Jetblue Employees & Whining In The Press

[700UW]

Southwest Aircraft Apperance Technicians

Job Position: Aircraft Appearance Technicians

Job Functions:

The position requires cleaning of interior and exterior of an aircraft, company vehicles and facilities, as required to maintain a clean and healthy aircraft to keep our passengers returning for travel on Southwest Airlines.
Cleaning interior of aircraft, including galleys and lavatories.
Wash or wax aircraft exterior, including landing gears, etc.
Replacement of aircraft carpet and seat covers (backs and bottoms).
Servicing of aircraft lavatories.
Driving tugs, fork lifts, and passenger vehicles.
Exposed to fumes from chemicals, noise from aircraft engines and APUs, and danger around aircraft standing and lifting containers up to 50 pounds.

 

[sfb]

How many RJs does HP fly? (And, incidentally, who is the only legacy hub and spoke carrier to near successfully transform into an LCC?)

Whether or not HP has been successful in its "transformation" is still debatable. America West still isn't really an LCC; it's more of a moderate cost carrier like Frontier. $500+ each way for a walk-up ticket between PHX and DSM isn't exactly low-cost, and neither is $950 round-trip between PHX and DCA. America West in most of its markets is an LCC by necessity since their product doesn't permit them to charge a premium over WN, which has its two largest operations at HP's two hubs. America West will post a loss in the third quarter.

How many RJs does Frontier fly?

The RJ's operated by Horizon on Frontier's behalf are money-losers -- you can see this from Frontier's financials. And Frontier has lost money for the last three quarters. It's not clear that RJ's are a winning strategy for F9, either.

How many RJs/turboprops does ATA fly?

Zero RJ's and a dozen or so turboprops. But ATA is about to go bankrupt, so your point is?

How many RJs does jetBlue have on order?

jetBlue's "RJ's" will end up seating more passengers than US Airways' recently retired F100's did, and the F100 was flown by mainline pilots with mainline crew. Oh wait, jetBlue's going to use "mainline" employees, too. I don't see jetBlue farming these aircraft out to affiliate/alter-ego airlines, either.

How many RJs does IAIR fly?

Way too many, and they can't fill them. They're probably going to be in bankruptcy by next spring as well.

Happy now?

Well, no. There's still no evidence that anyone can achieve lasting success as an LCC with the complication of a regional system, especially when the regional flying is farmed out to other companies who are guaranteed a certain margin over their costs.

 

[Light Years]

What's this? JetBlue pilots "whining?"

JetBlue, I'm ready for a union

 

[700UW]

Hey 320 this one is for you:

America West:

The company's third-quarter loss amounted to $47.1 million, or $1.30 per share, compared with a profit of $32.9 million, or 60 cents a share, a year earlier.

Its results include $1.6 million of special charges related to the return of three Boeing 737-200 aircraft.

The loss far exceeded the average Wall Street estimate of 63 cents per share, with loss estimates ranging from 30 cents to $1.30 a share, according to Reuters Estimates.

 

[BoeingBoy]

And this one....

"Orlando, Florida-based AirTran reported a loss of $9.8 million, or 11 cents a share, compared with a profit of $19.6 million, or 24 cents a share, a year earlier. Analysts, on average, expected a loss of 7 cents a share, according to Reuters Estimates."

Jim

 

[Phantom Fixer]

Hmmm,

It's looking more and more like the industry is killing itself.
From my point of view..it's not the employee wages thats the problem

ATA and Airtran don't pay much...yet they are losing money too.

Could it be that the costs of doing busines are not being passed to the end user like everyhing else is?

Heck....My fuel and energy costs have increased dramatically in the last year..but I do not see the guy climbing up the power pole taking a pay cut...they passed the costs on to me , The end user.

I do not see the guy whom takes my money at the gas station taking a pay cut to off-set my gasoline prices....they passed the costs on to me , The end user.

The list of what has gone up recently is endless...and if I elect to use that service? Then I as the end user have to expect to pony up the bucks to get that service.

