EYE-ON-UA) and then select prompt two.

For Ukridge and other "nay sayers", my question is…how can this be?

Furthermore, it appears UA and its employees have a hidden time bomb, which I did not enter into my calculus on the carrier's beleaguered situation. For those parties interested in the success of UA I suggest you click onto the following thread:

[url="http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/business/article/0,1299,DRMN_4_2089264,00.html"]http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/busi...2089264,00.html[/URL]

Best regards,

Chip

 

[Analyst]

Chip is correct about Tilton''s comments on the code a phone.

The "Mayday for Pension" article is also very interesting and paints a bleak future for United. The article states how the pension could be an obstacle for United to get out of bankruptcy.

With or without an equity infusion, the pension problem "is going to be both a factor in the emergence from bankruptcy and (United''s) viability afterwards," said George Hamlin, a consultant with Global Aviation Associates Ltd. in Washington, D.C.




​

 

[ual06]

----------------
On 7/5/2003 7:44:56 PM Chip Munn wrote:




Ukridge:


United Airlines Update

As you know, I have recently commented on United Airlines in-court restructuring and its effect on US Airways. Specifically, I have written at length on the www.usaviation.com US Airways message board in the following threads:


"Is there discontent at US business partner UA?"





Complete Story: http://www.usaviation.com/idealbb/view.asp...92-B0DCFBAA0455}



"Is US'' business partner UA stuck in a quagmire of mud?"



Complete Story: http://www.usaviation.com/idealbb/view.asp...2-B0DCFBAA0455}



"US business parter UA plans to return to basics, Business blueprint presented to creditors"



Complete Story: http://www.usaviation.com/idealbb/view.asp...2-B0DCFBAA0455}




Meanwhile, it’s come to my attention UA chief executive officer Glenn Tilton is now echoing many of my thoughts on the complexity and press to test issues I described in the threads listed above. For more information on Tilton’s comments interested parties can call UA’s code-a-phone at 800-393-6682 (800-EYE-ON-UA) and then select prompt two.


For Ukridge and other "nay sayers", my question is…how can this be?

 

Furthermore, it appears UA and its employees have a hidden time bomb, which I did not enter into my calculus on the carrier''s beleaguered  situation. For those parties interested in the success of UA I suggest you click onto the following thread:   


http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/busi...2089264,00.html


Best regards,


Chip


----------------​

Pick your tune.

"Stir, Stir, Stir the pot
Stir, Stir, Stir the pot
Stir, Stir, Stir the pot

Stir till surfice

If it ain''t there to start with
If it ain''t there to start with
If it ain''t there to start with

The pot will be a flop."


Go back home Chip.

 

[Ukridge]

"For Ukridge and other "nay sayers", my question is…how can this be?"

Mr. Munn

I am perplexed either by your use of puncuation or of your disputative logic. Am I to understand that I am included in the ranks of naysayers? What may I ask am I naysaying? An examination of my posts will reveal enquery but as to the saying of nay I must admit I was not present when asked to post a yea or nay. There are perhaps many votes to which I would rejoin with a resounding "nay," but most often I hear the question first. If this question is indeed "How can this be?" then I am at a loss to posting a yea or nay to an enquery in the subjunctive.
Now, if the sentence were to be structured such that it read "For Ukridge and also those who say nay" I would consider myself the recipient of a response directed to many and assundry for it would be addressing not only me, but also those who at some point in this discourse have crossed the Rubicon and have cast the infamous "nay."
As for calling United''s update number, I must admit that is a little deep for me. An ongoing lay interest and support of United may be one thing, but any more that a quick update in the press clippings that you list and a read-through of this board are enough.
Cheers

 

[USA320Pilot]

Ukridge:

With all due respect, can you tell me why Glenn Tilton briefed the UA employees on this week's company recorded message on the challenges I first reported on this message board, which you made sarcastic comments about? Moreover, can you explain to me how I was wrong?

Best regards,

Chip

 

[USA320Pilot]

I have taken some heat from UA employees and had sarcastic posts made by Ukridge in response to information I have posted about US' business partner, but today the USA Today published a revealing article that can be read at [url="http://www.usatoday.com/money/biztravel/2003-07-07-ual_x.htm"]http://www.usatoday.com/money/biztravel/2003-07-07-ual_x.htm[/URL].

The newspaper reported United parent UAL says in a motion filed Thursday that 16% of its roughly 1,100 information services (IS) employees retired or left for better-paying jobs in the first half of this year. It's proposing to give 20% retention bonuses to up to 600 technical employees who stay in their jobs at least six months past UAL's emergence from bankruptcy court protection.


"We've got a serious brain drain," says UAL spokesman Jeff Green. "More IS people left in the first quarter of this year than all of last year."
The court filing sheds light on employee turmoil at UAL. Earlier this year, the airline's ability to survive was questioned by many industry experts and even the airline itself. A UAL court filing on the eve of the Iraq war suggested the falloff in passengers during a war could force liquidation. Then came the outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS). United, which flies to Asia, saw many nearly empty planes.
But even now, with the war and virus scare over and UAL officials talking publicly about exiting Chapter 11, three to five computer specialists leave every week, Green says.
The filing says exit surveys with departing workers reveal UAL's financial instability and possible future pay cuts are leading reasons.
UAL's attrition rate appears to be unique to its circumstances. Gary Beach, publisher of CIO, a trade magazine for corporate computer managers, says companies aren't reporting a shortage of qualified job applicants that would explain UAL's attrition.
Chip asks: For those naysayers, if UA did not face a fragmentation, or even a liquidation (which I do not believe will occur), than even with record load factors, why would UA's employees be resigning from the company that management said was a "serious brain drain"?

