Perhaps the money can be taken as grant with ties to equity but there is an option for it to be repaid. So when the market returns and revenue restarts, companies that are making profits can repay the sums and recover their equity. Haven’t read the thousands of pages so don’t know...

it doesn’t sound like the grant is tied to F9 owning anything later. BB was saying that it isn’t really grant money. It’s basically the same funds that the fed would have to pay in unemployment if airlines were to furlough. Instead, they are using the same funds to just keep the people on payroll. The loans (which we don’t need) have strings attached and must be paid back.

Maybe unlikely, but I could see a scenario where we take the loans. It doesn't have strings attached to Indigo, just F9. It would lower our CASM to a even more ridiculously low number.

I mean if someone offered you and interest free loan, why not take it if you are 1000% positive you can repay it.

did you listen to the call? He said we are taking the 200million in grant money, but that payroll cost for the same period was 300 million. Therefore, they are working with APLA and AFA to offer better COLA and leave options to close the gap from the 200 million grant to the 300 million payroll cost.......More details on the leaves will follow in 24-48 hours.

As a business owner, when someone offers you free or cheap money, you jump at the opportunity as long as you can pay it back.

IOW: "hey everybody, I want you to know I'm a business owner!".

If they are planning on flying even a third of the fleet on average by Sept 30th then the costs are part of the regular cost of doing business. They shouldn’t discount necessary staff against the 200 mil. That’s the pot of money to float the fat that would be trimmed. Is that not the point of the grant money.

I hear what your saying but I would imagine the initial ramp back up isn’t going to be 80% loads. Definitely not the normal cost of doing business. It’s more than likely a break even plan. They can’t cut pay so the their only option to save payroll costs are colas. That’s a good thing for us. I’m planning on taking a cola if it’s reasonable.

I was pleasantly surprised at the candid speak from BB during the teleconference. No doom and gloom, mostly recapping what has happened from an operations standpoint while the bookings fell off almost entirely. And some positive outlook about where they predict to be this summer with contingency plans if demand doesn’t return. But most of all, not only a plan to survive but to forge a new path later this year. It left me thinking why BB only chose to be a leader now, but better late than never I suppose.

If I had to paraphrase the last 8 minutes of the teleconference is would be “Cash is King to survive this crisis, which we have, but Cost is King to emerge successful on the other side; which we’re already set-up to do.”

As they say, “actions speak louder than words.” I’m already doing the part I agreed to for the money/benefits we approved in the current CBA. Let’s see if Barry can earn those equity options that he WILL NOT be forgoing this April through June.

Never thought I'd say this......but I'll crack the beer open early and cheers to that. I agree. Finally a path laid out and a bit of leadership. I was curious when the rudderless ship was going to run ashore.

So in listening to this teleconference at what point did he say F9 WAS taking the grant? Something that stood out to me was that he didn’t want involuntary furloughs, but brought up a gap from $220M to $300M in payroll. What happens if they only save some of that in COLAS, ETC.?
I guess we wait to hear something from the Union or the Company shortly.

Read the memo in Comply, easier to digest and says the same things as the call. It says utilizing government money is “likely”. Can’t say it’s a sure thing, still have to apply to the Treasury. If there’s still a payroll shortfall then I wouldn’t expect our checks to bounce. Our cash position is strong. Just relax, for once I have a good feeling that we will get through this.

Pretty sure that payroll number includes fa as well. They’ll get some colas there as well.

BB has demonstrated leadership and I’m very hopeful for our future. Let’s all come together and make sure this place survives.

Agreed!
*fluff*

Is there a recording of this conference call? No memo or email prior... SHM

Check comply. The 5 page memo is in there.

There is a recording of the call circulating. Reach out to people you know, someone can probably send it to ya. His talk is definitely worth a listen. I thought BB was on point and that he sounded like a man with plan. It was the best news I'd heard in awhile.

Long Road. But Forbes likes us...
 

This Corona shutdown is the ultimate test of business models.

Aside from Govt intervention, we should find out who's model works best in really bad times.

Its already obvious... the big 4 need a load factor of 73-78% just to break even on a flight... frontier and spirit will probably end up doing well but at this point and at the rate things are going, everyone is looking at “not being the same size” come October 1... everything depends on when and if people decide they wanna go flying again... no airline wants to put pilots on the street, but I think that’s especially true of frontier and spirit... they wanna get going asap

On a separate thought, what do you think the chances of the may bid period opening tomorrow... I’m at 6.483% they do

Where did you get percentage number that SWA needs that kind of load factor to break even? I rink you’re off a little.

ha ha, I’m a little more confident at 16%!

Hey ostrich, how ya feeling these days? Is your skinny little head out of the sand yet?

Everything he said is true. You are the one with your head in the sand or up your a..

There have been worse pandemics but they were greatly ignored or underreported by the media and slow to react to by a lame president who acted 7 months into the pandemic. But we all got Obama phones with 200 free minutes!! Woo Hoo!! Fist bump!!
Todd Chavez might be a putz but he is our putz so head on back over to your own forum and spew your doom and gloom over there. We plan on making it through this.

This one is not over yet. So we really don’t know how bad it’s going to be. But which other pandemic in the last 20 or 30 years has been worse and under reported? Because I really don’t know of any.

The swine flu killed approx. 12000 people in the US. We're already approaching that number with this, and it's just getting started.

hey hey now lets not talk facts. this is a media hyped virus and fake news and "just like the flu"

oh flu victims don't go to the ICU ward and are in medically induced comas ?

uhh....

8314 deaths in the US as of the end of the day yesterday. Based on predictive models by people far smarter and more educated than a group of pilots who may have stayed at a holiday inn express, we are approaching the peak point in the next week to twelve days. So, yes. We will likely see more than 12000 deaths, but to say that this is “just getting started” is a little melodramatic. What is truly “just getting started” is the economic destruction that this is causing.

https://www.mdmag.com/medical-news/f...us-cdc-reports

just some facts to help the debate... can’t wait to see how far down the rabbit hole this can get.

Thousands of the worst cases do, yes. A shocking percentage of them die while there as well.

basically anybody sick enough to be on a respirator for acute respiratory distress from ANY cause has about a 40-50% chance of dying. Fortunately most influenza (and coronavirus) cases don’t get that ill.

250,000-500,000 people a year die due from the Flu.

with different states following different guidance (7 with no shelter in place order, even) and virtually zero stats on reinfection plus testing still limited to probable infected, how is a peak even being spitballed?

the flu has 5 Million cases annually

COVID has 1.2M cases as of 04-5-2020. And 67k deaths. In four months.

See you in December

The flu had over 29 million cases this season alone just in the U.S. I put that article in a few posts back. Covid-19 seems to be more “deadly”, but it’s been in the states since November-December time frame. There are a lot of people walking around who have had it not known and recovered. So arguing this stuff is pretty pointless until we have a real comparison.

It’s awesome to see how many pilots here in their downtime became epidemiologists! Good on you guys! Always gotta have that B plan!