US Airways Group Inc Stock Downgraded

If US Airways can't make money like the other airlines (whichever type one chooses: legacy, upstart, etc.) and must resort to making a profit off the backs of their employees, then let it die. Industry standard for all employees, or shut the doors. Enough is enough. Life will go on without US Airways in the skies.

IMO, US should have been liquidated the day it terminated its pensions to its retired pilots. I said so at the time and was villified for saying it. Had that happened, you would have found work at another airline and would now be in year nine or ten of their pay schedule instead of maxed out at US earning industry-lagging pay for the past eight or nine years. Any other airline that failed to pay the pensions it owed to its retired pilots should have been liquidated as well.
 
IMO, US should have been liquidated the day it terminated its pensions to its retired pilots. I said so at the time and was villified for saying it. Had that happened, you would have found work at another airline and would now be in year nine or ten of their pay schedule instead of maxed out at US earning industry-lagging pay for the past eight or nine years. Any other airline that failed to pay the pensions it owed to its retired pilots should have been liquidated as well.

Spot on.
 
IMO, US should have been liquidated the day it terminated its pensions to its retired pilots. ...... Any other airline that failed to pay the pensions it owed to its retired pilots should have been liquidated as well.


With all due respect, that attitude may be all well and good a pilot. A pilot starting salary - while not what it once was - still offers a decent (while not luxorious) standard of living. That is not the case really for others - such as flight attendants and agents. Would you have argued back in '92 when the ( then non union ) customer service group lots its pension that "any airline that takes pensions away from its agents should be liquidated."

Did it really matter that much to most pilots?
 
IMO, US should have been liquidated the day it terminated its pensions to its retired pilots. I said so at the time and was villified for saying it. Had that happened, you would have found work at another airline and would now be in year nine or ten of their pay schedule instead of maxed out at US earning industry-lagging pay for the past eight or nine years. Any other airline that failed to pay the pensions it owed to its retired pilots should have been liquidated as well.
really? yet US (and UA who did the same thing to all other employee groups and DL who did it to their pilots) have all managed to create profitable business strategies that have provided security for all of their employees, including their pilots.
Since emerging from BK, US has done a fairly good job of delivering stability to a company (-ies) that have been wracked by instability for a number of years. The future is not clear for US - but it isn't for any of the rest of us either.
In some cases, some of those employees have recovered most if not all of what they gave back through stock distributions upon emergence from BK, profit sharing, and pay raises.
In the midst of near 10% unemployment (which we all know is really alot higher than that number) and has stayed close to that level for many years, we don't need anyone cutting jobs or shutting down. We need companies that can figure out how to treat employees as their most valuable asset, employees who recognize that the economic environment is horrendous, and a government that does all it can to put the maximum amount of money in the hands of the companies that create jobs and employees who alone can make or break the US economy.

.
Only then is there any hope of long-term improvement in the economy and thus the airline industry, which is and will be one of the industries most suspectible to economic downturns as well as improvement. Sadly, the amount of time the US airline industry has collectively been "up" can be counted in months over the past decade despite all the efforts of employees and airlines to try to secure stability in the industry.
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perhaps the issue isn't pensions at all.
 
really? yet US (and UA who did the same thing to all other employee groups and DL who did it to their pilots) have all managed to create profitable business strategies that have provided security for all of their employees, including their pilots.
Since emerging from BK, US has done a fairly good job of delivering stability to a company (-ies) that have been wracked by instability for a number of years. The future is not clear for US - but it isn't for any of the rest of us either.
In some cases, some of those employees have recovered most if not all of what they gave back through stock distributions upon emergence from BK, profit sharing, and pay raises.
In the midst of near 10% unemployment (which we all know is really alot higher than that number) and has stayed close to that level for many years, we don't need anyone cutting jobs or shutting down. We need companies that can figure out how to treat employees as their most valuable asset, employees who recognize that the economic environment is horrendous, and a government that does all it can to put the maximum amount of money in the hands of the companies that create jobs and employees who alone can make or break the US economy

.
Only then is there any hope of long-term improvement in the economy and thus the airline industry, which is and will be one of the industries most suspectible to economic downturns as well as improvement. Sadly, the amount of time the US airline industry has collectively been "up" can be counted in months over the past decade despite all the efforts of employees and airlines to try to secure stability in the industry.
.
perhaps the issue isn't pensions at all.

Spot on.
 
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