Originally Posted by
MasterOfPuppets
Motch I get what you are saying bud. Here’s the deal though, what are our FINAL furlough numbers? The day we recall that first pilot the union AND the company will say this is a great victory for the bottom 500-600 pilots that didn’t get furloughed. We successfully saved their job. We can all clap and feel good about a job well done.
I have no doubt that we successfully mitigated furloughs, but from what seniority number? I haven’t a clue.....
That is one of my points. From the get go, all we heard (Back in April) was a 30% smaller airline. But we never announced a 30% smaller fleet?! Our main competitors announced retirements of aircraft.. we did not.
Then we had the first Displacement bid (20-07) that showed 4457 followed by the "adjustment" to 4148 a few weeks later.
Unlike our competitors who offered Early Outs right off the bat, we did the opposite.
But once we finally did, it was limited to the smallest subset of pilots.. again, opposite of what the others did.
To make it worse, both the union and the company touted that it would save jobs. But we had already heard from PC that the 63 & 64 aged pilots had already been factored into the furlough numbers.
Left and right the "Furlough" numbers keep getting adjusted. And in the wrong way.
If the number IS 3900, then the company should have been honest and stated that.
Originally Posted by
CleCapt
We are furloughing more because after an initial rise in bookings, they have now dropped substantially for holidays in November and December.
Barring acceptance of an extension of Cares act, pilots will be hitting the street October 1
Then maybe you can explain to me how Delta and American haven't followed suit. Especially AA.. who announced a few weeks ago they would be discontinuing service to numerous cities and then we followed suit to announced new, added flying to Florida from non hub cities?!
No one (especially not I) is arguing the fact that furloughs are coming on 1 Oct. We all knew that (at some point). But what we didn't know is that our furlough mitigation would result in MORE furloughs, not less. At this rate, if/when CA2 comes around, we will probably announce added furloughs!
Originally Posted by
MasterOfPuppets
AA, DL and UA all got the same amount of people off their list, in fact DL got rid of more. We just each took a different route to get there.
DL - Early Out + furloughs = 3600-3700
AA - Early Out + forced empty lines + furloughs = 3200-3300
UA - EARLY Out + LOAs + furloughs = 3300 -3400
UA furloughed more because our EO was more restrictive and that’s just what it is.......without the EO I have no doubt that today’s CCS message would have said 3400 furloughs.
MoP-
DL announced they were 2558 pilots "over" a while back. From that number, they are now furloughing 1941. They also announced the retirement of roughly 191 aircraft. Retirements, not parked. (18 777, and all their MD88's/90's)
AA never announced how many pilots they were fat... at least, I can't find it. But they did announce the retirement of 145 aircraft and they are furloughing 2127 pilots.
And then there's Maude (you youngsters will have to look that one up)
We started the silly season by announcing a 30% smaller airline.. followed by the mega displacement bid (20-07D) and a surplus of 4457 pilots (if you can believe the Min/Max) followed by the adjustment down to 4158.
But never did I see a number from the company of an actual potential furlough number. Yes, I read 3900 pilots from numerous social media posts but again, never a hard number from the company..
(And that 3900 number came from people doing a reduction of 30% from the total pilot count.. not active pilots)
Until-
July 8th. That was the date that the company announced 2250 Potential Furloughs. And the union sent out a BlastMail.
No announcement of fleet retirements, no announcement that their could be more furloughs than the initial 2250 but there was an announcement of -
ALPA has been intensely focused on securing an early-out package that will mitigate furloughs by incentivizing pilots to retire early. We are also finalizing provisions for Voluntary Furloughs and Company Offered Leaves of Absences (COLAs) for those pilots willing to temporarily step back from active flying. An MEC review of these voluntary programs is expected soon, and we believe they will offer significant mitigation.
United is furloughing more because THAT is what the company wants to do.. to create an environment of fear within the pilot group, to push for concessions from the union, and to divide this group for future contract negotiations.
Keep in mind, we have announced NOT ONE aircraft retirement.
At this point, not sure why management just doesn't send out 13000+ WARN Notices.
Originally Posted by
Regularguy
I’m not a shill for UAL Management, nor am I advocating to negotiate a contract in public. What I am stating is this, if you think this is all some sort of conspiracy to get contract cuts, we’ll think again. All the airlines across the entire globe are failing because there is just a fraction of the customers there used to be.
What I find reprehensible is how some want to find where the end of the ladder is to protect themselves from “pay cuts,” and “the future of the profession.”
I have no idea when the customers will return and neither do any of you. Being furloughed in this environment is far different than any other time in pilot history.
RG-
When you say "All the airlines are failing" can you explain to me why I saw 5 Spirit Jets at EWR the other day... How Spirit and JetBlue have stated they are avoiding furloughs since they agreed to furlough mitigations (Concessions?!). Mind you, those are 2 ALPA carriers too.
And if Delta and American are failing too, wonder how they are able to keep more pilots employed? How they decided early on to retire aircraft and offer Early Outs to mitigate cuts..
You are right, no one knows (anymore) when this will end. But we do know it will.
But I am left wondering why we have gone in such a different direction then our 2 main competitors, and also some of the other carriers we compete with.
This is not about me and protecting myself. Learned 4 valuable lessons as a young guardsman from one of the old timers in the squadron-
Don't cheat on your taxes, Don't get divorced, Don't commute and Don't live on a Capt's salary when you are on the bottom of the list! Taken a 30% paycut over the past 5 months and living with it. And if I get furloughed next year.. so be it. I will receive 4.5 months of furlough pay.. and I'll look for a new job while collecting. Then there's unemployment and savings...
It's not about me, it's about the added 600 pilots, it's about the hundreds of pilots who had their dates moved up. It's about this entire pilot group and what is being done to us.
No conspiracy.. but management is playing a head game with us.
Originally Posted by
Andy
No, it's not about being company cheerleaders. It's being able to read the data without wearing rose colored glasses.
Passenger traffic hasn't recovered.
I asked you about cash burn rates. Do you know current cash burn? The company put $25M/day in their forecast for Q3. But that was based on better traffic numbers than what we've had in Q3.
Do you know what the Q2 cash burn rate was? $40M/day.
Odds are that Q3's burn rate is somewhere between those numbers.
That kind of cash burn rate needs to be reduced or this company is going to need to file for bankruptcy by next summer. And if the cash burn rate remains that high, I wouldn't count on United emerging from bankruptcy.
It's not that hard to read a financial report. Spend some time learning how to read one.
I don't need to learn how to read a financial report. Not my thing. I'm a pilot who likes to read about history... but it doesn't mean I can't read and watch finacial news stories about our airline. Watching the Town Hall's also gives us the info the company is pushing. And this is, we are losing less money that American and/or Delta. We are also killing it in the cargo arena.
Since you seem to be a financial expert, can you explain to me (or us) how we end up filing for bankruptcy next summer vs. American or Delta? Don't you think we would first retire 20-50% of our fleet and have another wave of furloughs first?
And I am aware that our 2nd quarter CB was high. But was it the worst? 3rd Quarter is forecasted to be 25 mil a day.. is that the worse?
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
This isn't about the need to furlough. We now know that it's probably going to happen.
This is about the way we are being treated.
An initial Displacement bid that had to be fixed a week or so later.
Follow up Displacement bids to adjust what the last one's did...
All the while, No Early Out (while our competitors offered them), no fleet retirements (again, done at Delta & American)..
Finally the word that we would be furloughing 2250. In three batches,
Finally an Early Out and Furlough mitigation... that was suppose to reduce those initial numbers.
Then our competitors announce their furlough numbers and it's a reduction from their initial numbers.
And then there's us.
Motch