LFDR 3.0
 

New corp comm video from BB actually put a smile on my face. Seems we are backtracking and taking a stance on a lot of the things that have been going wrong, namely,

- Now encouraged to report rude/unpleasant gate agents and also those who do not act fair when sizing bags, to the email provided in the video. (it has been confirmed by BB himself that if the bag fits, even with pushing, it goes)
- Marketing and public affairs are working on figuring out how to give people more info on how we work (a la carte) and bringing out new packages for those who want only a couple of popular specific things such as a carry on and a seat.
- Focusing on first flights and turns, hopefully with the gate agent and bag sizing issue, this will let us actually turn in the 45 mins allotted, but seeing 50 given would be nice.
- New weekly and daily performance emails, along with summaries of why things happened.
- They want to grow. They know they need more pax, and happy pax. This is a good sign for negotiations coming up because happy pilots = happy everyone else.

All around happy with the video released today. I hope this is a turning point in the culture of management, finally realizing you can't continue like this, but maybe I will be wrong, I am hopeful though. All it takes is a slight shift in mindset by management like this and it trickles down. You cannot have happy workers when management is just turning a blind eye to issues and choosing to think everything is alright.

It certainly had some moments were it seems like they’re shifting gears. He talked about going after the more affluent customers after years of “we don’t compete with legacies, we develop our own market.” I think they’ve finally found the customers’ limits on what they’re going to tolerate so now they have to backpedal.

I felt like this was coming after the investor call. We can’t fill the planes up even at the cheapest price and that was brought up an investor. You can only **** off so many pax before people won’t fly on you again. I think we’re kind’ve at that point. We’re currently around the same size Spirit was when they successfully turned around their operation. Another possibly is with the announcement about LGA today with JetBlue. They’ve realized they’re not getting a second chance with the merger and need to rely on providing a good product for future growth.

I’m not sure I believe him. For one, the head start isn’t the problem. It’s the turn times. Can’t unload a 80% with more than 3-4 wheelchairs and board, clean the AC (especially out of some stations), board another 90-95% load with 5 wheelchairs in 50 minutes. Every subsequent flights is 10-15 minutes later, which adds up.

Second, I can’t wrap my head around an actual CEO of a major airline not understanding what was done when rewarding gate agents for having passengers have to pay for bags. Did he really think that would go smoothly? Same mentality with getting rid of the call center - are customers supposed to be happier about that?

Lastly, this company has done more than a few things to recruit/retain pilots BUT actually increase pay for the majority of them. Sooner or later, that catches up. The seniority list barely grows.

I don’t trust words from a guy who stays in front of the camera, is always talking about how things are one way when they are clearly another and comes up with ideas that are so obviously cheap and won’t work, that tells me to be more professional, smile and send an email about a specific day that I saw someone be rude.

Stockholders aren’t dumb. This stock opened at $20 each. What’s the stock price now?

For those interested, BB was featured on the latest Airlines Confidential podcast. Unfortunately, while one of the hosts asked about pilot staffing (BB gave the expected sales pitch), he was not asked about a contract and where the company stands.