Heyas,

FWIW, I had Chip as an IP back in the day. Good guy!

Nu

 

Does anyone think the outcome will have an effect on the stock price either way?

 

post deleted

 

For a year Richard Anderson has been pointing out that we are already paying more to our non union employees than the AFA members. Either way, he says, we will pay a fair wage.

If the stock drops, it is a buying opportunity.

 

Heyas,

I agree with Bar.

Again. This is starting to be a trend....

Nu

 

Kind of funny since the vote closes in an hour and forty minutes.

 

here's a little nugget in the OO 3Q earnings report:

Cheers
George

 

I guess the results will be out at 1p central time.

Welcome to Workday Minnesota, your leading source for labor news!

I predict a close yes vote (54% to 46%, since the other guesses are taken). fNWA + fWestern vs ATL's not only NO but.......... plus close votes across the rest of the fDAL bases.

The few fDAL FAs I was unable to avoid the discussion with said they didn't mind a union, they just didn't want it to be the AFA.

We'll see, but I agree with T that this will be divisive and NOT the end of the maneuverings one way or the other.

Ferd

 

The AFA has already filed a protest with the NMB seeking a re-vote if they lose.

They are protesting the "pop-ups" on DeltaNet that urge people to vote.

Allegation is that those pop-up screens are management interference.

 

The whole market will dump tomorrow should the Fed act. This will help the stock price longer term, IMO.

United, Delta Gain Republican Allies on Outsourcing, Antitrust
By John Hughes and Angela Greiling Keane - Nov 3, 2010 10:28 AM CT
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Workers work on a Delta jet at Salt Lake City International Airport. Photographer: George Frey/Bloomberg

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Nov. 3 (Bloomberg) -- Billionaire investor Wilbur Ross, chairman of WL Ross & Co., talks about U.S. midterm elections. Republicans were projected to take control of the U.S. House and had picked up at least two Senate seats in elections marked by voter anxiety over jobs and the economy. Ross also discusses U.S. global competitiveness. He speaks from Washington with Charlie Rose on Bloomberg Television's "Battle for Capitol Hill." (Source: Bloomberg)

United Continental Holdings Inc. and Delta Air Lines Inc. are among U.S. carriers that will gain as Republicans use their new majority in the House to scrap proposals to limit the outsourcing of maintenance work and to subject global alliances to antitrust enforcement.

“Those types of issues will go away,” said David Schaffer, a consultant in Vienna, Virginia, and a former House aviation subcommittee Republican counsel, in an interview. Under Democratic control, lawmakers had approved provisions restricting the airlines’ overseas activities.

Republicans gained at least 60 seats in the House of Representatives, their biggest increase since 1938 and their first majority since 2006.

The resulting shift in lawmakers setting House transportation policy also may benefit FedEx Corp. in its effort to fight off unions, Macquarie Group Ltd. through its investments in toll roads and Toyota Motor Corp., whose executives faced grilling over auto recalls from a Democratic- run committee. The airlines seek a “do no harm” approach from the new Congress, according to the Air Transport Association, the industry’s biggest trade group.

“The current Congress has been anti-airline,” said William Swelbar, a research engineer specializing in air transport at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge. “There will be a new set of ears to listen to the industry.”

Republicans also gained at least six seats in the Senate, though Democrats retained control of that body.

House-approved legislation to finance the Federal Aviation Administration, still pending, would require drug testing and additional inspections at overseas maintenance centers used by U.S. carriers, potentially raising costs and making them less attractive to the airlines, Swelbar said.

27% of Work

Carriers use the centers in part to reduce expenses, Transportation Department Inspector General Calvin Scovel said in congressional testimony last year, without saying how much the companies save. Foreign centers performed 27 percent of heavy maintenance work by contractors for nine airlines in 2007, up from 21 percent in 2003, Scovel said.

U.S. airlines spent about $14.9 billion on maintenance in 2009, and passenger carriers used contractors at home and abroad for about 43 percent of the work, according to the U.S. Bureau of Transportation Statistics. Maintenance materials and outside repairs averaged 5.1 percent of operating expenses for United Airlines and 4.4 percent for Delta in 2008 and 2009, according to Bloomberg data.

Airline Alliances

The FAA funding measure also would restrict global airline alliances by ending their exemption from antitrust prosecution after three years. Carriers such as AMR Corp.’s American Airlines and British Airways Plc, and Delta and Air France-KLM, use alliances to act as single entities in setting prices and schedules on international routes.

Proposed alliance limits “would die a quick death” under Republicans, said James Burnley, a partner in Washington at Venable LLP who was transportation secretary under President Ronald Reagan.

American began an antitrust-protected venture on Oct. 1 with British Airways and Spanish carrier Iberia Lineas Aereas de Espana SA on Atlantic routes that will bring the companies $7 billion in combined annual revenue, AMR said Oct. 20.

The airlines posted their biggest profits since 2007 last quarter after reductions in seating capacity allowed them to raise fares once travel demand rose following the recession.

“We need a new Congress who agrees with us on the simple principle of do-no-harm,” Air Transport Association President James May said in a speech Oct. 25. “Allow us to compete in the global marketplace so we can regain financial stability.” May’s Washington trade group includes Chicago-based United Continental, Delta of Atlanta and AMR Corp.’s American Airlines based in Fort Worth, Texas, the three largest U.S. airlines.

Chairmanship Changes

The legislation fought by airlines was written by Democratic Representative James Oberstar of Minnesota, the chairman of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee chairman, who lost his re-election bid yesterday.

Republican Representative John Mica of Florida, who last year faulted some Democratic aviation proposals as “half- baked,” is in line to replace Oberstar as chairman. Representative Tom Latham of Iowa, who has criticized the government for failing to reduce aviation congestion, is in line to become chairman of the House Appropriation Committee’s transportation panel.

FedEx of Memphis, Tennessee, the world’s biggest cargo airline, is a corporate winner from the election because House Republicans will abandon Oberstar’s legislative campaign to ease union organizing at the company’s Express unit, Schaffer said. “With the Republican majority in the House, it’s dead,” he said.

Teamsters, UPS

The legislation, backed by the Teamsters Union and United Parcel Service Inc., would let FedEx Express ground workers vote locally to form unions rather than be forced to hold a nationwide election. UPS is the biggest employer of Teamsters, with about 240,000 members.

“It is hard to believe that a new Congress would want to engage in that kind of special legislative favoritism,” said Maury Lane, a FedEx spokesman.

UPS spokeswoman Kara Ross said, “This Congress still has important decisions to make before 2010 ends and it would be premature to write this Congress off.”

House Republican opposition to tax increases may lead to more private investment in federal roads, bridges and tunnels, according to Peter Peyser, principal at Blank Rome Government Relations LLC in Washington and a former House member from New York.

The shift may benefit Sydney-based Macquarie, Australia’s largest investment bank, which “continues to seek investment opportunities,” the company said in a statement. Macquarie said it is contributing half of the equity in a state freeway and tunnels project in Norfolk and Portsmouth, Virginia.

Morgan Stanley, Carlyle

Morgan Stanley of New York created a $4 billion infrastructure fund in 2008 and “continues to actively invest,” said Erica Platt, a company spokeswoman. Carlyle Group, the Washington-based private-equity company, has a $1.2 billion fund and seeks more investments, said John Flaherty, a principal for the firm. Carlyle last year entered into a 35-year partnership with Connecticut to redevelop, maintain and operate highway service areas.