The fly child’s on this board who play into their conniving deceptive ways calling it reality are in fact "creating" that reality for themselves by being fools used by the Glasses of this world.
Yeah right..., each legacies' version of Jerry Glass decided to bring their carrier near bankruptcy (or to the brink of extinction) just so they could wrangle cost reductions from the workforce... Wow, we are such fools to be taken in by thier scheme.
🙄
Sorry to break it to you, but there is more to this situation than your own self centered worries about a reduced paycheck or feelings of entitlement. The fact is, unlike in the past, that with the exception of international flying, low cost carriers are selling the same product, in exactly the same markets as the legacies, and continue to further do so.
That means we can no longer base our assumptions of what we "should make" only to remain competitive with other legacies (who more or less share our own situation). We cannot even base it upon what they make at LUV. It is competitive suicide to do so.
Your ego might fool you into thinking that enough of a difference still exists to demand the traditional revenue premium (that allowed your high pay to exist). Your shortsightedness might blind you into thinking that certain market "strongholds" are still immune to the pricing effects of the low cost carriers (they are not). But that is because you are so fixed upon
your paycheck, and not the overall market strength or survival of the company (that provides it) that you
decieve yourself with misconceptions.
Take for Example:
LUV, look to LUV and what employees there earn and ask, what's wrong!
You mean the LUV employees that have only recently (under a decade) been able to achieve the pay and work rules that the legacy unions have enjoyed for so long...?
You mean the LUV that has been on a constant growth cycle, bringing in
new hires, while our own company has been forced to downsize + retreat from competitive disadvantages...?
Leaving only the most senior, and those obviously with highest longevity in terms of pay/benefits at US Airways.
Two payscales can be the same, but if you at 20 years, and I am at three yr. pay, then it is a no brainer to figure who is making the higher wages...
But hey, why let the real world intrude upon your sense of persecution...? It sounds better to just look at the numbers on paper, and tell yourself that you "deserve" to at least make what our competitor LUV pays, right...?
Take a look at PHL, one of our former "strongholds". Other than a handful of internal transfers, the majority of the SWA workforce in Philly is brand new, working for far less than the far more senior US Airways employees. They are doing the same jobs, for far less. selling the same product, for a lower cost.
It has nothing to do with age discrimination or corporate tricks. It is just a simple example that LUV has once again established a lower overhead while competing DIRECTLY with our own operation (in what used to be a "fortress" hub).
That sort of thing is what is driving this situation, and that is what we
have to overcome
So put your attitude aside and realize that there is more to all of this than your own paycheck and dislike for Jerry Glass. I am sorry that we are in the situation we are in (rather than being on the offensive like LUV). But it is still a better situation that those at Eastern, Pan Am, TWA have had, right...?
Those "Old School" legacies did not, or could not adapt against the competitive challenges of UAL, AAL, DAL, and yes, USAir. And now they
are gone. Yet now it our turn to adapt to our own competitive situation and succeed, or we too will
cease to exist.
Blame anyone and everyone, but that will get you nowhere. A lower cost structure is needed to survive and succeed. And until we can regain some of the liquidity advantages that LUV still enjoys (better financing terms, lower debt, and fuel hedging), then that difference
has to be made up somewhere. Lower labor costs is one of the only options left to the company.
But you have options as well. If the sacrifice is too great, if alternatives exist that would be more worthwhile to you, or if you just plain cannot handle the situation any longer... Then stop placing blame on others, and take your future into your own hands and leave. Otherwise cowboy up, stop whining, and do whatever you can to keep this place alive.
At least you still have that option to decide your own fate, the former employees of EAL, Pan Am, and TWA had that decision made for them long ago...
