Ted
 

Sorry if this has been posted before, I'm sure the UAL guys have seen it already. It's kinda funny. Somebody needs to come up with one for Song and MetroJet;


Tedward, known to all as "Ted," was taken off life support yesterday, June 4, after a long illness. He is survived by his father, United. He was only 4 years old.

Ted's life was a very common and familiar story. His father, United, had a long history of tawdry affairs with low cost carriers. United's first child, Shuttle, came to be after sexy Southwest moved to town, but Shuttle passed away in 2001. (You can still see his remains scattered throughout the United 737 fleet.) Ted was his second child, born after pretty-young-thing Frontier caught United's attention in Denver. The two children couldn't have been more different. While Shuttle spent most of his time with businessmen and women, Ted was more of a man of leisure.

Growing up wasn't easy for Ted. He was teased as a child with taunts like "Ted is the [censored] end of United." Even his father's employees snapped at him with chants like "Ted is United without 'U-N-I'." That chant subsided when it was decided to avoid any meaningful cost savings and have United's employees work with Ted for the same pay, but Ted never forgot those times. Despite these troubles, Ted was modestly successful in his early years. He grew quickly and found himself traveling to places like Florida, Arizona, Vegas, and Mexico. Unfortunately, he became a tremendous distraction for United, who spent long hours and loads of money on his son while other, far greater problems brewed.

Ted tried to take it all in stride. He listened to his TedTunes, watched Tedevision, read TedTimes, and eschewed the First Class luxuries that his father embraced, but he was never able to fully escape his darker side. As he entered his awkward teens, he began drinking (lemonade, which his father did not support). Then Ted fell in with the wrong crowd. He started hanging out on the South Side of Chicago, over on Cicero Ave, with all those bald Irish guys (above, incredibly from an actual ad that ran). His stay there was short, and he soon started to drift.

Eventually, Ted's personality began to fade as his family belatedly began to focus on other more important problems. The music was gone, he started reading his father's magazine, and he even stopped drinking his forbidden lemonade. If it weren't for that big blue nametag and the lack of First Class seats, nobody would have even known who he was.

Ted continued to ply his trade even though his support system kept getting weaker and weaker. Finally, Ted succumbed to his long illness after months of speculation.

Ted has opted to donate his organs for a necessary aircraft transplant for his father, by whom he is survived.

In lieu of flowers, please donate cold, hard cash at united.com.

I had not yet seen that bit of humor, pretty sad but true.....Last night, this article caught my eye as I signed on AOL. When I read the headline, I thought, "oh great another accurate article." Then I read it.....I think the author hit the nail on the head. Too bad the Board of Directors won't recognize the truth.

Worst Airline Ever?
By JOE BRANCATELLI, Portfolio
Posted: 2008-06-10 20:48:08
(June 10) - Pick through the slag heap of the nation's big network carriers and it's easy to find the worst of the worst: United Airlines .


Few Breaks for United Airlines
Paul Sakuma, APFollowing similar announcements throughout the airline industry this year, United Airlines last week announced plans to ground 100 aircraft, cutting capacity by 10 percent and leaving thousands of workers jobless.
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PHOTOS
Just 29 months removed from the longest, costliest, and least-effective bankruptcy in aviation history, the nation's second-largest airline is once again facing a financial abyss. United's first-quarter net loss of $537 million was more than its two main competitors combined. Last month it paid a huge premium to avoid a default on its loan covenants. Its 4 percent decline in passenger traffic in May was twice as steep as that of any of its competitors.

Last week's announcement that it would ground 100 aircraft, reduce capacity by 10 percent, and shed thousands more workers was startling given the huge contraction it already experienced while in bankruptcy. A 19-month search for a merger partner resulted in rejections from Continental Airlines and US Airways, a carrier that was desperate to sell itself to United just eight years ago. The airline's shares slid into single digits last week from a 52-week high north of $50.

United's day-to-day operations have also deteriorated markedly. Its no-frills Ted sub-brand is being closed, the airline's second expensive failure in the low-cost arena this decade. Travelers are furious about service cuts -- the airline has eliminated some meals and some luxurious perks -- on United's high-priced P.S. (for premium service), which runs in the high-profile Transcon Triangle between New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. And in April, United's overall on-time performance slumped to 72.7 percent, five points below the industry average and 18th among the 19 carriers tracked by the U.S. Department of Transportation.

