Allow me to disagree 100%. Our merged airline has the potential to be positive once a new management team arrives or this one does an about face. The key word being 'potential'.

The current crew cannot see the morass they have created (through incompetence, misaligned priorities etc) and they will not acknowledge the fact that the high dollar customers are leaving in droves. They focus on the bad widgets refusing to do this or that, and the nickles and the dimes. As they do that, we lose money. As we lose money, they cut back the schedule and expand the Barbi-Jet operation.

Painting airplanes is not enough. We can grunt and row our asses off with perfect syncopation until our hands bleed and our spines scream. It won't matter as long as the helmsman is spending all his time having his picture taken and making videos. It won't matter as long as the mid level managers view them selves as disciplinarians as opposed to problem solvers and coalition builders.

I have only seen the airline function this poorly one time. The summer of 2000 when they were giddy at the idea of merging with USAir, starting a fractional operation and who knows what else. It was easy to blame the pilots yet there was no one to park the planes, no one to fuel the planes, no one to handle the bags, no one to do the push, etc etc etc.

Blocking and tackling are essential in this type of an operation. Yet, we are failing at the basics and "costs are out of control" RIGHT!

My rose colored glasses are turd brown. The sad thing is, I'm ready to row.