Originally Posted by
snippercr
Most likely they will have to buy another one but would also make sense to create a new one from scratch, keep pilot costs low since no "gummers", make a flow through and rob their competition of any new blood plus churn.
Congrats, you made it in to the new millennium. "Scratch" costs time, money and FAA speeds of paper pushing. Those "gummers" as you so eloquently put it, serve a purpose, they fly planes. Age 65 came into being for one reason, they realized that losing them in one calandar year was gonna be far more expensive than paying them for 5 more. Grab your Depends, age 67 is just a legislative pen/keystroke away, as the dope, booze, couch potato crowd are shuffled into the nursing homes, the next generation will be fine until they die at 75+, which is how long they will need to pay off their student loans.
With Brad Rich worming into UAL Hdq, this is more than some ground handling ploy. Skywest has been divesting themselves of the ground handling business since Chimp was first promoted. The implications are far deeper and more complex than it might seem. UAL sends Marren down to the minors, brings Rich up to the majors, seems that the cross pollination is being tried to create a hybrid. While I do acknowledge that UAL is a corp. that specializes in Titanic style deck chair services, even they cannot be oblivious to their reality.