Also noteworthy, UA vice president of flight operations Captain Steve Forte told ALPA the company's 2004 business plan calls for 6,200 active line pilots in 2004. Who first made that comment public on this website? I'm not trying to be the bearer of bad news or a "I told you so...", but I believe it's important for the record to be set straight.

Best regards,

Chip

 

[Cosmo]

And, as Chip alluded to, here's more bad news from United. It seems that, for some unexplained reason, the carrier recorded its highest monthly system load factor ever in the company's history. The June 2003 load factor of 82.0% was 4.0 percentage points higher than was seen in June 2002, as United's ASMs decreased faster than its RPMs in a year-over-year comparison. In addition, this record result was achieved despite poor results from United's Pacific operations (which attained a mere 79.4% load factor, down 3.8 percentage points from June 2002) as the SARS epidemic had only just started to abate last month.

Here's United's press release from earlier today.

Now here's even more bad news. It seems that "United's code-sharing business partner US Airways" was only able to manage a 78.6% system load factor in June 2003, up just 1.3 percentage points from June of last year. Some who post on these boards have suggested that passengers are booking away from United due to its bankrupt status, and there may be a bit of truth to that proposition. But then imagine the size of the load factor disparity between United and US Airways if the former wasn't in the midst of bankruptcy proceedings.

 

[Fly]

Ahhhh Chip, intelligent question. Anyone here ever see Unimatic? This HAS to be the most antiquated computer system still in operation. Obviously someone must have told the computer nerds to start coming up with a decent computer system and stop playing Pong and they all ran, dragging their floppy discs behind them. This system stunk when I started flying at UAL (1986), and it hasn't changed one lil bit.

So, the real question should be........what has UAL been paying for in the first place and why do you want to encourage them to stay?

 

[Ukridge]

"With all due respect, can you tell me why Glenn Tilton briefed the UA employees on this week''s company recorded message on the challenges I first reported on this message board, which you made sarcastic comments about? Moreover, can you explain to me how I was wrong?"

Mr. Munn

Although there is a wide corpus of philosophical writing (particulary that of European authors of the 18th and 19th century)pertaining to determinism and will, I am unable to comment on the actions of Mr. Glenn Tilton. I have noted however, that Cosmo has aptly spoken to the matter and I will have to leave that discussion in that arena.
Sarcasm? Sir, pray tell that the former colonialists have not really grown so thin skinned. Cosmo? Iflyjetz? Lark? Others? Did you take offense? A little thrust of the verbal rapier merits the label of sarcasm? Quoi? I would suggest that you would certainly know if a Brit begun to use sarcasm. Not only that, but this is merely a discussion forum in the most genial manner is it not? Why would someone be tempted to use sarcasm in discussions where one has the most noble of intentions? Or is it rather that maybe all intentions are not meant in the spirit of comity?
Cheers

 

[Cosmo]

----------------
On 7/8/2003 8:44:13 AM Chip Munn wrote:

Ukridge:

With all due respect, can you tell me why Glenn Tilton briefed the UA employees on the company recoreded message on the challenges I first reported on this message board, which you made sarcastic comments about? Moreover, can you explain to me how I was wrong?
----------------​

Chip:

Are you seriously trying to suggest that Glenn Tilton, UA''s CEO and a person that has significant managerial experience at a large company that has gone through and successfully emerged from bankruptcy, needed to read your posts on this board before he knew that UA had to meet the following four challenges (as Tilton noted in his July 3rd message) --

1. Producing An Achievable Business Plan
2. Determining Exit Timing
3. Continuing To Meet DIP Covenants
4. Securing Exit Financing

-- in order to emerge from bankruptcy? Challenges that you "first reported on this message board"?

The implication of your above statement (intended or not) is that by virtue of your copying and pasting of analyst and news organization reports, you knew what UA needed to do to emerge from bankruptcy before Tilton was aware of it. That''s so outlandish that it hardly merits any comment at all. So I will say only this -- while you are correct that UA must meet these challenges, all you really did was list the challenges that any company in bankruptcy must meet in order to emerge. DUH!!!!

 

[Cosmo]

----------------
On 7/8/2003 12:23:28 PM Chip Munn wrote (quoting the USAToday article):

The court filing sheds light on employee turmoil at UAL.
----------------​

It''s a good thing there is no employee turmoil at US -- oops, I just looked at the US board, never mind!

----------------
On 7/8/2003 12:23:28 PM Chip Munn wrote:

Chip asks: For those naysayers, if UA did not face a fragmentation, or even a liquidation (which I do not believe will occur), than even with record load factors, why would UA''s employees be resigning from the company that management said was a "serious brain drain"?
----------------​

While Fly''s comments above may be part of the answer, I believe that the following quote from the USAToday article offers a major part of the explanation: "The filing says exit surveys with departing workers reveal UAL''s financial instability and possible future pay cuts are leading reasons." However, I suspect that is true at any company in bankruptcy.

This "brain drain" is also IMHO simply a reflection of what happens when talented employees are not tied to a bankrupt company due to seniority issues and can find better paying and/or more secure jobs elsewhere. Now, that isn''t meant to discount the seriousness of the situation facing United with its IS personnel, which is why the carrier petitioned the Bankruptcy Court for the retention bonuses in the first place. But again, it''s an issue facing any company in bankruptcy and it is not unique to United.

 

[Cosmo]

----------------
On 7/8/2003 2:27:00 PM Ukridge wrote:

Sarcasm? Sir, pray tell that the former colonialists have not really grown so thin skinned. Cosmo? Iflyjetz? Lark? Others? Did you take offense?
----------------​

No offense taken on my part. But then again, I''m used to it -- in a previous job, I worked in the Washington office of a U.K. company for almost 13 years, dealing with Brits, Scots and an occasional Welshman on a day-to-day basis!