Nevjets

Negative! The guy who did all that is still at Inc collecting a paycheck, JA. He was president, ceo, and chairman of the board of directors. Sure, it might have been the COO’s (BR) idea but nothing gets done without JA’s permission. Even now, as chairman, this sale was done with his permission.

But the whole point was that xjt losing hundreds of millions of dollars over the last 10+ years was ALL the doing of Skywest.

By the way, BR has been gone from UAL for quite a while now. And JA will never be shown the door until he is good and ready to go, despite his horrendous xjt gambit. Good riddance...

rickair7777

This is all correct. But the only folks who need to look in the mirror are the managers in SGU. None of the pilots had anything to do with it.

amcnd

Of course JA authorized it. But he hasn’t realy been “in gaged” with OO for a long time. It was BR and he got the swol “retirement”. Page.. anyway. XTJ is in a way better position then now. Tied to only UA flying is a bummer. But it ahould work put for those wanting to spend the last 10-15 years tell retirement.. better then its current trajectory under OO control...

AMNegron

Karnik announced as new CEO pending sale. Check XJT home page

Nevjets

But that wasn’t really the point, was it? The point is that it was Inc (not just BR, who like you said, has been gone for a long time) who had 8 years to right the ship they tried to sink two years before that. People are just pointing out the failure of Inc’s management of xjt and thus the hundreds of millions of dollars lost.

TFAYD

The point is that INC is not out to get anyone or sink the ship. They are smart business folks. Someone made a mistake by acquiring XJT in the first place and agreeing to an “aspirational” CPA.

Someone build a model in SGU and figured out that they can make money if they improved XJT productivity – probably making assumptions leveraging SKYW metrics. I am sure it assumed “concessions” from all labor groups – not just pilots – like PBS and no more vacation touching etc.

That obviously didn't work out. Good for you for holding on to a good contract but the price for that was that INC eventually switched to an exit strategy – not because they hate unions or want to screw labor but simply because they couldn’t make it work and it distracted senior leadership from their other responsibilities. I don’t think CC enjoyed answering to investors about XJT poor financial performance.

The shift to an exit strategy probably happened 3-4 years ago with the expiration of the UA CPA in sight. At that point, everything became very simply.

Have UA renew at a higher rate or discontinue the CPA. UA didn’t like to get "blackmailed" and they enabled C5.

Eventually it became clear that the C5 experiment didn’t work as well as planned – to a level where C5 could fully take over. At that point UA became interested in retaining XJT. So INC moved from XJT wind down mode to “dressing the bride”.

That involved (1) unwinding all non UA flying – with an unfortunate outcome for the LASA side, (2) getting a future path for dual class aircraft and (3) a new TA that is market competitive and can attract new hires

Now INC is out of the picture - good for you - but I wouldn’t expect rainbows and roses under ManaAir.

gojo

I’m pretty sure that Inc was just after market share. And I’m pretty sure they knew what they were doing regarding Expressjet. To say that they are brilliant on the non union side, but blundering idiots on the other side doesn’t make sense. we'll probably never know what the actual gains and losses were either as many assets were transferred to the inc side.

TFAYD

There is no question that INC will always favor the non-union side.

But I doubt they went into the XJT adventure with the intent to run XJT into the ground from the get go. They could have achieved that much faster and more efficiently.

Melit

Acutely you caved in for the airplanes

PDRit

Not sure who you work for or why you have so much anguish with Xjet. If you are at a regional hasn’t it always been a battle of the lowest bidder to capture flying? Expressjet appears to have held their ground for a lot longer for a better agreement than many other carriers have in the industry.

I have found the xjet crews to be some of finest and most professional pilots I’ve ever met. When I’ve ridden in their junpseats they have been gracious and excellent airman. Never had the eye opening experiences I’ve had on a few of the other carriers. In fact I think they were doing CATII ops long before any other regional. They had the W&B program to get everyone on the plane whereas those same planes when taken from xjet and given to the lowest bidders became weight restricted and incredibly unreliable.

I’m really happy for these pilots. I hope that my company uses them as a direct path to the mainline carrier. I’ve flown with many ex Expressjet pilots and they have all been exemplary.

If you look at most of the notable news events of poor customer service on express flights it’s almost invariably a Republic flight. I’ve ridden in the back on a few Republic flights and can see why they rank low. The xjet crews in cabin also seem more polished and customer oriented.

Congratulations to the Expressjet crews and hope you guys and gals get a bigger slice of the pie as the other UAX contracts come up for renewal. And may all your pilots find a path to the place they want to be in their careers.