I'd make a couple of points about BW from what I have seen.
1. He was just a line swine when he was furloughed and hired off the street into crew resources.
2. He is the invisible hand behind not furloughing later and (maybe) carrying extra bodies today.
3. I don't know if he is a "pilot advocate," but he definitely was able to translate the possibility of "bad blood" from furloughing into goodwill (even though we may not acknowledge it).
4. I have never heard a swabbo that worked with/for him have anything but praise from the Navy days.

There is no doubt he's being groomed (whatever that means). IMO, he already has the credentials.

I can't think of anything bad to say about BW, an all around good guy. I'm just surprised since he's still on the seniority list. I don't know how that hashes out with him as COO of Pinnacle.
I

Your item number 2 is not close to correct. I wish him well at PCL, especially working with a CEO 20 years his junior and (though very experienced) a first time CFO in a company that's undergoing restructuring.

Don't let the regional guys know that good judgment should be well compensated.

Actually I would say that you are partially incorrect as well.

Just looking at the numbers, many other airlines would have furloughed quite a few of our pilots currently on the seniority list. There are many many pilots right now who are sitting around flying very little collecting the reserve guarantee. In my opinion there are three reasons why they are not furloughed.

1. BW had in fact persuaded his superiors that furloughing, while resulting in short-term gains to the balance sheet, would result in much more long term damage to it as it bred yet another generation of ill will from pilots who had been laid off.

2. Some in our management in fact realize that our complex fleet, while it brings in lots of revenue by providing our network planners with the ideal aircraft for the ideal city pairings at any particular time of year, also has some drawbacks. One of those is the fact that we have a lot of categories. Heck, we have five different widebody categories: 7ER, 765, A330, 777, 747. Thus having lots of bases and categories means that there will always be some category somewhere that is severely undermanned, and another elsewhere significantly overmanned. It is just the price of doing business.

3. Most importantly, DALPA has realized that a no-furlough clause wasn't worth the toilet paper it was written on. Why waste negotiation capital on a provision that management can (and has and will) use force majeure on to sidestep? Instead, we have layered penalties for management furloughing pilots. The contract states:

If a pilot on the seniority list with an employment date prior to July
1, 2012 is placed on furlough, the Company will convert all 76-seat aircraft for operation as 70-seat aircraft.

Management wants 76-seaters very badly (thus our recent contract with more 76-seaters). ALPA was smart enough to realize that if we couldn't bring the 76-seaters to mainline we could at least capture some protective value for our junior guys with this provision. Further, this provision, unlike some other protective provisions, is not subject to force majeure. To furlough even one pilot would be very costly indeed--EVERY 76 seater would have to have the 6 seats removed for even ONE furlough. The management bean-counters hate this language. The contract isn't preventing furloughs--it just makes it rather expensive.

Is Pinnacle going to make him give up his Delta seniority number before they give him the job? :eek:

Oh, wait, wrong DCC. :D

At this point, the cast of Jersey Shore could probably do a better job of running PNCL then the current management team they have over there.

Thanks for the correction Slow. It must have been Chairman Moak's insightful leadership.:rolleyes:

Slow,

Any chance you can go into a little more detail here regarding item number 2?
Did he not have anything to do with us not furloughing, or did we not furlough despite him. :confused:

Thanks Scoop

Did you apply for the job? Who better could you ask for to run a low cost Connection carrier than a protege of JO himself?