Originally Posted by
hummingbear
I think the company was probably estimating needing around 2K furloughs come summer ‘21, which is why they allow themselves that number in the TA. Where they were anticipating 2K furloughs and the rest at full pay, we’ve locked in up to 2K furloughs & concessionary pay for the rest for up to a year plus. Of course, that’s all just based on predictions. Only time will tell who was right.
I think that they had come to the crossroads and were faced with a difficult decision using incomplete data. They were not going to burn massive amounts of cash to keep the airline fully staffed to be in a position for recovery. This deal lets them reduce the cash burn and kick the can down the road for a few months and hopefully make a more informed decision using more complete data. I don’t believe that they were just going to furlough 2,000 and be done. If they had started furloughs now, they would have committed to that plan and right sized the airline for demand, and 3,900 was the starting point. This will allow more people to elect to retire early and wait a few months to see what happens. If we do furlough deep next year, there will hopefully be 600+ pilots off of the top that will reduce involuntary furloughs for the junior, and put the rest of us closer to the top of the smaller United. Hindsight will be 20/20, and in a few years the correct decision will be obvious, until then it’s nothing more than a guess.