USAir sickout

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Let's not forget the union's involvement in the demise of Eastern... USAir is following this path as well.

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Uh, what?

Let's see, just how much were the salaries cut at US Airways?

But it's those damn unions again.

If unions are so bad, then tell me why Southwest is so profitable?

Oh, yeah, there's more proof of the treat your employees well and the stock will do well theory. Southwest treats their employees well and gee, what has their stock done?

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Well one reason could be that SouthWest only operates 737s, while USAir operates many differents types of aircrafts. Different types of aircraft means more money spend on trainind and facilities, as well as maintanence and other factors. The same reason why Jetblue is doing so well.
 
Actually, I have to back Tony on this one. It has more to do with employee/management relations than the number of a/c types. Even Continental was starting to look good until fuel starting skyrocketing. Look how many different a/c types they fly. When your people are happy and feel appreciated they are more likely to take the necessary steps to make the company look good. That might mean going the extra mile to make sure that passenger leaves with a good impression. It could also mean not calling in sick b/c you just don't want to go to work. Get a lot of sick calls, that means you have to pay OT to cover the shift, which cuts into profit margins, which adds up down the road. For the most part Boeing parts are pretty interchangeable, and what works well to fix one engine generally will do the trick on an engine on a different a/c.

Also, don't forget JetBlue treats their employees just as well as SWA. So it might be that instead of the single a/c type. Look at Independence Air. Currently they're only flying one a/c type, but they don't seem to be doing too well.
 
Doesn't Independance Air fly CRJ-200s as well as an Airbus? I thought I saw that somewhere.
 
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Doesn't Independance Air fly CRJ-200s as well as an Airbus?

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I thought you were sleeping.
tongue.gif
Anyhow, it appears you are correct.

Check Out The Link
 
[quoteIf unions are so bad, then tell me why Southwest is so profitable?

Oh, yeah, there's more proof of the treat your employees well and the stock will do well theory. Southwest treats their employees well and gee, what has their stock done?

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Is it possible we're getting as simplistic as the news media here? Everybody has their pet item to pin success or failure on. Yeah SWA treats there people well, although obviusly the unions have some current disagreements. But you can't ignore the unique approach that SWA takes, eschewing hubs and saturated airports, cherry picking routes (even they admit that), few amenities, lean staffing (though well paid), single aircraft type, super-productivity relative to the majors. And yes, a leadership style that every airline could learn from.

As to JetBlue, you can't ignore that their employees are not only low-paid but very junior. Their labor costs remain below the legacies even after paycuts. In fact it takes gargantuan paycuts for the legaices to get down near, but not below, the costs of JetBlue.

And unions can be very destructive. For one they (the union leadership) believe they derive power from conflict between management and labor. There have been many times in the history of the airlines that management has tried to reach out to employees and had it torpedoed by union leadership. The history of unions is that at some point they become self-destructive. You can't discount that, and it may even be a factor at SWA in the future.

And the number one reason that legacies are failing so badly is there are too many hubs. If you changed nothing else and cut the number of connecting hubs in half the industry would substantially improve it's health over night. The boom of the 80's and 90's caused over-expansion. Yes, individual airlines could have kept their house in order a little better. But there were compelling reasons to expand and fight for market share. It was exciting times for pilot wannabes. And the unions could have been less greedy as well.

As El Guapo said, "There are a plethora of reasons that the industry in in the crapper."
 
I wouldn't necessarily call them 'dumb' per se.

Considering the average ramp guy could probably care less about aviation or the airline business he's got another queue of priorities. So when the $22/hr job working during the holidays, getting pushed around by bad management and sludging around in snow and stinky de-icing fluid becomes a $10/hr job, I'd probably spend the holiday with my family and apply down at the local Target. You get to work indoors, it's closed Xmas day and pretty close to the same pay/benefits.

The only people that are truly 'married' to an airline are the pilots and perhaps the flight attendants. Considering that my brother Mike works in the Mosquito abatement department in Tulare County and could pay two USAir flight attedants salaries with what he makes in one year, perhaps not even flight attendants are married to the airline.
 
The quicker US Airways goes down...the quicker the rest will follow. (Delta, United, ATA) I just don't see them leaving as soon a people think. I don't have first hand employee experience but have a very solid background in economics and marketing. I could be wrong.
 
