ELP_WN_Psgr
Senior
- Nov 29, 2003
- 419
- 0
If I were an employee of USAirways, I would consider some concessions under certain circumstances. These circumstances include:
1. Taking a meat axe to bloated management that appears unable to lead. The company needs leaders. Creative people who will try something drastic to save the firm. It entails some risk but Hoss, this thing ain't gonna be saved without exposure to risk.
2. Moving the corporate offices out of Crystal City to someplace cheap...like an abandoned strip mall near Pittsburgh or a metal building adjacent to Charlotte Douglas Intl Airport.
3. Company officers (and all employees, actually) limited to flying NRSA in Y unless flying for official company business, in which case they can go NRMR - but still in Y. These clowns put their britches on one leg at a time...same as the folks whose labor has built the company. They need to understand - they are nothing special.
4. A radical restructuring of the entire fare system...company wide...every city, every flight, every market. Squeezing folks for their last nickel generates a whole lot more hostility and antipathy from the traveling public than it generates revenue. The management keeps throwing America West contracts at the employees. Okay fine. You want folks to work for HP wages, start charging people HP fares.
5. Build on the strengths, but be aggressive. Throwing some flights in and out of LGA and DCA is good, but doing it because you can extract enormous high fares from those markets is not the way to go about it. The fares need to come down. The resident WN-hater Art_at_ISP is fond of saying "it's the fares, stupid." he's exactly right.
Now, what sort of concessions, if I were at USAirways....would I be willing to give up? management is whining because everyone is too senior. Okay, adjust the seniority tables. Leave the contracts alone but reduce everyone's seniority by 50%. What that does...is provide the employees with the built in "snapback." if the company survives...even thrives....then they will accrue seniority again and be able to get back to where they were. I am no friend of organized labor, but come on.....the bosses here need to quit playing games. USAirways has a habit of getting managers that are difficult to trust.
I honestly don't know which way this thing is going to go. But I am convinced that this thing will not be fixed by attempting to manage one's way out of it with the same tired concessions/beat down labor/business as usual bandaids. The patient is expiring on the operating table. Do you sew them up and let them die in a year or two....or do you risk everything, throw caution to the wind, perform the radical surgery necessary for a permanent cure?
Right now the folks in charge are being conservative. That's not the answer.
1. Taking a meat axe to bloated management that appears unable to lead. The company needs leaders. Creative people who will try something drastic to save the firm. It entails some risk but Hoss, this thing ain't gonna be saved without exposure to risk.
2. Moving the corporate offices out of Crystal City to someplace cheap...like an abandoned strip mall near Pittsburgh or a metal building adjacent to Charlotte Douglas Intl Airport.
3. Company officers (and all employees, actually) limited to flying NRSA in Y unless flying for official company business, in which case they can go NRMR - but still in Y. These clowns put their britches on one leg at a time...same as the folks whose labor has built the company. They need to understand - they are nothing special.
4. A radical restructuring of the entire fare system...company wide...every city, every flight, every market. Squeezing folks for their last nickel generates a whole lot more hostility and antipathy from the traveling public than it generates revenue. The management keeps throwing America West contracts at the employees. Okay fine. You want folks to work for HP wages, start charging people HP fares.
5. Build on the strengths, but be aggressive. Throwing some flights in and out of LGA and DCA is good, but doing it because you can extract enormous high fares from those markets is not the way to go about it. The fares need to come down. The resident WN-hater Art_at_ISP is fond of saying "it's the fares, stupid." he's exactly right.
Now, what sort of concessions, if I were at USAirways....would I be willing to give up? management is whining because everyone is too senior. Okay, adjust the seniority tables. Leave the contracts alone but reduce everyone's seniority by 50%. What that does...is provide the employees with the built in "snapback." if the company survives...even thrives....then they will accrue seniority again and be able to get back to where they were. I am no friend of organized labor, but come on.....the bosses here need to quit playing games. USAirways has a habit of getting managers that are difficult to trust.
I honestly don't know which way this thing is going to go. But I am convinced that this thing will not be fixed by attempting to manage one's way out of it with the same tired concessions/beat down labor/business as usual bandaids. The patient is expiring on the operating table. Do you sew them up and let them die in a year or two....or do you risk everything, throw caution to the wind, perform the radical surgery necessary for a permanent cure?
Right now the folks in charge are being conservative. That's not the answer.
