Originally Posted by
Stryker
its nice to hear that the company is finally starting to budge a little... Maybe they finally realize that in order to keep people there, they have to give them more than food stamps....
I don’t know if it’s all about employee retention. Look at what JO’s miss management has led to as far as increasing cost and decreasing revenue. Just to name the big hitters, you have
attrition which has been out of control at Mesa for years and leads to an increase in training cost, but this alone isn’t enough to bring JO to the table. How do I know that this isn't enough? Think about it; Mesa's attrition has been around 50% during a period when everyone started to have problems filling classes (Mesa included) and this didn't bring him to the table. So why, when his attrition is somewhat slowed due to today's climate and he is now able to fill classes because no one else is hiring, is he now willing to negotiate over this small problem. Now add to it the
back pay to UAL for poor performance and missing contractual numbers plus the lack of performance bonuses which added all together has probably cost Mesa well over $150M+ in the last 3 years alone and
let’s not forget about the $57M ($80M) Go!/Hawaiian fiasco. You can see that it's an accumulation of errors that have lead up to the straw that may have broken the camel’s back.
Up until
DAL cancelled their contract (“the straw”) Orenstein was probably going to fight his pilot group for years in order to get a "cost neutral" TA but now that he’s seen firsthand what his pilots are capable of when they all work together in the company's favor as compared to when they work together against………..what am I talking about? The pilots on the freedom ticket have been fighting to improve performance in an attempt to retain their jobs/flying. JO has probably noticed the improved numbers and finally realized that if he gives his pilots an industry average to better contract they’ll fight companywide thus saving him tens of millions of dollars each year in contractual bonuses and back pay, even after his labor groups pay role increase $10-15M+. Not to mention the possibility of retaining current flying in the future.
Mesa pilots……………….does this hold water? Or is JO not that smart?