For what it is worth.....I'm just the messenger of gouge. Any United guys there that saw this If so, were you impressed? Remember, when either of these clowns talk, they usually bend the truth to fit the crowd.
I got this information from a friend of mine at a check airman meeting...
Jeff gave the best presentation he had ever seen from him. Very polished and good operational brief. The United guys were impressed. They said they had never had a CEO with so much knowledge of the operation. Now can he deliver?
Jeff and Fred Said:
1. They will pay industry standard. Not a penny more or less. Delta and American is our competition and soon he believes they will remove American from the comparison when they get done making cuts. Southwest is a different animal and we could pay their 737 rates but it would come out of wide body rates. There is money in the budget for pilot pay raises but how to spread it around is the issue. Staffing is the big hurdle. Once you get staffing the rest of the contract would go fast. If staffing requires 10% more pilots then those additional pilot costs come out of the hourly rates available. The company wants to staff efficiently and use the money for hourly rates. The union wants more bodies on the property.
2. We are finally going to charge more than is costs for a ticket. We are going to make a little money in the bad times and kick A** in the good times.
3. He wants the 70 seat RJ’s because of the 1st class demanded by high paying customers. He is not sure we even need 90 seat jets.
4. Denver and Cleveland are weak because of their population and location.
5. Profit Sharing for the CAL pilots will be used as leverage at the table. (the checkairman personally thinks we will get it based on the tone of the profit sharing discussions at the meeting.)
6. SOC will happen before the end of the year.
7. Ipads were being passed out to a beta group at the meeting. Ipads will be hard wired into the AC and be able to download weather and flight plans etc using wireless internet on AC when installed. Fred said he wants them out of the warehouse and into the pilots hands ASAP.
8. Bringing a UAL 747 out of the desert. May require UAL to bring back some pilots.
9. Jeff was asked why we were not advertising. Answer: The worst thing you can do is advertise something you can’t deliver on. We are not at the place where our product would match the advertising.