United's woes since the 1978 deregulation of the airlines are legendary. A mid-1980s pilots strike dragged on for almost a month. United failed as a travel conglomerate called Allegis in the late 1980s and ended up selling off all the hotel chains and car-rental interests it purchased. A flawed Employee Stock Ownership Plan in the 1990s tainted the entire concept of employee ownership of public companies. A merger attempt with US Airways in 2000 became a nationwide scandal after it was revealed that top managers at the carriers would have reaped hundreds of millions of dollars on the deal. A concurrent civil war with its own employees led to weeks when 75 percent of United flights ran late and passengers and baggage were stranded for days in distant locations. Then came 9/11, when two United jets were hijacked by terrorists.

But it was United's collapse into bankruptcy just before Christmas of 2002 that is at the heart of the airline's current crisis. Despite a 38-month stay, hundreds of millions of dollars of employee concession, and the largest pension default in corporate history, United emerged as a fiscal and operational mess. Worse, the airline's new chief executive, Glenn Tilton, a former oil-company executive, embraced every old, failed idea ever tried by big network carriers.

Instead of a simple, cost-effective and passenger-friendly roster of in-flight services and streamlined fleet operations, United left bankruptcy in February 2006 with 26 separate in-flight seat configurations. It dabbled in everything from the upmarket P.S. to the downmarket Ted. It had five types of narrow-body jets, four types of wide-body aircraft and eight flavors of regional jets. Travelers were confronted with flights outfitted with an ever-shifting mix of one, two, three, or even four classes. (By contrast, the industry's only consistently profitable airline, Southwest, flies just one type of aircraft and offers just one class of service.) United's finances were equally chaotic. It left bankruptcy saddled with $17 billion in debt and its $3 billion exit financing was secured with mortgages on virtually all of the airline's assets.

And oil is the original sin at the post-bankruptcy United. The five-year plan of reorganization (P.O.R.) cooked up by Tilton and chief financial officer Frederic "Jake" Brace predicted crude would average $50 a barrel. It was laughable even then. When United filed the P.O.R. in February 2006, oil was already selling above $65 a barrel -- and a panel at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, had just discussed the ramifications of $120-a-barrel crude.

As a result, United's future as a going concern is an open question. One thing that isn't in doubt, however, is the financial wherewithal of the airline's upper management.

Tilton and his top executives emerged from the bankruptcy with 8 percent of the new United Airlines and a fast-vesting bonus plan that the New York Times called "insanity squared." Many of United's management team have been flipping their shares as soon as they vested, yielding tidy profits as the airline's shares topped out above $50. But rather than curb their enthusiasm now that the market has soured on the airlines in general and United in specific, Tilton et al will pitch a new executive-incentive plan at the airline's annual meeting in California on Thursday. If approved, it will create 8 million new shares for the benefit of the top brass.

In other words, no matter how rough the ride for United's employees and passengers, it will continue to be smooth sailing in the executive suite.


2008-06-10 13:01:46

Well, sorry. Apparently my dad found the humor. He sent it to me and spent 30+ years at UAL with the pleasure of enduring EVERYTHING that was pointed out in your article.

Absolutely no offense taken. I am certain of one thing, life at UAL is about to get a whole lot worse before it gets better, especially if the company asks for more concessions/pay cuts. I think many of us who just found out they are starring in "Furlough, the Sequel" have had it.

Sucks, sorry to hear that. I guess they could squeeze labor, but seriously, what is left for labor to give? I'm sure Glenn and the bean counters could come up with something, but still.

If they are trying to prime themselves for a merger/buyout, they are doing one heck of a job. As usual, the top will reap major benefits and labor is going to get what could be the biggest shaft there yet.

Anyone think that article's timing had anything to do with the UAL BOD meeting held today?

Tilton had great plans for TED, using them on far flights. The name FAR-TED just didn't catch on.

No. But, I think Joe is mistaken when he says UAL is the worst airline. There are MUCH worse companies out there, and UAL is trying. Plus, I think TED was great, just like Delta "Song". They always get rid of the alter-ego carriers first, with the best product.