captnate702

I get it, its incredibly frustrating that JR is reaping cash for a swamp that will never make money. But what really sucks, and the point of all this is that our membership is going to have to suffer - not JR. Its our pilots whose livelihoods are on the line. And no matter evil, inept, corrupt, union-loathing, etc. management is, they don't have a legal obligation to represent the best interests of their employees. Their obligation is to shareholders. The Union's obligation is to protect the employment of ALL of its members, not just the senior pilots.

I don't envy our exco one bit in having to deal with corrupt management, but that is their job - that is what we pay them to do. Their job is to avoid/reduce furloughs without concessions (aka voluntary participation). I hope that our exco did not refuse to extend the ETO which helps mitigate furloughs just because they didn't want to negotiate with management because that just not right. No matter how corrupt management is, and no matter how drawn out and painful the negotiations, the purpose of a union is to do everything in their power to protect the jobs of its members.

I frankly don't know if exco did everything they could to protect the jobs of the 100-275, but i truly hope they did. I hope that we get more info from exco soon and i hope the message is that exco did everything they could to preserve jobs and mitigate furloughs.

Losamigos

Strap in folks!

FreshWater

I honestly don’t know if management is doing everything they can to save pilot jobs and not furlough our pilots. I sure hope we get some more information and transparency from our management as to why they haven’t taken any loan money from the cares act that is still available for them to take, before it’s too late. I sure hope they tell us why they haven’t fired JR and his worthless band of sunseeker hotel staff and their multi-million-dollar compensation packages.

rdneckpilot

Personally I don’t want them to do whatever they can to save my job. In fact there is a long list of things I’m sure they could do to prevent furloughs. If they did I would probably quit. I would prefer a recall to a good job than keeping a crappy one. I can get a crappy job any day of the week. Let’s keep this place not crappy.

KC135

Yes the balance sheet is stronger than is was pre-covid, which includes more cash and short term equivalents while reducing debt. If cash was being hemorrhaged you would see it being decreased on the balance sheet. Daily cash burn is negative but that shouldn't be confused with negative cash flow. Daily cash burn is simply cash from ops minus debt/rent payments and capex outflows. The 900k daily cash burn number you see is a Q2 average while April and May are not even on the same page as June. June bookings alone resulted in a cash breakeven for that month. That doesn't not include CARES money, cash from leaseback, tax refund, etc, which is the reason there is a overall cash inflow (not cash hemorrhaging) and stronger balance sheet. Even ignoring the high probability of CARES2 , we can expect a 125 million tax refund in early 2021 along with the option for a 276 million cares 1 loan which is nowhere even remotely close to being needed. Additional equity offerings aren't even a discussion at this point. Yes the business still has a long way to go on this recovery but it is in no way close to the doom and gloom described.

Squeakygreaser

. Yes the business still has a long way to go on this recovery but it is in no way close to the doom and gloom described.[/QUOTE]

I don't know. I think our most recent week was ten percent of the revenue from the same week the year before. I'd say it's pretty bad. I get that they have more cash then they did at the beginning of the summer. Just like all the airlines. But if no more welfare checks are coming, then, yeah it's bad. It's really bad.

I can relate to goose's frustration with the negotiations, I'm going to be laid off for the second time in my career and it always hits you after relocation costs and first year pay. Basically, the time you are least financially able to absorb it. If I could take a fifteen percent reduced pay ten years from now during the next downturn to save myself a 100 percent reduced pay today, I'd take it. Unfortunately that's not how this negotiation process works. I think our EXCO made an ok choice to try to get them to guarantee no furloughs for a few months, in exchange for the ETO continuation. The company could have taken that deal, they have the money to afford that.

I also don't understand why the company keeps trying to undermine our union leadership, it's not a democracy. It's more like a representative democracy and those on the furlough list are under the voting age. All of us on the chopping block have no power to do anything. We can try to keep in mind what this was like for someday when we might have more influence, but we can't do anything about it right now, except whine on APC.

Coming from the management perspective I think if management really expects the pilot group to consider this deal where they are picking out bases to hand out leaves, violating seniority, they need to actually run the full displacement bid for the next six months, then run the full short term leave bid for the next six months so that people can actually see what is going to happen to them. And they should offer 50 for the people who voluntarily take leave. I think our first experiment with that showed that senior pilots won't take the 45 hour leave at a very high rate.

But in the end even if they did all that and a majority of pilots wanted to vote for the seniority violation leave option, the EXCO very likely would still not put it out to vote. At least that's my opinion, having seen how pilot unions work. I've never heard of a pilot's union taking a deal like that. If someone has please feel free to enlighten me.

Personally I don't really understand why pilot's unions and labor unions in general treat seniority as such a sacred cow, I think a lot of money get's lost in situations like this especially at mutliple-fleet carriers. And it's causing us a problem because of the microbases. But whatever the logic or history of that mindset is, it is the way it is, it's very entrenched, and there isn't anything the people at the bottom can do about it.

So why keep sending us these emails complaining about the Union?

ramalama

I wouldn’t worry. These big boys know how to run their own show. Come October 1 they can cancel any flight thats not profitable, shuffle money and taxes, and show a profit or loss however they see fit. Its far from doom and gloom. But of course thats the picture that will be painted as they see fit.

