Originally Posted by Thrust Hold;[url=tel:3930326
3930326[/url]]What we're experiencing is the hangover from the good times the company had during COVID. Unfortunately, it was the company that got to enjoy being drunk and we're stuck being the ones paying for it. The company ate, drank, got fat, dumb, and happy. Everything that they did in excess led to DRIVE, One FedEx, and Network 2.0.
Thrust,
I see it a bit differently. The company used covid to their advantage in a few ways:
1) They made a lot of money because all of a sudden people couldn’t or didn’t want to leave their house, so volumes skyrocketed, and hence revenue and profit as well.
2) They had to operate in an environment that was extremely dynamic and with multiple constraints. The schedulers and network planners learned how to use revisions, extensions, and draft to maximize the output of the crew force. Then as things opened back up post-Covid they had a whole new bag of tricks to optimize things. Additionally, they got the benefit of trying these new tricks in a time and situation in which no one really questioned what was going on…in fact most of us were willing participants.
3) Intentionally or not, they were able to over-hire going into a negotiation for a new contract. We’re seeing the fallout from that now.
In fact, I’d claim that it was the crew force at large that got fat dumb and happy. Many of us got addicted to the Covid money, and thought it was was going to last forever. In the process we willingly gave up probably the best bit of leverage we’ve had in the last 20 or so years for short term paychecks.