Right now, the company has seemed to cross the point of no return. They are cutting essential positions everywhere and it's really a robbing Peter to pay Paul scenario. It can go on for a little while, but the end results are worse than the short-term savings.
In my position, we're seeing maintenance planners and production controllers being cut at an alarming rate. These are the people that audit the maintenance paperwork. Right now, we are incredibly short and corners are being cut, but we keep on top of it - the next round of cuts is going to encourage vast amounts of pencil-whipping of maintenance work.
When the planes need to make gate in the morning, it will fly even if the paperwork isn't audited yet. There could be work incomplete on the plane, job cards missing, etc. This is a bad situation anyway you look at it. It wouldn't suprise me, in the slightest, if the Feds start fining us for it. Let's just say that it's the equivilent of trying to save money by eliminating the F/O from the cockpit and hoping the Feds don't notice.
However, the corporate mentalitity is to play the game and hope they don't get caught. Face it, airlines with money problems seem to have signifigant safety and reliability problems, especially over time. I remember trying to fly EA out of Mobile right before they went under, it was a nightmare. We went two days waiting for them to get a good aircraft down there.
The same goes with other departments, they will cut and cut until the customers blow a fuse (remember the blankets and pillow removal flak and the idea that excursion fares don't count for premium status with DM). However, res presents an interesting situation - when I used to call res (prior to the online days), and got a busy signal, I went to another carrier. So, there's a good chance that there will be little customer discussion about long hold times, there just won't be any customers.
