ITSALLGOOD

By the way it's not bragging when you deliver! something in which you seem to have lost sight. Have a good day sky king![/quote]


The reason VA has nothing to brag about is any airline could decide tomorrow to provide the product VA is so proud of...but no one can make money doing it...apparently this includes VA. The point is there are two sides to the equation. If the product does not = $$$$$$ than the business is a failure. That does not take a financial genius to figure out. Putting really cool things in your airplane and offering nifty services is the VERY EASY part (especially if you had 200 million to get started). If someone gave me a boat load of cash, I could start an airline that offered to pick up every passenger at their home or office in a stretch limo, give them free high end boos, a personal flight attendant, free massage at their over-size seat...and so on. I would win every customer service award out there (and they would probably invent a few new ones for me). But, I would be out of business in a heart beat as it would be impossible to cover the costs of such an operation. As all of my employees walked out the door without a job and my investors looked over their losses, I will tell them "Don't sweat it, we'll always have those awesome customer service awards for our incredible and amazing product"!

Like I said...deliver the VA experience at a profit while paying your pilots what they are worth, and I will be the first to say WELL DONE VA...until then, realize the awards mean zero, zilch, nothing!!!! Oh I'm sorry actually they are worth a lot less than nothing...something south of 100 Million so far I'm guessing...we'll have a solid figure as to how much less than nothing as soon as they have to report their losses like everyone else.

ITSALLGOOD

[quote=A320 Pilot;422676]You seem to have Master in Finance and Airline industry,so if you think that VA is keepin its finances a secret because it does not want investors to panic you must be dreamin as those investors are aware of everything thats going on.

Yes, the very few big investors (10+ million of their very own money invested) do in fact have access to the financials. But the small investors who represent over half the capital DO NOT!!!

Apparently this MBA has to edumeecate you a little. A little more than half the money invested in VA came from Joe Smo and Ma and Pa kettle. Normal folks who have given 10, 20, 30 grand to these investor groups who have solicited them to invest in VA through the group. Works like this: Branson and some American friends put up about half the capital. Then, they start shopping the idea to investment groups. They offer the groups incentives to convince their individual investors to put their money into this awesome new airline Richard Branson is starting in America. The more money (regular people's money that is) the investment group can bring in, the bigger their payback.

Branson is already "all in". Any additional funds have to come from these groups by convincing their individual clients it is still a safe play. THAT BECOMES VERY DIFFICULT WHEN THE COMPANY STARTS PUBLICLY REPORTING MASSIVE LOSSES. That is one significant reason VA wants to hide its financials!

Do you feel smarter???

wheels

[quote=ITSALLGOOD;429263]Do you realize how much of a narcissist you sound off as when you wear a MBA around like that??? Goodness...

As I understand it, VA doesn't have small investors but I don't pretend to know everything. I believe they are very large venture firms that VA represents a VERY small piece of the pie. Not to say they don't care about losses though...

Virgin wants to keep there data secret because every company would keep their data secret if they could. It provides a competitive advantage. I imagine they probably knew darn well they would lose the battle to keep it secret but figured they might as well try and take what they could get even if it was short lived.

Making mountains out of molehills...

captjns

Regarding finances, I was referring to the state of the carrier, not the price of the fare. However, dollar for dollar fares on V/A being the fact that fares are cheaper and the product is superior to that of UAL, DAL, NWA and AA the consumer will go for the best bang for the buck. Thus being a win win situation for the consumer.

Tonne

Is Virgin America hiring? And are they really opening a JFK base??

And if so... do they really want 1000 PIC??

Skyone

What, it seems, that Eric and his ilk, seem to forget is where many of the airlines started. And these airlines today are primo paying today's best wages. Just a little review, SWA back in the early seventies, a couple of old 737s flying out of just one airport (damn good management has made them today's sucess). FedEx started flying Falcon 20s. Wonder what those rates were and who would have thought they would be one of the two highest paid airlines. UPS as an airline wasn't even existence at the start of deregulation (and talk about their first year pay-$39/hr). But a damn good union (when did it get voted in?) and a management that kept to their business plan. No one in their right minds would have wanted to fly for CAL under Lorenzo. Talk about your LCC.

So it seems that it doesn't matter what the pilots make, it all is determined by good management, a mangement that wants to run a solid customer oriented airline and like any business starting up-have the cash to get over the startup hump.

Sure these new LCCs have less than what we would want for wages. But these airlines are putting less and less pressure on the legacies, because the legacies are moving to the increase their internation footprint. So tell me why a Delta 767-ER captain makes less money today than my ER copilots made in 2005? I'll tell you why and it has nothing to do with LCCs. It has to do with an absolute inept management that raped the company, with the approval of the BOD.

