Most Highly Unionized

K

kcabpilot

Senior
Aug 22, 2002
271
0
Who?
Southwest Airlines
85%
Most highly unionized airline in the US
Oh... but they don''t have 44 millionare executive vice presidents
They don''t have:
Confetti Inc
Mileage Plus Holdings Inc
Mileage Plus Marketing Inc
MyPoints.com Inc
Cybergold Inc
itarget.com Inc
MyPoints Office Services Inc
UAL Company Services Inc
Four Star Leasing Inc
UAL Benefits Management Inc
Domicile Management Services Inc
Air Wisconsin Inc
Air Wis Services Inc
United Bizjet Holdings Inc
Bizjet Charter Inc
Bizjet Services Inc
United Airlines Inc
Kion Leasing Inc
Premier Meeting and Travel Services Inc
United Aviation Fuels Corporation
United Cogen Inc
Mileage Plus Inc
United GHS Inc
United Worldwide Corp
United Vacations Inc
and you fools thought it was the stupid, greedy, smelly, grease monkey union mechanics that caused all this.
When they are all gone
Who you gonna blame?
 
Could it be that their union employees are just "plane" smarter than yours?

Maybe they understand that you can't "squeeze the Golden Goose" too much, lest you be in bankruptcy.
 
JMHO

At Southwest, BOTH the unions and the management understand the need for good labor relations. It's like a marriage: unless both parties are committed to it, it will never be a success. That's not to say that their aren't fights occasionally, but overall, the respect seems to be there. I noticed, after September 11th, how the IAM had our CSA's jump in and help with duties that weren't really theirs under the contract. I know many a union that would have screamed, "We want extra pay for doing that!" at a time when the airlines didn't have extra pay to give.

You can sit and blame management for UAL's situation...and they do carry the lion's share of the blame. But the unions have to accept that they have a role in this as well. And it's going to take both sides working together to keep UAL alive. Best wishes to you...I know there are a lot of livlihoods at stake.
 
[blockquote]
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On 12/28/2002 8:44:59 AM AirwAr wrote:

Could it be that their union employees are just "plane" smarter than yours?

Maybe they understand that you can't "squeeze the Golden Goose" too much, lest you be in bankruptcy.

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[/blockquote]
Anyone with any common sense whatsoever knows that the only difference is how and who runs the place. SWA does not string their employees along for two years to get a contract, they do not blame their employees for every bump in the road that they hit, they do not tell their employees that they are overpaid, they have worked hard to gain the trust and loyalty of their workers by trusting and being loyal to them. The fact that this airline, one that is the most heavily unionized in the industry, has harmonious relations with their unionized workers. It's proof that companies with sound business ethics can not only survive but prosper by respecting the rights of their workers to use collective bargaining.
 
[P]
[BLOCKQUOTE][BR]----------------[BR]On 12/28/2002 4:54:52 AM kcabpilot wrote:
[P]Who?[BR][BR]Southwest Airlines[BR][BR]85%[BR][BR]Most highly unionized airline in the US[BR][BR]Oh... but they don't have 44 millionare executive vice presidents[BR][BR]They don't have:[BR][BR]---------------[/P][/BLOCKQUOTE]
[P]They also pick and choose the destinations they fly to - so you're probably never going to see them flying to SBA or ROA.[/P]
 
[P]
[BLOCKQUOTE][BR]----------------[BR]On 12/29/2002 6:31:23 AM ITRADE wrote:
[P][BR]They also pick and choose the destinations they fly to - so you're probably never going to see them flying to SBA or ROA.
[P][/P]----------------[/BLOCKQUOTE]
[P]Do you really see mainline jets in those cities, or did the mainline guys "pick and choose" which regional carrier would fly there?[/P]
 
[blockquote]
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On 12/29/2002 10:41:35 PM 7.5victim wrote:

[/P][/BLOCKQUOTE]


They also pick and choose the destinations they fly to - so you're probably never going to see them flying to SBA or ROA.[/P]
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[/blockquote]


Really? Are you saying UAL is FORCED to fly to SBA and ROA? By whom? You couldn't decide to discontinue service there in order to better serve profitable markets? Sorry, but that dog don't hunt....

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[/blockquote]

What it means is that there is a LIMIT to the size that SWA can get. Why do you think there are at least 6 traditionally successful hub airlines and ONE so called point to point airline that has stood the test of time (if you believe SWA is just a "point to point" airline pull up an itenerary and count the connections and stops on most trips). Where will SWA grow next? More flights out of MDW? Guess you like seeing all the flights late 80% of the time. Gonna take the delays up and down the east coast? That isn't part of the model. International? Maybe a flight or two to MEX or Canada, but prob not since the peso and CAN$ are VERY weak (ie Mexicana and Jazz can do it cheaper). There are only so many markets that justify a guppy. Some are too small, and some are too big, and it wouldn't surprise me to see congress get involved to help alleviate future "congestion"
 
[/P][/BLOCKQUOTE]


They also pick and choose the destinations they fly to - so you're probably never going to see them flying to SBA or ROA.[/P]
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[/blockquote]


Really? Are you saying UAL is FORCED to fly to SBA and ROA? By whom? You couldn't decide to discontinue service there in order to better serve profitable markets? Sorry, but that dog don't hunt....
 
