Tough decisions and broken crystal balls

The only thing is the place that he is at now I think will be merging with someone within five years. While, the other place is already going through that.


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Seggy said:
The only thing is the place that he is at now I think will be merging with someone within five years. While, the other place is already going through that.


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I'm afraid you're right... My big fear is that the company that buys us -could- be the one he's talking about going to. I'm fairly certain that would be bad for us.

Zap- it sucks being vague. Haha.
 
Derg said:
Nothing.

@ZapBrannigan made a decision about his career about it being served better somewhere else other than his present carrier.

Good on him! :)

If you have to wait until something 'breaks your balls' before taking command of your life, you're doing it wrong.
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You take all the fun out of making a joke sometimes. Really.
 
@DPApilot got so excited, he said it twice!
ununyvav.jpg
 
Zap, it sounds to me like you're chasing something you are never going to find. Face the facts bro, every airline is just about the same minus the color of their epaulets and paint scheme. I'm still friends with a lot of pilots from my flying days, and it seems the ones who are the happiest are those who make the best of where they are, regardless of the little intricacies of their employer. Just nut up and settle somewhere so you can start building seniority, sick time, vacation time, etc... rather than chase some imaginary perfect airline / flying job. Heck, as an example: I have some friends who are pilots for UPS. One guy makes the most of it, and is always posting about his adventures on Facebook. But then I read the posts from another friend of mine... You'd think UPS was the worst employer on the planet.

None of your posts every say something like, "I've always dreamed about doing X type of flying, so I'm going to go for it." It always seems it's about a contract, or a domicile, or some other similar thing which could change in an instant. I could see this being a discussion if you were thinking about leaving an airline to pursue a dream of flying the bush in Alaska, because it's always been your dream since you were young. But we're talking about something that is basically a lateral move.

If you make this move, are you going to leave again if they suddenly shut down your domicile and raise the health insurance premiums? Because we both know that could happen with very little warning. To say "that will never happen" is naive.

Personally, I think you'd be stupid to leave an airline that serves Dunkin' Donuts coffee, but that's just me (if I have your employer right; I haven't been around in a while).

Good luck brother.
 
Seggy said:
Spirit/Frontier (it would be very easy to change the Spirit/Frontier product) and/or Virgin America.

Your guess?


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Now that the legacies are down to just 3 (DAL/AA/UAL), there will be consolidation amongst the LCC/Major level. Southwest already took AirTran. The only airlines left that have not merged are:

Spirit
Frontier
Virgin
JetBlue
Allegiant
Hawaiian (not including mergers from long before)
Alaska (not including mergers from long before)

My guesses are:

Frontier is being spun off by Republic to Indigo partners/holdings? led by a guy named Franke, the same guy and investment company that owned Spirit before IPO. Frontier is already being turned into an ULCC model just like Spirit. My guess would be Frontier and Spirit in the next five years or less. I highly doubt Spirit will "realize" its three-fold growth as pure new deliveries, IMO, a Frontier merger will put them close to 100 planes and then after merger synergies, the rest will be growth.

JetBlue and Virgin. Now that AA/US has passed, I think these two are the closest in terms of similar models. Same fleet (different engine types), similar route structure with heavy presence on east (B6) and west (VX). Nothing will happen with VX until IPO and once its a public company then it opens a road for merger/acquisition scenarios. I think VX will go public IPO in 2014, and then be merged/acquired in 5 years by 2020. It's also interesting that both JetBlue (24 E190s) and Virgin (30 NEOs) deferred these aircraft to exactly 2020-2022. And keeping in mind that jetBlue was suppose to be the original Virgin America back in the late 90s with Branson and Neeleman's talks falling through. Lastly, they are both non-union (at the moment) so that eliminates a lot of merger hurdles as far as labor goes.

The wildcards will be Hawaiian and Alaska. I keep hearing Hawaiian and VX but I can't see that one happening. At the moment Alaska is "too expensive" for DAL to acquire. An Alaska and Delta merger is still a possibility. I wouldn't discount a Hawaiian/Alaska merger but that might be hard to approve with Alaska's heavy presence on flights to the state of Hawaii. Whoever acquires/mergers with Alaska or Hawaiian will then set the stage for the rest of the other LCCs.

I think Allegiant's model is so different that they will probably continue stand-alone.

Make no mistake, I think for all of these majors/LCCs listed above, they will have to consolidate to compete long term with the 3 mega legacies.
 
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