MHO, is that we should all wish the absolute best for these airlines and their pilots. Why? Because if they are successful with a forward thinking management (like the above success stories), then the pilots will want and demand a piece of the pie. But all this snipping, whinning, and as they say in this part of the world whinging won't bring up the wages. And for god's sake this is year one, two or so wages.

And if you don't think pax don't want a decent ride, treated fairly, etc., you're nuts. A study by Delta yield management found that people were more willing to pay more for a ride on Southwest because of the, real or perceived, passenger treatment. And for me, if I have a choice between where I fly from to get to JFK/LGA, I will fly JB everytime over another, even if it costs me more (within reason).

So Capt. Stratton or whatever, I agree with other posters here. Name your carrier. Why? Because we can see under what conditions you joined when you joined, and perhaps why. It does make a difference in the discussion. Major Green Face, Velepocide (whatever) never named his airline when he was bashing VA, JB etc. If you want an adult exchange, you should be willing to come to the table with your cards exposed. Easy to snipe from the sidelines. Did you go to work for Lorenzo, did you scab, did you take subpar wages in the beginning and now sitting pretty? But thank you for educating us minions. We are humbled to be in your presence.

Justdoinmyjob

Stratton is CAL and Velocipede is Alaska.

Eric Stratton

maybe, but most likely wrong and correct.

Eric Stratton

In regards to southwest how many years did it take for them catch up with everyone else in regards to pay. Around 30 years I believe, and that is only because the others fell. They're contract has been up for 2+ years and you don't hear much about it. Not like the other airlines at least. I hope they can raise the bar. We'll see. I almost forgot to add that they basically have a pay for training program with the 737 type. (I know some have it from previous airlines but most have to buy it and it used to be a pay to interview up until the last few years) I do think that southwest is probably the best run airline out there but it would be interesting to see how they would have done things if they didn't have the hedging.

I'll agree that management had alot to do with recent paycuts too but you can't discount wages at the LCC.

The people that you know prefering to fly on southwest or jetblue, are they doing it for the services provided or the better attitude of the employee's? Most people I know say it's for the attitude rather than the service (ie. drinks pillows). The price difference that they will pay is quite small though. A friend of mine once took a flight that was $5 cheaper. A few days before the trip he asked me what a 190 was. (before the emb190) I had no idea what it was so I looked at the ticket. I laughed when I saw be1900. He had turned a flight under 1 hour (737) into a 4 hour tour with 2 extra stops. So there are those people out there too.

If southwest, jetblue, airtran or VA took the hits (pay) that the majors took do you think that their employees's attitude might change. I'm guessing it would but when you're new and growing it's easy to be excited. The true test come in very bad times.

You say that the pilots will demand higher pay when they are successful. I agree but what is higher? Higher then what they currrently have or higher to catch everyone else. If there were previous LCC's that caught the majors then I don't think it would bother me. Unfortunately there aren't any. Is there a point that you would give to a new start up to catch up? 10 years? 20 years? 30 years? How about size? 1000, 2000, 3000 pilots?


You talk about forward thinking management. Maybe some of that forward thinking is that if they pay less they can charge less. Leonard basically came out and said this. That's the reason for the cost neutral contracts that were on the table.

Skyone like I've said before I don't say who I work for. If I worked for airtran, air wisci or cal (like just thinks ) would you really take how I feel differently? Maybe I did take a low paying job? Maybe I learned from it? Maybe I didn't take a low paying job and worked longer to get the job I wanted. Maybe I have just taken a look at what pilots say vs. the actions that they really take.

You talk about sniping from the sidelines but isn't that what we are both doing? All I know is that you work for delta (I think) and fly the 777. Does anyone really know your name? I don't. I used to post on a board with my real name to be credible. That was a quick lesson learned. You'll get twice as many cheap shots because people know you can't let loose on them and they will just try and push your buttons. Someone else on here was so worked up because I wouldn't say who I worked for that he posted his real employee number and name. I don't recommend that. He quickly deleted it when he sobered up or got some sleep. It was posted at 3am. lol

ps why would any union or company make their 1st year employee's struggle with $35 first year pay and then give them $149 2nd year (ups 2012). Why not spread it out so 1st year isn't that painful. For example $70 and $114. The only reason I've ever been given is you have to put in your dues. I would assume that when you get to that level dues paying should be over with.

Redwood

its opened already...you get a nice airport ID to get down to the VX offices in the terminal, and ramp access to collect your paperwork from operations and head through the bagroom to your aircraft...very nice setup..

And yes without that PIC the only way you may be able to get in is to impregnate one of the chiefs daughters.....