Tuck, wake up man. It's called negotiations. There will be ZERO good news until a contract is signed. NONE.

 

There are 550,000 people working for FedEx. I don't think the corporate narrative is being driven by a few percentage points change to the pay of 1% of the employees (that's pilot ego overestimating our relevance). This is Raj living in fear of the BOD and activist investors. He is behaving as if his only concern is the next meeting. We're all going to suffer as long as he continues to cower to them. I'd sure love to see Fred rally a group to restore sanity and get back to running a business for the long-term as opposed to the next quarter.

 

Does not matter to Managment how much of a percentage our pay is. It is a controllable expense to them that they can drag their feet on and every day we do not have a new contract it saves them money. If all you had to do from a business prospective is drag your feet and play the game for as long as possible to save millions/billions of dollars why wouldn’t you? I could answer that question for them but they don’t see it the same way.

 

i agree that they're doing exactly that. I'm just saying that the global narrative isn't centered around our contract, it's centered around stock prices.

 

Agreed. It's a numbers game to them.

Also, they need to remind all other work groups on property that the only unionized group has to go fight for everything they get, every few years.

 

Exactly, it's not all about us. But still, from early 2014 onwards there was zero good news even at the corporate narrative level, until immediately after we signed the PoS TA into effect.

 

Those new aircraft might very well be replacement only, at least for the near future. The economy is grinding down to a crawl it seems. Let's hope things turn around sooner rather than later.

 

Last week, United projected a loss in 1Q due to expectations of closing the pilot contract.

AP on UAL 1Q loss projection

Monitoring the airline earnings feed, I missed any indication that DAL expected to close the contract in a particular quarter. If anyone saw it, please forward along.

Makes me wonder about 5Apr Raj Wall Street tap dance. During 3Q earnings call, every meaningful question about DRIVE was deflected toward the 5Apr update. All three execs refused to discuss past DRIVE savings vs future DRIVE savings; instead the team deferred to the 5Apr call repeatedly. It appears that call will feature Express almost exclusively, with a fleet plan followed by a system bid some Friday in April.

It makes quarterly sense to retire old airplanes in bunches spread across several earnings reports. Fleet draw down numbers can be played out to offset weak demand projections in a quarter (retiring depreciated assets at a loss). It also might make sense to preload the cost of an expected pilot contract as UAL did? Certainly opposite market trends in pax v cargo market currently, but FedEx has 53 major cards to play (MD-11s) with fleet retirements to offset the lower air freight demand and the cost of a pilot contract.

Politics is theater. When some prolific leadership bumper sticker phrase is uttered into the microphone, I'm always trying to figure out the underlying full truth behind the public half truth. It's no secret the MD is a tough airplane to maintain, and with three engine fuel burn. The 5Apr show will be 100% political IMHO..."we're taking aggressive action due to our sensational leadership team's brilliance!". Just don't look too closely at the facts; the slow train of the MD retirement has been years in the making. Raj will be seeking political credit for a fleet retirement that was already inevitable. The real question: does the financial timing support ending the contract dispute with the greedy FDX pilots before the summer of Teamster's love over at UPS?

 

Not sure if this link will work because it’s Aviation Week, but the article is about Both FedEx and UPS retiring the MD-11.

https://aviationweek.com/air-transpo...f91c8a06ae001b

 

you r looking at it the wrong way. Major changes r happening - whether we get a TA next week or in 2 years. This sort of blister DID NOT happen last round or in 2011 (don’t believe in 2006 but can’t recall). Not sure how long you’ve been here but things r changing - and it’s not due to negotiations. Probably a lot to do with DE shaw, Fred stepping down, just in time packaging not as important, etc