Originally Posted by
Airsupport
no. look how quickly you got a new contract when OWNERSHIP changed hands. your safety campaign did nothing. it was the fact that uncle jerry went down there and said to settle this thing now.
no way in a million years does pinnacle want to file for bankruptcy.
1. uncle phil and his boys own a lot of stock, and they bought LOTS of it at 10 bucks a share.
2. the company bought back millions of stock at 14 bucks a share.
3. we have no real assets.
NONE and i repeat NONE of the people we owe money to want pinnacle to go into bankruptcy and they would not even ask for it. We have no assets for them to get there money out of us in bankruptcy court. there best bet is to just let the payments slide, like it said in the press release. this big debt that is due in 2010 is just a scam to scare people who dont understand what is going on. So lets say the day comes around and we dont have the money. what are the people that we owe money to going to do? force us into bk and liquidate? they would get 0 for that since we dont own anything. nope they will just let us make good size payment and renegotiate the rest of it. dont be fooled by the scare tactics.
Witness Mesa, who seems to be weaseling their way out of similar debt obligations, even though they have much less going for them than we do...our 900s and Colgan's Qs would probably go to Bombardier, not other creditors, if we Corp. ever went into BK...
I think if people were worried about the 2010 debt payment, our stock would have gone down to the 0-50 cent range by now. If anyone thought the company couldn't handle that payment, they would've dumped the stock completely by now. Instead, it's up 60-75% since the 2008 earnings were released...
Last but not least, the company's ASAs with DAL/NWA provide for "passing on the bill" to Delta if we get an industry average contract...the company's only financial burden from a new contract would be a slight increase in necessary staffing due to reserve forumlas, days off, and work rules, which they might be able to absorb without new hires anyways.
The company needs stock value to finance that 2010 note, and signing a new pilot contract would provide a boost to their equity via an increase in share prices, especially in the short period after signing a new contract (with a new labor-friendly NMB in place, the removal of a 99% strike vote should be a boost to investor confidence (or rather remove one major hinderance to investor confidence)).
My personal theory is that the company will give us a contract just prior to the Feb 2010 debt payment deadlines...they can then renegotiate the terms of those debt obligations on a wave of shareholder optimism and the short-term boost in stock value caused by a multiyear pilot contract. They lose nothing (pass the bill on to Delta), and the gain a lot (positive news and share price bump just prior to going to the table with the Feb '10 creditors).