Originally Posted by
aileronjam
That being said, people who work for VA are happy, people who work for UAL are extremely unhappy. That speaks for itself.
I never said anywhere in my posts that LCCs don't have an impact. I merely stated that to think that UAL's degrading contract doesn't impact the industry just as much, if not more, is not valid.
Everyone who gets a job is initially happy. Small units tend to be more cohesive. Irrelevant to the discussion. I think most would rather be unhappy at a stable legacy than happy at VA.
Your comments regarding UAL and their effect are valid, however what initially contributed to the BK of a number of legacies? Without a doubt, the pressure exerted by new entrants with extremely low cost structures, delayed lease payments, and sub-standard wages/benefits allowed these carriers to exert severe downward pressure with basement ticket prices on the legacies that they were not structured to counter.
Insult to injury is it was part of the models of these LCC's to undercut the legacies to the point where they planned on several failing before their costs inevitably rose as more mature carriers, by which time they'd have the market share to be sustainable.
After the beating the legacies took, to now claim that we pay more than XYZ legacy is disingenuous at best.