Concessions Never Saved An Airline?

[geo1004]

USA320 post
cavalier anti-post
USA320 post
cavalier anti-post
USA320 post
cavalier anti-post...

etc etc etc...

bla bla bla

Anyway:

USA320Pilot: You mention FIVE new (?) European destinations. Which cities and what aircraft could US possibly use to fly there given all the widebody fleet is spoken for????

Thanks.

 

[cavalier]

USA320 post
cavalier anti-post
USA320 post
cavalier anti-post
USA320 post
cavalier anti-post...

etc etc etc...

bla bla bla

Anyway:

USA320Pilot: You mention FIVE new (?) European destinations. Which cities and what aircraft could US possibly use to fly there given all the widebody fleet is spoken for????

Thanks.

What do you think, that the captain should be let go unrestrained posting insanity, obviously you do.


Like the captain tells me, if you don't like my posts don't read them

 

[Tim Nelson]

Chip, in all due respect, we have been hearing about growth for years. The only growth going on is in Managements Pockets. Sorry Capt., this is nothing more then a MISMANAGED COMPANY! ! ! ! ! !

I thought it was normal and customary for every new airline CEO to address employees with a vision of growth? Wolf, Gangwell, Seigel.
Growth chatter is nothing new and should be taken for what it is worth.

regards,

 

[funguy2]

USA320Pilot: Just a note here... Could you possibly restrain yourself from repeating the "Transformation Plan" in every thread. I am pretty sure that just about everyone here is familiar with it. This wastes internet bandwidth, and my time, as I have to fish out your point from your post, trying to figure out if you've actually said anything new.

Back to the topic:
Rob: I don't think it is semantics. I think Mweiss has a point. Labor is not the enemy. Concessions, while necessary, don't fix all of the other problems. The CO BK of 1983 and the EA BK of 1991 (both led by the same guy) prove this. Furthermore, Southwest's millionaire pilots and 31 profitable years lend credence to the argument that employees are assets to be utilized, not enemies to be conquered.

Airlines which have used employee concessions as a band-aid in an attempt to fix problems have varying results. The TWA situation rested largely on the "Karibu" agreement, where Carl Ichan was selling TWA's seats for a fraction of the cost, thus keeping for himself the profits. Had 9/11 and the general yield deteriorization of early 2001 not occured, TWA might still be here. I believe Karibu would have expired this year. At any rate, TWA did not see a way around Karibu, so they tried to outlive it. Unfortunately, this did not work.

I think the jury is still out on AA, UA, and US. Even AA, while moving forward, is by no means "out of the woods".

The only other bankruptcy I can think of is the 1991 BK of HP. I believe they did shrink to profitability. They got rid of their B747's, service to Hawaii and Japan, as well as closing a bunch of small stations (they used to fly 737's to places like LNK, CID, Springfield, MO, etc). I think they also gave their Dash-8's to Mesa and out-sourced their "Express" service at that time. I think you can argue that they shrunk to profitability. I do not recall if their employees made "concessions," but I think all employees were required to own stock which did become worthless.

 

[usairways_vote_NO]

This begs the question, how many times can one fool a sucker?

Clue remember some suckers are fooled all the time

Some are scared to death

 

[Justaramper]

Maybe the "Dave Plan" wasn't flawed...? But a new person in charge was needed...It would be nice to see some of the "execs" from the past be put out to pasture and others be given a chance to take charge

Why not go after 3rd party MTC , as other Airlines are doing as a new source of revenue..?

 

[PITbull]

FlyingHippie and others have said many, many times that concessions never saved an airline. I figured it's about time we look at this question seriously and examine more closely the facts behind the statement.

Let's start by looking at the airlines that have gotten concessions from their employees. These are the ones I know of off the top of my head. Others please feel free to add to the list.
EA
CO
TW
AA
UA
US

Of the airlines on the list, EA and TW are no longer around. The others are. What makes the difference between the ones that survived and the ones that didn't?

My hypothesis is that concessions buy time. They don't fix an airline. Thus, airlines such as CO who ultimately used the bought time to revamp the airline have succeeded. Without those concessions, they would have run out of time before the airline got fixed.

On the other hand, airlines like EA treated concessions as a fix, not a means of buying time to fix the airline. So they bought the time, which was fine, but ultimately the very same problems that existed before the concessions persisted after.

This hypothesis doesn't bode well for US. Thus far, the concessions have been treated as the end, not the means to the end.

So, what do the rest of you think?

mweiss,

It ain't over yet!

Employees don't save airlines that are run by inept managements.

 

[mweiss]

mweiss,

It ain't over yet!

Employees don't save airlines that are run by inept managements.

So you quoted my entire post and this was your response? Does this mean you agree with me?

 

[BoeingBoy]

mweiss,

On the topic, I think the position that "No airline was ever saved by employee concessions" was at least sometimes clarified by adding the word "alone" - e.g. "No airline was ever saved by employee concessions alone". Your thinking seems to justify this statement.

On another note, I question whether management "gets it" yet. A case in point is the rolling hub concept. Apparently management thinks that a rolling hub means just spreading out the flow of aircraft and accepting the resulting dramatic loss in connections at the hubs. In reality nothing could be further from the truth. One need look no further than AMR's hubs at ORD, DFW, and MIA to see that if done correctly a rolling hub retains connections while spreading out the flow of aircraft.

Jim

 

[Rob]

Back to the topic:
Rob: I don't think it is semantics. I think Mweiss has a point. Labor is not the enemy. Concessions, while necessary, don't fix all of the other problems. The CO BK of 1983 and the EA BK of 1991 (both led by the same guy) prove this. Furthermore, Southwest's millionaire pilots and 31 profitable years lend credence to the argument that employees are assets to be utilized, not enemies to be conquered.

funguy, I don't disagree that concessions don't fix everything and would suggest that the managements which thought concessions were all they needed were simply wrong.

Sorry if it sounded anti-labor. That wasn't what I was trying to convey.

 

[funguy2]

Rob:

I understand... I think BoeingBoy said it best: "No airline was ever saved by employee concessions alone."

 

[DOA@Airport]

Maybe the more appropriate question is: "has any airline been saved WITHOUT concessions?"

 

[700UW]

WN

 

[geo1004]

WN

It never needed saving. They have kept things sooooo simple that their costs are low and they can turn a profit quarter after quarter after quarter.

US has NEVER had this option. They fly too many fleet types, have too many employees (admin and unionized labor) cobbled together from too many merged airlines and too many arcane labor agreements that pick a penny here and take a penny there so US ends up with the highest costs in the industry.

 

[700UW]

Your ignorance is bliss.