Any Idea about the July 16th-17th ORD Meet and Greet? I want to attend, you know what class they will be hiring into from that?

 

Dude there’s a door prize for anyone who shows up wearing an ‘Us against Them’ hat; Assistant chief pilot, base and aircraft of your choice.

 

Maybe I'm confused but are the new Airbuses in 2014 and beyond an investment? Or the Airbus sim, or the new headquarters? To name a few. Planned 70 Airbuses by 2018.

 

Do you mean the leases on airbuses? Why lease when they can buy? Oh I know, because borrowed money is cheap. And why leased to sunset asset management? Unlike Spirit, we are getting old, trashed airbuses. If we were really investing in the future, why not purchase new?

You think that fancy, ridiculously overpriced corporate building the execs hide in is an investment in the operation? The one with the "hangar", lounges and game rooms? It was probably funded in part from the savings generated from taking away the crew rooms actually needed for the operation.
Airbus sims? They belong to Avenger. The first one wasn't even sponsored by Allegiant. When management found out they couldn't get sim time and we're having to send guys back to Airbus, they 'sponsored' the second sim. We still have still only purchased 1 FTD. You'd never guess there are plans for 70 Airbus by the investment that has been put forth.

And what about investment in the -80? How many engines have to blow and major issues occur before the company decides to use a reputable maintenance vendor that knows MD-80s like AA, like they used to? AAR is a cheap alternative that was chosen to save money. You'd think the valujet/saber tech contract maintenance experience would have taught them a lesson. Why do we hire 'B' Scale mechanics with no experience? Because they're cheaper and we pay new mechanics the samewe pay new flight attendants. So that is all we can get and as soon as they are trained they move on to real "airlines" not travel companies. Same applies to the dispatchers. Crew schedulers usually last a few weeks before they quit. Ground instructors have short life spans too. Information technology is in a constant state of chaos by what we see in 80% of our emails. The learning curve is always steep everywhere in the company for the same reason: lack of investment. Throw a body at it to plug the hole. No training, no supervision, high turnover. But it's cheap and the investors profit. The ones who foot the bill are the passengers and the employees left to fix the mess.
If you honestly believe that there has been enough invested in the operation and support that goes into running an airline, than yes, I would say you're definitely confused.

 

Yep, let's give back the Airbuses, the sponsered sim and the headquarter since they are not investments into the future. Md 80 all the way.

 

There you go again Sir. I mean g4er. You lost? Management’s pilot hate room is just done the hall. By the way, what color is your hat? Happen to catch that Delta vote Sir? We’re comin for ya.. Times they be a changin. You wont contain/control the B.S. message in the age of instant info.

Sir….

 

Nice try.

No, if we are to actually INVEST in the future, let's BUY Airbuses that are NEW instead of cheap old, high cycle heaps that we leased. Please don't go believing these heaps are investments in infrastructure or future, they are just dollars in shareholder pockets. The economic gains of the Airbus are immediate and cover the lease payment ten fold. Nothing but short-term strategy here.

While we're there let's actually BUY (not sponsor) new Airbus sims. We should have learned from our disastrous Pan Am experience that poor sim support will hit the op as hard as broken airplanes. Oh wait, "we don't want to get in the sim business". And don't forget the rest of the argument you conveniently left out, namely lacking investment in EVERYTHING except the shareholders.

The fancy waste of money headquarters building you can keep, the old one worked just fine. I'm still shocked at the clueless, completely disenfranchised letters boasting of lavish headquarters facilities as us 'operators' were losing our crew rooms. The King lives lavishly in his new castle on the backs of the loathsome, taxed villagers, laughing and scoffing at them as they suffer.

 

I'd be curious to know how many of these *civilian* hires had a military background. In my class, one of the military guys came over after six months at ExpressJet, the other fresh out of training at Frontier. I happen to be in the schoolhouse right now, and my sim parter was hired from Atlas. He was there 9 months, after spending 20 years in the Air Force.

The statistics aren't always what they seem.

 

Yep, you got me. The Airbus just appeared magically at the company with Zero investment from MG. I agree more should be invested in the company but when you say Zero I think you lose all credibility.

 

The -80s aren't delivering the immediate financial returns the Airbus can. If you believe that renting a used and abused Airbus for immediate higher profit is investment, than it is you that losses credibility. If those savings were re-invested back into the operation and its employees you might have an argument, but instead, $180M went right out the door to the shareholders at a time when capital infusion in infrastructure was desperately needed. These are high cycle planes and unlike the -80s, they are limited lifespan. This is no more an investment than a building rented out for a Ponzi scheme.