Elevation

I respect you and my Toydarian comrade. If I understand your points, you are saying that this information could not genuinely be confidential because it seems unimportant. You are also saying this is all a ploy to manipulate the pilot group.

I agree and I disagree. To more clearly lay out my point, please allow me to review the basics of BS. Bear with me if this seems obvious.

BS requires coordination and secrecy. This is why BS ultimately fails. Coordination, especially when you look at second and third order effects is hard to do without facts aligning people. Secrecy is very short-lived. A secret's life is shortened by the numbers of people with access to that secret and the amount that secret is used. This is why some bs around our inability to adjust certain wakeups fell apart.

The idea that this is a manipulation to avoid contract improvements doesnt hold up. They hold the cards and can simply say "no". BSing along these lines is all cost and no benefit. They could just stay quiet and be better off.

What this IS is an attempt to reach out directly to the pilot group since a lot of our information is heavily filtered and spun. In that much, yes, it is an attempt to manipulate pilots.

So I come back to BS detection and secrecy for this piece. I mostly integrate seemingly innocuous leaks to build a picture of the landscape before me. Over the years this has served me well. Seemingly small missteps aggregate into a useful lowdown.

Somebody made the decision that the benefit of sharing this information was worth the risks. By leaking we up the risks and make it harder to share.

On whether or not something is secret: did they say "keep this secret?". Did you access the information through secure means? It's secret. Even if it's toilet paper orders.

Crusoe

I disagree. Managing (ie- lowering) expectations is union-busting/union labor relations 101.

It’s what they do & what they’ve done in one form or another since forever. The new CEO has repeatedly intimated that he wishes to not be seen to be from the same mold as previous anti-labor/anti-pilot bosses who fought labor tooth & nail. He’s attempting to simultaneously maintain system performance (happy customers) & labor peace by creating hope - by dangling the idea that he is open to making improvements. Although judging by their actions he seems adamant to not pull out the checkbook to actually invest in labor. It’s a fine line though because attrition/staffing failures are a prime driver of performance issues/failures that ultimately cause customers like DHL to get upset and drop a/c and/or contracts.

What we’re seeing so far is simply another version of their infamous “keep ‘em on the reservation”.

Elevation

I respect your analysis. I'm not sure I see the end-game you see. I know you aren't suggesting this, but a tendency towards sensational recalcitrance has built and remained over the last several years. I think we need to see and act with clear eyes. That means taking good stock of our situation and options.

Watto

I don't think it's ALL manipulation, just noting the coincidence in timing of leading off a Q and A session with that little tidbit. We're not publically traded anymore, share price is not a consideration. Could it affect negotiations with other customers, sure, but how long would this have been kept from them? Few more days / weeks / months? Your guess is as good as mine.

They knew going in most questions were going to be about how the company plans to address attrition (pay, retirement, etc questions) so to lay that dead cat on the table at the start... Well, maybe it was all a coincidence.

I'm open minded, truth is always somewhere in the middle. But I will commit to one thing: They will never simply say "no".

Grumbling pilots isn't an issue for them. Attrition is. Saying "no" to the idea of possible improvements doesn't work for them. How many Atlas crews sitting on the fence would simply leap if they have a straight "no"? How do you sell the place to prospective new hires with a straight "no"?

notthesame

Anyone who genuinely thinks that a multinational corporation with thousands of employees would share confidential information on a company wide zoom call.... well, I have some land in Florida to sell you.

Elevation

It's not the information that matters. We all have access to this through internal means. Many of us, including those on the meeting say "Level with us! Tell us your intentions.". When each an every pilot at Atlas has the ability to see the same info, we chose to spray it out in public. Expect more silence.

The nature of the information is immaterial. We are fouling ourselves as individuals try to be seen as the first delivering the news. I think we know these leaks are counter-productive, and we may be in a rationalization exercise.

Elevation

Good perspective. So you're saying they are dangling a carrot to manage attrition? That sort of makes the other news more believable, doesn't it?

121again

100% agree. I see no indication they plan on doing anything differently other than a couple of fluff items and they’ll do everything possible to avoid cost increases while they wait it out.

Lionhaart

What we’ve done is shown management that we can’t keep things confidential.

just when they were probing our level of trust.

if mgmt keeps things to themselves from now on
we can’t blame them.

Pity

TiredSoul

Again you seem to miss the point.
This is not earth-shattering market influencing news.
A drop in the bucket and reassignment of just a handful of assets.

(old news)
https://www.dhl.com/global-en/home/p...reighters.html