Just a couple of quick thoughts. First of all I hope everyone is as well as they can be, under the circumstances....and that folks are avoiding the flu bug etc etc.
U employees are going to have to work for compensation MUCH lessthan the cherry-picking LCCs in order to match them.
You know, folks like to throw that "cherry picking LCC" accusation around.....but I don't think I am gonna buy off on it totally until I see U (or any other legacy type carrier) flying mainline metal between across such desirable routes as HRL-AUS, MSY-BHM, MCI-BNA, ABQ-AMA, or MAF-LAS.
Herein lies the tragedy and I think many of us could see it coming like a freight train. Nobody has done anything to cure the airlines systemic problems. All they have done is chopped wages and killed their workforce's motivation.
Is anybody really in charge or are executive decisions made by the Board of Directors consulting a ouija board, a magic eight ball, or perhaps they draw numbers out of a hat?
The real problem, the one that will kill U (assuming something does) is not employee wages, it is not even their overreliance on obscene fares.
It is, to put it bluntly, that they have contracted out way too much of their flying.
I would suggest to you that if a route can make money, it is worth having. if it doesn't, then it needs to be chopped and the assets deployed elsewhere.
Paying another carrier on a fee for departure basis doesn't make the bad route go away.....airlines like to think they have reduced their costs by having someone fly mediocre (or worse) routes for them at a fixed price, but it hasn;t solved the problem.
Quick rules for making a small fortune in the airline business.
1. Start with a large fortune.
If you can't manage that one....try these other rules.
2. Fly your airplanes where you can make money. Don't try to serve all sorts of places just so you can say you serve all sorts of places. Put the darned airplanes where there are passengers willing to pay a fare above the cost of providing the airplane seat, and run flights in those places.
3. Don't pay some other carrier anything to run routes for you that don't make any money. Yeah yeah yeah people can argue about "feed to the network" and "synergistic connecting traffic" and all that bs. A route either makes money or it doesn't. If it doesn't, it ought to be abandoned and the resources put somewhere else that offers a better chance at a return on investment.
A lot of people on a lot of airline boards have pooh-poohed the idea over the years that "they don't want to become another Southwest." My question has always been "what is it about making money that you really don't like?" If U's management were smart, which they're not.....with the low labor cost advantage they enjoy they would be turning the company into a Southwest clone as quickly as they could. Are they? Of course not. They don't want to be like Southwest. And until they decide that is their goal in life, they are going to keep on sending checks to Mesa, run completely full flights that don't break even, and whining about how they need employee concessions.
Art and Bob and a number of people have commented, over time, about how sorry an airline Southwest must be. I disagree vehemently (hence my screen name) but let's, just for a moment, pretend that Southwest is a really sorry airline. Let me ask which would be better - to be well paid by a sorry airline which is profitable without charging rapacious fares, or to earn McDonaldland wages working for a carrier that is upscale and well regarded?
The stockholders would like to see some sort of return on their investment.
I'm sure the employees would enjoy seeing management quit using bankruptcy laws to take away what's left of their meager paychecks.
The huddled masses that fly from city to city in our great country would probably like to pay lower walk up fares than, say, $954 between PHL & BUF.
Your management needs to get with the program. But they won't. I guess they must garner some sort of perverse satisfaction from taking away people;s livelihoods. It's a shame, but what other explanation can there be for their refusal to act boldly and positively to cure the company's ills?