lowflying

With 13 planes coming off lease and the new presidents disdain for the q400 I think it's more accurate to say they want concessions to not shrink.

snackysmores

Concessions not to shrink...Having a hard time imagining that when Air Group is going to make a billion dollars this year.

pete2800

Profits are irrelevant, to be honest. We could be making 20 billion per quarter, and the target would still be cost reduction.

snackysmores

Well at least they can't declare a shamruptcy to a judge.

alaskadrifter

What is the latest scuttlebutt at Horizon?

lowflying

The pilot union and management are meeting this week to try and hash something out. Its all very hush hush so there probably won't anything but rumors for at least a week.

Management's meeting with the FA's union a couple weeks ago was a little disheartening to put it mildly.

snackysmores

Management wants a (concessionary) deal with the pilots by Sept 24. Apparently they want to go after our SAP bidding process and force PBS down our throats, but leave pay the same.

If AAG ordered a fleet of 175s today, they probably wouldn't get here for another 3 years.

Alaska Air Group made over a billion dollars in profit for Q2.

I can't convince any of my friends to come here, nor would I. Other regionals are offering signing bonuses and pay scales to match ours. We have no jets, no flow up, no signing bonuses, and the looming threat of downsizing 30% when 15 of our planes go off lease at the end of next year. Still, Alaska demands concessions from us if we want to get jets on property. Concessions in 2015, after making a BILLION DOLLARS.

Caution Terrain

That's a BS you guys. Your sister's a B.

cactusflyer

To expand on what lowflying said, the company was specifically asking flight attendants for a B-scale for pay (cutting first year pay from $20 to $17) along with some other changes to their contract that would benefit management.

I'm guessing that management knows getting pay cuts from the pilot group probably won't happen (especially since Skywest now has a better contract than we do in some respects), so Tilden and associates may be pushing PBS as a concession they think we'll take.

There's also the fact that PBS has a better chance of dividing the pilot group than asking for other concessions. PBS would bias schedules in favor of the senior pilots (especially captains) here more than SAP does, and since they're the ones who would be flying the jets anyway, it makes it more likely there'd be a bloc of senior people voting to throw away one of the best benefits we have to get back to flying jets.

snackysmores

I really hope that doesn't divide us but management is banking on it.