BTW....my basic cable TV bill is increasing by 5.5% next month...how many at Time Warner are willing to take a drastic decrease in pay to insure that I'm watching CNN or whatever if I threaten to have the cable disconnected? I'm willing to bet it won't be many , if any at all?

 

[UseYourHead]

In part,

This is about airlines wanting to put US Airways (and any other lagacy airline) out of business. Airtran loses 9 million, Delta loses 658 million....

It is a crazy world we live in, that this kind of behavior is allowed to happen.

We at US Airways (like all the lagacy airlines) are trying to not run out of cash.

Hmmm,

It's looking more and more like the industry is killing itself.
From my point of view..it's not the employee wages thats the problem

ATA and Airtran don't pay much...yet they are losing money too.

Could it be that the costs of doing busines are not being passed to the end user like everyhing else is?

Heck....My fuel and energy costs have increased dramatically in the last year..but I do not see the guy climbing up the power pole taking a pay cut...they passed the costs on to me , The end user.

I do not see the guy whom takes my money at the gas station taking a pay cut to off-set my gasoline prices....they passed the costs on to me , The end user.

The list of what has gone up recently is endless...and if I elect to use that service? Then I as the end user have to expect to pony up the bucks to get that service.

BTW....my basic cable TV bill is increasing by 5.5% next month...how many at Time Warner are willing to take a drastic decrease in pay to insure that I'm watching CNN or whatever if I threaten to have the cable disconnected? I'm willing to bet it won't be many , if any at all?

[post="195487"][/post]​

 

[BoeingBoy]

We at US Airways (like all the lagacy airlines) are trying to not run out of cash.

[post="195488"][/post]​

Certainly US is trying not to run out of cash, although it could be argued that we have already run out of cash and are depending on the the ability to not pay some expenses and the "kindness" of lenders to stay in business.

However, AMR & CAL were cash flow positive in the third quarter - they're taking in cash faster than they spend it.

Jim

 

[sfb]

Heck....My fuel and energy costs have increased dramatically in the last year..but I do not see the guy climbing up the power pole taking a pay cut...they passed the costs on to me , The end user.

I do not see the guy whom takes my money at the gas station taking a pay cut to off-set my gasoline prices....they passed the costs on to me , The end user.

The list of what has gone up recently is endless...and if I elect to use that service? Then I as the end user have to expect to pony up the bucks to get that service.

BTW....my basic cable TV bill is increasing by 5.5% next month...how many at Time Warner are willing to take a drastic decrease in pay to insure that I'm watching CNN or whatever if I threaten to have the cable disconnected? I'm willing to bet it won't be many , if any at all?

All true, but you also must consider elasticity of demand. When prices for electricity, cable, gasoline, heating oil, etc. go up, demand doesn't drop off as quickly as it does for airline tickets. There really are few acceptable substitutes for electricity, and while people do cut back on consumption when prices are high, the electric company is still guaranteed a certain profit margin by regulators. With gasoline, drivers will gradually choose more efficient cars and do things like carpool or use public transit (where available) if gas prices go high enough, but this again is a slow process. And people, for the most part, still need to use their cars to get around.

Air travel is different in that it is not essential for the broad majority of the populace, unlike electricity or gasoline. I suppose that cable is not a necessity either, but then, alternatives like satellite threaten the cable operators if they fail to keep their prices under reasonable control -- just as alternatives to air travel threaten the airlines.

As others have said, the problems for most airlines right now are that there are too many seats on the market chasing too few people, coupled with a recent spike in oil prices. I say "most" since Southwest notably would have still been profitable even absent its industry-leading hedging strategy and since jetBlue is likely to produce a modest profit for the third quarter in spite of the hurricanes and high fuel costs. The legacy carriers could continue to try to limit capacity (and we're going to see American move in this direction, along with United), but the well-run discounters will continue to be able to expand profitably -- and the capacity problem remains.

So, the only possibility seems to be to shrink capacity on captive markets until you can get average fares (with acceptable loads) high enough to cover your costs. But that means lots of layoffs along with higher average costs due to a smaller network, senior workforce, less flying over which to spread overhead, etc. Or you try to weather the storm long enough until competitors fail and/or the economy improves enough to shift up the demand curve for air travel .