Originally Posted by
captjns
You're probably too young to remember but, Pan Am sold off assets to stay afloat ranging from a major hotel chain, Hotel Intercontinental, and routes to various airline, including UAL who got the Pacific Routes. I remember when Pan Am boasted it would be the first airline to provide commercial space travel.
The Eastern Airlines which was made of many companies within a company either sold off at lower than market value, or transferred divisions to, I beleive it was Texas Air Corp., ranging from a sophisticated reservations system, and fueling service which were then leased back to EAL at inflated prices. So in that case it was a double whammy if you will.
So tell me Lambourne, put down the Kool Aide and tell me why it can't happen to UAL? What makes you think that the Board of Directors will do the right thing by its shareholders, and employees?
Pan Am and Eastern didn't have a cool 5 BILLION in the bank, nor were they posting a profit in-line with everyone else.
If UA is going to be broken up, why are they investing over 100 million dollars to upgrade international business and first (which blows everyone else out of the water BTW)?
Further, perhaps if you have read some of the reports from the annual share-holder meetings you MIGHT know that UA has flat out said that that they are holding off on new aircraft orders until they pay down debt in order to obtain better interest rates on the aircraft.
UA has one of the best pilot groups in this industry. They struck the B-scale, fought for an industry-leading contract, and are generally a cut above the average guy.
I have had one UA bus captain buy me a buy-on-board meal on a red-eye transcon because I was broke. When I asked how I could repay him, he told me he would take the money only if he "saw me on the line" one day.
I have seen another bus captain tell a gate agent to do his d@mn job and to get the ****** off of his plane when the gate agent was too lazy to re-tag a NRSA's bag and would have caused the SA to mis his connection in Denver.
Why you have it out for this company, I don't know. Perhaps you were turned down at an interview or they lost your mother's bags last Christmas. Either way, you need to get with the times and get the facts before you spew such drivel.