Yeah, what he said.

It started with Southwest. One story was how Southwest had four planes. Having trouble making payroll, one plane was sold and utilization upped to compensate and BAM, the high speed turn was born. When word circulates that a company is willing to do something of that nature, you bet your assets the people are going to work extra hard to take care of the company. There's nothing in the kool-aid.

Johnson and Johnson is a perfect example of that philosophy. Company owners selling mansions during the great depression to prevent layoffs says character. There was never a need for unionization because employees were compensated and treated with dignigty and respect ... something that is missing from a lot of companies today.

http://www.winningworkplaces.org/lib...rsation_wi.php

Lack of leadership plays a role. 9/11 warranted voluntary pilot givebacks, but CEOs padding their own pockets made certain that would never happen. I wonder about those airlines that have not redone their business models to match SW and the legacys that had to endure painful cuts and terminations.

The "South-Westernization" of the industry was going to happen one way or the other. 9/11 just sped things up. Fuel, war, the dot-com bubble bursting, tele-conferencing, video-conferencing as Jsled said, it was a "Perfect storm."

One final thing ... I read an article about All Nippon or Korean Air delivering freight in several states via Alaska. Not only did we have external factors dragging us down, this administration relaxed cabotage to allow foreign cargo carriers into our markets ... communist nations at that! We need to lobby HARD to keep SRB and his like OUT. Post election testicles (and ovaries) are sprouting and congress is now standing up.

Tom

I rode the short bus.