Busdrvr....... Get real! The potential limits to WN's growth has precisely zero, nada, zilch to do with the hopelessly dysfunctional business models that have pushed the Big Six to the point of impending demise. Nor does the seeming unliklihood that WN will serve the likes of SBA and ROA in the foreseeable future mean that UA and their cartel partners (through their surrogates) are required to do so.

You're making me think that UA's real obstacle to "turning it around" is widespread pathological denial of market realities from management on down--and grasping at straws concerning WN's (and B6's and FL's and TZ's) as yet unknown future plans as though it will somehow mitigate the untenable present condition of UA and US, with AA apparently not far behind and DL, NW and CO following in the same footsteps.

The state of UA and its cartel colleagues isn't about unionization levels or competition from low-cost carriers -- it's about gross mismanagement that built a house of cards that was sure to collapse once the unsustainable party of the late '90s ended. The party was over by late 2000 - early 2001. WN did not indulge in the excesses and remains intact with a net gain of some 4,000 employees (in mostly unionized positions) since 9/11/01 and black ink on the bottom line.
 
SWA is popular because of their price structure and route system, connenct point A to point B. Great if you are at either points, can get there cheap, want to go there.

Analysts love simple systems, hence SWA and JetBlue's stock evaluation.

Politicians like votes, many small communities losing air service means losing votes. Hence cutting back airservice means losing support in Congress, and the state legislatures; it also means losing feeder traffic for long haul and international routes.

Will jetBlue or SWA ever service Rochester, NY with Rochester, MN directly? Not with the airframes they have right now. Will they serve international destinations. probably never. SWA because it messes up their business plan, checking passports and customs is not a 20 minute turn around, also most of those those paxs bring checked baggage.

So we are back to either large full service carriers, with regional service, or a hodge podge of airlines as before deregulation. And that will drive up interline ervice charges etc.

SWA and JetBlue are shuttle services, and they are good at it, whether their cherry picking is good for the airline system on a national basis is open to debate.

The political atmosphere points to their further successes. The public restricts flying and the premium passengers side step the TSA BS by leasing or owning executive planes.
 
Throwing out the fact that Southwest and jetBlue "pick and choose" their destinations is a bit of a red herring; after all, US Airways doesn't serve SBA or even PDX, while United flies to neither Jackson, MS nor Little Rock, AR. You'd expect any well-run airline to "pick-and-choose" its destinations so as to maximize the use of its available resources. Why would WN add service to ROA, for example, when they could serve RIC or GSO, for example? That's not to say they CAN'T make money in markets like SBA or ROA; after all, Southwest still serves smaller markets like MAF and AMA 25 years after deregulation allowed them to fly outside of Texas.

No one is going to fly extremely thin routes like Rochester, NY to Rochester, MN non-stop. Well, Legacy/Oneida/whatever might claim they're going to do it, but it just won't happen. There's only one major point-to-point carrier right now in the U.S. simply because the hub-and-spoke model works GREAT when the air travel market is essentially an oligopoly. But once competitors come in with deep enough pockets (and low enough costs) to break a hub carrier's pricing power, or if consumers simply refuse to fly for what a network carrier must charge to make money, the hub-and-spoke model starts to break down.

Take a non-stop route (using the above-mentioned ROA as an example) like ROA-CLT. The *lowest* round-trip fare on US (aside from the New Year's special) on the route is over $300! Most people would take the 3-4 hour drive instead. Meanwhile, on the heavily-traveled AUS-LBB route, Southwest wants a minimum of $85 round-trip or a maximum of $240. For SBA-SFO, the lowest fare on United is $170 round-trip. The lowest round-trip fare between capacity-limited SNA and OAK on WN is $72. Of course, if you don't have the flexibility of planning 14 days in advance, the UA fare goes up to $465 round-trip, so it's not surprising that someone might drive down to LAX or BUR to save a couple hundred dollars.

The funny thing is that routes like CLT-ROA would probably be a lot more popular with fares closer to $100 round-trip -- and that would be a yield of over 30 cents/mile.

I actually don't believe that WN, B6, FL, and the other low-fare carriers have gotten anywhere near their limits in size. There are dozens of cities which WN could serve profitably without ever having to enter a fortress hub or a congested/slot-limited airport like BOS, LGA, or DCA. It wouldn't surprise me to see WN at BOS in response to a "market opportunity," though -- delays at BOS have been way, way down with most airlines having reduced flights dramatically here. Or if United were to shutter its IAD hub, why not take the opportunity to bracket the DC area?

If Congress were to step in to "limit congestion," do you think that they would go after 737's or RJ's first? What would create more congestion -- 5 daily AA Eagle RJ's from ALB to ORD or 2 hypothetical WN 737's from ALB to MDW? 4 daily PVD-IAD roundtrips on RJ's or a couple of 737's? RJ's from EWR to BUF/ROC/SYR or A320's from JFK to the same cities? The gridlock at LGA stemmed from the influx of RJ's, not from low-fare carriers with 737's and A320's.

I'd argue that the response to further growth among the low-fare carriers will be continuing consolidation among the network carriers -- we're already seeing that with the code-share alliances. Smaller, more marginal hubs will continue to be scaled back or will lose hub status. I'd predict that in ten years, there will be three or four network carriers/alliances (possibly two) with relatively broad international reach and strong hubs in large cities in geographically suitable locations -- like ORD, ATL, DFW, IAH, DTW, etc. The travel market won't continue to support 6 large, high-cost, hub-and-spoke networks.
 
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