Originally Posted by
XOpilot
III Corps,
I understand your frustration with David Siegel. His track record is horrific from an employee perspective. However, you are a little confused in a few areas.
that remains to be seen...
So clearly, Bonderman cannot force the board to do anything. You might also be surprised to learn the single largest group of shareholders at XO are the employees! I am not sure if Paul or TPG is next, but make no mistake this is not a TPG owned company!
I was not under any impression XO was owned by TPG but Bonderman didn't put $363mil into the company just to be silent. And he brought his attack dog with him. My point is just be very wary.
. At an airline, one way to achieve that goal is to reduce employee compensation. The down side to that strategy is that it tends to alienate the labor groups, and and their displeasure is most often reflected back on the customer. It's not such a big deal at an airline since customer expectations are incredibly low, and they are overwhelmingly motivated by cheap fares.
I would debate that in that casual customers flying on cheap fares may not care about service but repeat and business customers do and they vote with their feet and their $$$.
The pilot group is almost entirely responsible for providing the "customer experience" since most of our flights do not have flight attendants. Our passengers often have little or no other interaction with the company. When we great our passengers at their limo's, we are XOJET... not simply XOJET pilots.
I've done military, part 135, part 121 and back now in Part 91 and in each case my 'customer' had high expectations including the ground troops asking for air support. And in each community, I took it as part of my responsibility to meet and exceed their expectations. And as part of my crew briefing, I asked the crew to make sure we exceeded all expectations.. that we were the face of the carrier and for 3-4 days we would wow the crowd. A few exceptions aside, most crews agreed to put aside the crap that was happening and give the customer more than they had bargained for. the result was a lot of thanks and lots of good letters. Truth be told though.. we did it for personal standards, not so much for the company.
My opinion is that David Siegel is smart enough to realize that screwing with the pilot group is not in his or the companies best interest. I don't know exactly what independent power the Bylaws grant our Executive Chairman, but I would not be surprised if he can fire the CEO without board approval. Either way, if Seigel tries to dramatically change our culture to the detriment of the company, the board will not stand for it.
You may be surprised at what a board will stand for if they think there is some additional money to be made. And I doubt Siegel will try to
dramatically change the company but over time, be very careful about the erosion.
And by him merely being there, the culture
has changed.
Just remember, Davie is
not your friend.If he doesn't already know it, he will soon have a snapshot of his employees, where they live and that will tell him all he needs to know about your cost of living, where you kids go to school, what type car you probably drive... he will have a detailed picture of you and where he can squeeze.
"...you know.. times are tough... market is down... we need 20+% to make sure we can continue to meet our standards.. and if we don't get it, we will have to start laying off some people and deferring airplanes." You don't want your friend Bob and Harry to hit the streets. Davie says 'gotta have 20+% and you tell him, "Can't do 20% Davie", then when
negotiations are over and it is only 10-15%, you, your friends Bob and Harry still have jobs and some will think they won when the truth is Davie was just being Davie...
Just be aware... very aware.