Originally Posted by
Fr8Master
So in your opinion the options FedEx had were to either build a new wing and add several sim bays OR sign a long agreement with Atlas? OK….let’s say they decided to build a new wing, that project will take on average 3-4 years from the moment the decision is made to completion. They needed airplanes and crews NOW.
Now you’re saying express jet is an example of point to point regional jet flying as a success story? I’m not sure Express Jet and success have ever been in the same sentence together (other than the two I typed above).
Words mean very little when responding to wall streets constant nitpicking.
Yes the company opened scope. Anyone know what they are asking? Yeah, me either. I presume is a reduction of penalty payments with regard to unforeseen supply shocks, but I may be wrong and we will find out soon enough.
Once again, and for the final time, you don’t know the true cost of the contract and you don’t know the marginal cost of adding the capacity in house (assuming it was even possible at all in this time frame which it likely was not). Our training capacity is increased given the new utilization of FTDs with visuals for a larger part of training. You don’t even know what our programs capacities are at! Neither do I, but at least I am not running around making claims without facts. I’m simply pointing out things that I do know from personal experience at a previous job that probably came into play in this decision.
What I’m saying is first, it doesn’t matter whether you think expressjet successfully scheduled crews into point to point service. That’s because it was irrelevant to your guess as to why SWA doesn’t outsource. We know the answer. The answer is they their scope doesn’t allow it. Next, what I’m saying is that management told us they decided not build another wing to the training facility a few years ago. And the reasons is because they are getting push back from investors about capital expenditures, they prioritized away from training capacity. Yeah, it’s not cheap to use up cash to build another building to house another dozen more sims, FTDs, procedure trainers, etc. And to this day, they still haven’t started building it. So maybe it takes 3-4 years. Well, we would be halfway there by now and could see the end of the outsourcing tunnel. But since it was cheaper not to build another wing, and wait another who know how many years before it’s started, let alone complete and operational, I’m saying that it’s cheaper for them to outsource and open scope in the meantime. And if you think that they are negotiating scope for our benefit, then I don’t know what else to say to you. The more favorable we make it or keep it for them to outsource, the longer they wait to finally pull the trigger on added training facilities.
Here is what we know for sure. Right now, they made decisions not to build more training capacity. We know they are outsourcing more than they have in the past. We know they opened scope. We know they are cognizant of expenditures, of course they are, it’s their job to save as much costs in order to increase shareholder value. That is known. You don’t need to know more than those things to know that management will choose to save money anywhere they can, whether that be short term in delaying expenditures, or in outsourcing, or in eroding our contractual scope language for the long term.
Scope is everything. That is what I’m saying. Anything that takes away from that sentiment is not good for FedEx pilots.