Kev3188
Veteran
^Revisionist history at it's best.^
There is no shortage of collateral damage amongst the PMNW ranks.
Merger Relief for American Airlines: April 24, 2012
- Thread starter USA320Pilot
- Start date
^Revisionist history at it's best.^
There is no shortage of collateral damage amongst the PMNW ranks.
WorldTraveler
Corn Field
- Dec 5, 2003
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- 10,662
can you tell me how many PMNW employees have been laid off?
Can you tell me how many were offered positions elsewhere within DL?
Can you tell me how many PMNW people were stapled to the bottom of the DL seniority lists?
Most of the centralization moves (the MSP warehouse etc) are the products of consolidating two airlines. They would have happened regardless of with whom NW merged.
And the question still remains whether NW could have been viable on a revenue basis as a separate airline, without a twin engine aircraft that could have reached the eastern US from all of marketable Asia. The 787 could have been that aircraft and could have given NW the ability to compete at least as a niche network player to/from Asia and Europe, but NW was outclassed by larger network carriers, with whom NW's board and stockholders believed that a merger with DL would increase the return for NW stakeholders.
I know your positions regarding employee compensation issues but I would dare say that few airline mergers have resulted in as little financial or job disruption as the DL-NW merger produced. It was built on two strong airlines, and the vast majority of both has been retained.
Kev3188
Veteran
Too many.
eolesen
Veteran
- Jul 23, 2003
- 15,907
- 9,359
Nobody has ever tried to argue that layoffs wouldn't occur in a merger, be it an acquisition like AA/QQ or AA/TW, or a merger of equals like UA/CO and DL/NW.
Where you run afoul of common sense is your constant cry that DL has caused less pain. It is unadulterated bovine fecal matter, and everyone here can see that.
Where you run afoul of common sense is your constant cry that DL has caused less pain. It is unadulterated bovine fecal matter, and everyone here can see that.
WorldTraveler
Corn Field
- Dec 5, 2003
- 21,709
- 10,662
Post the numbers then and will see if it is true or not. If you are certain that thousands of PMNW people have been laid off, then it shouldn't be too hard to find that documentation.
You see it comes down to accountability. If AA or DL or US or anyone else laid off people, it should be apparent to see.
And if you want to make a statement those companies did or did not do something, that should be easy to show.
Help me out - but I am not aware of any NW employees that have been LAID OFF. DL has closed the MSP HDQ and offered jobs to those whose performance merited a transfer (they had merit jobs to begin with) but DL laid off some of its own HDQ personnel based on merit.
DL closed the MSP stores, a res office... but all of those people were given the opportunity to stay at the company.
Compare that with the number of people who were laid off from TW and in other mergers.
You see it comes down to accountability. If AA or DL or US or anyone else laid off people, it should be apparent to see.
And if you want to make a statement those companies did or did not do something, that should be easy to show.
Help me out - but I am not aware of any NW employees that have been LAID OFF. DL has closed the MSP HDQ and offered jobs to those whose performance merited a transfer (they had merit jobs to begin with) but DL laid off some of its own HDQ personnel based on merit.
DL closed the MSP stores, a res office... but all of those people were given the opportunity to stay at the company.
Compare that with the number of people who were laid off from TW and in other mergers.
eolesen
Veteran
- Jul 23, 2003
- 15,907
- 9,359
You claim to know the truth, so why don't you whip out a couple of stone tablets, tell us the numbers, and remove all doubt?
Being thrown under the bus doesn't just mean those who are off payroll. It also includes all those on-payroll and bearing more than their fair share of the merger "benefits", e.g.:
Everyone watching and impacted correctly expected that NW employees would bear the brunt of the downsizing, so why you continue to minimize and try and spin this one as inconsequential is beyond me.
Oh, and before you even try to divert, of course those factors happen in every merger of a scale like we see in the airline industry. Only a fool would try to think that they're able to defy gravity.
Being thrown under the bus doesn't just mean those who are off payroll. It also includes all those on-payroll and bearing more than their fair share of the merger "benefits", e.g.:
- Hourly workers downgraded from full-time to part-time
- Hourly workers who have seen a reduction in their part-time schedules
- Salaried workers who were placed into lower rated positions
- Employees forced to bear the added expense of commuting to ATL (see the next section as for why)
- Employees missing out/not there for their kids because they're now only home ~2 days a week
- Employees separated from their spouses/partners due to commuting
- Families torn apart due to all three of the issues above
- Inability to sell a house in what appears to be the worst housing market since records have been kept
- Unrealistic expectation for a spouse or partner to be able to find another job in the worst job market ever
- Uprooting kids
- The cost of moving a household exceeding what the company would cover (if they even covered anything at all)
Everyone watching and impacted correctly expected that NW employees would bear the brunt of the downsizing, so why you continue to minimize and try and spin this one as inconsequential is beyond me.
Oh, and before you even try to divert, of course those factors happen in every merger of a scale like we see in the airline industry. Only a fool would try to think that they're able to defy gravity.
eolesen
Veteran
- Jul 23, 2003
- 15,907
- 9,359
No, but it's a little thin on facts...
- AA hasn't claimed to be cutting its way to profitability. They plan to add 20% more ASMs, and add planes. That's actually one of the problems a lot of the investors have with the 20% plan -- growth flies in the face of logic
- People avoid flying because of the airport experience as much as anything else, and that drop is largely attributable to the efforts of agencies like the TSA and CBP (trying to enter the US as a foreign national is just about as difficult now as it was for someone from a NATO country to enter the Soviet Union or East Berlin in 1984)
- One thing I will agree with the author on is that revenues are too low. Airfares haven't kept up with inflation, and thanks to conditioning customers to believe it only costs $300 RT to go anywhere, customer expectations are seriously out of whack with what they're paying today in terms of real dollars.
Also, for the record, it's a blog piece, not a magazine article. Fuzzy line between the two, yes, but arguably a different level of accountability...
Kev3188
Veteran
Accountable to who?
You? Spectator?
Please see below. E beat me to it, but puts it much more succinctly than I would've.
P.S. It's 2 res centers.
Quite right. The list only grows from there.
Don't forget the nonstop dose of "culture" that at times makes the living envy the dead.
How did that work out for DL in DFW, MCO and CVG?
I would say that you were way off on this one and underestimated the significance of labors influence.
WorldTraveler
Corn Field
- Dec 5, 2003
- 21,709
- 10,662
since you are enjoying digging around in the archives, let me remind you that the merger has not even been approved, let alone implemented or tested to the same standards of the other megamergers that went before.
Perhaps it would be fair to assess AA-US 4-5 years after it actually occurs to see how accurate what was said now actually relates to what occurred, don't you think?
Perhaps it would be fair to assess AA-US 4-5 years after it actually occurs to see how accurate what was said now actually relates to what occurred, don't you think?