I got a "C" in macro-econ (so did Scott O'Grady across the room) but if USAir tanked, it'd solve some of the overcapacitiy problems in the industry, not exacerbate them.
 
And if USAir does close, that means the aircraft and routes will be going to other airlines. There will at least be less competition at some airport if USAir does go, but that would cause ticket prices to increase.

If USAir, Delta, ATA, and whatever othe airline that has to go down, goes down, people might as well go find another job to do. Imagine how long it would take till they hired of the street again?
 
F/As are married to the airlines in the same senority aspect that the pilot's are. If you leave an airline, you start again at the bottom of the new airline's list, and accept what comes with that (new-hire pay, new-hire bidding....). My going to AA was a gamble, I left the top of Eagle's list to go to the bottom of AAs. Turned out it was a gamble in which I lost everything, but at the time, who knew?

A 10 year F/A can't leave an airline and go to a new airline and get compensated for their experience, just like a pilot can't.

The differences are that a F/As job duties tend to be a bit more marketable than pilot's in the job market should they ever seek employment outside the aviation industry. The biggest difference is that a pilot must invest years of their life and thousands of dollars in even becoming qualified for their postion, something F/As do NOT have to do. To become a pilot at a major airline, one must have thousands of hours & years of experience. To become a F/A one must have some customer service experience. Big difference.

So I guess pilot's & F/As are both married to their airlines, but the divorce is a lot easier for the F/As.
 
Unfortunatetly, I think that the end is near for USAir. I hate to see any aviation endeavor fail, but, selfishly, this makes me wonder what will happen to the labor market. What do you guys think will happen to the labor pool with the end of USAir? It seems like a lot of qualified pilots will suddenly be seeking employment...

This is an old question, I'm sure, but from my standpoint, i.e. a starving flight instructor, it is not a positive event to know that the labor pool for the industry I want to 'marry' suddenly got a lot deeper.
 
I'm a soon to be PPL and I'm even scared about this. Committing 35k to Ari-Ben for a "maybe I'll get hired by an airline someday". It's sad...pilots are getting furloughed as fast as there getting trained. I don't think I stand alone in this.

Brett
 
Well, I hate to be the bearer of bad news for ya, but if that's enough to scare the bejezus out of you, this might not be a good profession for you. Seriously. If you have a low tolerance for risk, I wouldn't get involved in aviation.
 
I was just about to give the speech about this not being the first nor the last sh*tstorm in the airline business. Almost like western Europeans thinking WW I was Armageddon or us thinking that WW II's introduction of the H -bomb would make war obsolete.

One thing about history and the airline business - there are no absolutes.
 
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One thing about history and the airline business - there are no absolutes.

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No absolutes.
No guarantees.
No definitive job security.
 
Even back in the old days, people would turn down "better" jobs to come to Delta because they "had never and will never" furlough pilots. So whenever someone writes about XYZ airlines and how stable they are, it's strangely funny.
 
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One thing about history and the airline business - there are no absolutes.

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No absolutes.
No guarantees.
No definitive job security.

[/ QUOTE ]i guess that could really be said about all jobs now a days! there's no one job out there where your guaranteed anything!
 
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And if USAir does close, that means the aircraft and routes will be going to other airlines. There will at least be less competition at some airport if USAir does go, but that would cause ticket prices to increase.


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I'm not even sure if another airline would step in to fill US Air's gap. They aren't making money on those routes (obviously), so why would another carrier make the same mistake twice? Less competition is good right now. There's an overcapacity (even though all the seats on most planes are full but I'll get to that in a minute), so US Air slowly ebbing away would help the other guys. Now to ticket prices, and this is why all the seats are full. More people are flying b/c they're paying less. The thing is, the airlines need to almost fill up a plane with the current state of ticket prices if they want to turn a profit. There's no guarantee that ticket prices will skyrocket just b/c US Air goes under. Remember, it's easier to price yourself out of a market than to keep prices low. If the prices jump too much, people will stop flying at those rates. A medium needs to be found where the airlines can charge XXX amount, and Joe Bob can still fly his family to Disney for two weeks. Ticket prices are gonna HAVE to come up if the majors want to survive. Their route structures can't handle low cost type budget structures, and you can bet the price of oil/av gas isn't gonna come down anytime soon.
 
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