Nick Bradshaw

But it is about the senior pilots. Always has been. They had to put up with MG in a non union environment so they are now the holy ones, don't you know that? Just ask one. The union is run by senior pilots and protects senior pilots. Nearly every communication from them official or unofficial, has had the air of "suck it up junior, pay your dues, we had it so much worse"?

Andrew was clear in his video that he withheld the ETO as a negotiating strategy. That seems to have backfired. I agree it's their job to protect all pilots but the fact is that the union has done nothing, zero, zip, nada to minimize the number of furloughs. Instead they have laid it in the company's lap and played the blame game, as if it's management's fault that a pandemic happened. We are the only major airline that hasn't negotiated furlough mitigation. They talk a good game, because they are swamp politicians who like to keep their power and benefits, but at the end of the day they don't care one whit about junior pilots. They actions speak louder than words.

Only a brainwashed fool would fall on his sword right now for this group. A job at less compensation is better than no job. Stop beating your chest. Nobody is going to give you a gold star for taking one for the team. Those feels won't pay your bills.

It's really bad. Anyone who can't see that or wants to pull in obscure financial maneuvers to show profitability and justify the union's bad position is making this too complicated to serve their selfish purpose. An airline (or any business) can't survive with 25% of their YOY revenue and 100% of their YOY overhead. This is not complicated!

I'm sure most furloughs would rather take a forced ETO for 6-12 months than a 100% loss of pay and benefits. But that's not even on the table because the union has refused to go to the table. That would have to be a negotiated settlement because our CBA only gives 2 options: furlough or active. Andrew refused to even extend the ETO program they had in place because he thought it would give them leverage. Doesn't look like that worked since the company's counterproposal was worse. No wonder they don't want to negotiate.

I don't see the company trying to undermine the union any more than any other management would. It's a cat and mouse game. It's that way at every airline. I see management making their case directly to the pilots because they see that the pilots are being brainwashed or coerced to support a cause that really only benefits the upper 25%. Just go on the facebook page (which we now know the company reads) and view all the sycophantic cheers for the union leadership (mostly coming from other elected leaders). It's sickening and its always from the same handful of people. Meanwhile the silent minority just sits back and scratches our heads. I see the company making a sober presentation of the financial prospects as they see them. I see the union chest beating, pretending there's no pandemic, and refusing to do their jobs. You can argue over the numbers and the severity of the situation, but you can't argue that the situation is bad. The union seems OK to sacrifice the bottom 30% and plow forward. That's pretty amazing. I guess that's their version of majority rules. "Suck it up and pay your dues junior". Now go home explain to your pregnant wife why losing your job and health insurance is actually a noble endeavor and expect praise for taking one for the team. I'm sure she will understand.

You're correct on this one. Management not putting a displacement out in early August for October 1 undermines their case. Maybe they were hoping the union would play ball. Since they didn't I'm sure we will see one next week. I hope pilots hold them accountable when that happens. It's gonna be ugly.


You nailed it. Having all of these bases creates islands of seniority. The union is operating like we still have 5 bases. They can't use the same playbook they have used in the past. They are sacrificing a lot of members not all of them junior. When some of the micro bases are closed pilots are going to be surprised when they get bumped back in their big base. Look at the seniority in BLI. The top 1-2 pilots in most of the small bases are very senior. The union chairman intentionally bids a junior base 2000 miles from his home because it artificially inflates his pay so I'm sure he understands this concept. A lot of people may also not consider that the higher seniority pilots pay the most dues so they get the most influence. The union knows where their money comes from. This is also why they resist concessions or ETO programs that would effect the senior. Simply put, laying off junior pilots costs them less in dues revenue than senior pilots taking pay cuts or leaves. It's basic economics.

Because the company sees that the pilot group is being fed rabble rousing, self serving propaganda that is false and dangerous to the survival of the company. They have the right to tell their side of the story and let the pilot group decide. The pilot group should also feel empowered to ask questions of their leadership not get shouted into submission by their leaders and peers. There is too much hatred for management at this company and most of the complaints are for things that happed 5-10 years ago. The pilots who arrived in the last 5 years shouldn't be beating the drum just because those who were here longer got mistreated 10 years ago. Those who arrived after 2015 have had it pretty good here and if they deny that they are lying. They are also about 50% of the seniority list so they could change things if they wanted to. But the hate is strong and feels good.

Nick Bradshaw

Here's the bottom line. I'm sure there are more than 100 senior pilots who would take a voluntary leave if the package was right. The 45 ETO wasn't high enough. If it was in the neighborhood of 50-55 hours and guaranteed benefits, including pass bennies and CASS staying on it would be popular. But the union refuses to negotiate. The company countered way low and the union walked away. Another half truth they sell is that the ETO was useless because the company didn't award all the requests. The reason for that is because the CARES act required them to fly most of the routes and they need the bodies to do that. They were artificially shorthanded due to CARES flights. All that changes 10/1 when they can cancel whatever they want. But right now there isn't even the original ETO option because the union refuses to engage. "Let them eat cake".

EALOFFSPRING

The daily cash burn will be down to $500-700k/day in Q3. At that burn rate the company can last 2 years without raising more cash. We do have higher debt/equity than we did at the start, but nothing that would send investors running for the hills as is reflected in the stock price.
The company is trying to find savings wherever it can, always, so the doom and gloom is not shocking. That being said, I believe the union should be constantly engaging the company to find a solution. That should never be shut down. If we can find a solution to this problem, it is in everyone's best interest to make it happen.