Midwest Air to slash work force by 40 percent
 

Midwest Air to slash work force by 40 percent
1 hour, 59 minutes ago


CHICAGO (Reuters) - Midwest Airlines, a unit of Midwest Air Group, on Monday said it would cut its work force by 1,200 employees, or 40 percent, making it the latest airline to reduce staffing amid soaring fuel prices.

The company said it would begin notifying affected employees immediately. Midwest also said it was still in talks with unions representing its pilots and flight attendants on concessions needed to lower costs.
(Reporting by Kyle Peterson; editing by John Wallace)

Midwest Air to slash work force by 40 percent - Yahoo! News

http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix....504&highlight=

when is this going to stop?????? Things out of control

When a bunch of seats disappear and the economy actually grows. A fall in oil prices wouldn't hurt, but it's not the root cause.

My $0.02

tip of the iceberg I'm afraid. My wife is at AA and hanging in there by a thread. Another 6 months with these record high fuel prices and a lot of carriers would have gone through a lot of cash. The 10-14% cut this fall will slow the bleeding but will not cure the patient. Let's hope and pray oil dips back down very soon.

I'm not sure how well capacity cuts will work. It will allow airlines to charge higher ticket prices, but will travelers be there to buy the tickets? I don't think so. Americans shop on price and are quite finicky. Even an across the board hike of $50 might be enough for some people to choose other options.

then what is the root cause? I would have to disagree that it isn't the root cause now.

I think he was referring to an over capacity in the market. That is a big contributor, but fuel is an even bigger player.

And for god sakes...


DO NOT ACCEPT ANY CONCESSIONS!!!

Midwest is one of the lower paid major airlines. Pilots taking a paycut will not solve the problem or fix anything. You have already given up enough. Do not accept any concessions!

I think we should hurry and vote for mccain since no one understands the economy better then him after all he will continue the last 8 yrs of prosperety, growth and stability. :rolleyes:

I suppose you think Obama's willingness to sit down (with ZERO preconditions) with terrorists is going to improve our economy, confidence, or safety?

Obama has placed more preconditions on debates with McCain than he has on talking to terrorists (such as Ahmadinejad), who doing everything they can to kill Americans.

Wake up.

So you're suggesting that practicing this method of nogotiation for the past 8 yrs have worked? Give me a break this has been nothing but a total failure and what's obama not having precondition vs mccain's precondition has got to do with the economy. I get it, you think like the rest of them and when there is no solution let's throw in a curve ball to divert attention. If anyone needs to wake up it's you or i should say start taking your meds so it will clear your delusional views. AIR MIDWEST AND OTHERS GOING BANKRUPT OR CUTTING JOBS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH OBAMA BUT POOR AND INCOMPETENT MANAGING OF THIS ECONOMY.:rolleyes:

Allow me to ask where Midwest--and the rest of the industry--would be right now if another terrorist attack had occurred. Or if such an attack does occur in the future.

If terrorists and radical muslims have their way, there will be no economy to "mismanage."

Good day.

And how many more terrorists and radical muslims have been converted because of the actions of the current administration, thereby increasing the threat of a terrorist attack? I'd venture to say a lot.

Seems to me like plenty were "converted" when Clinton was president too, don't you think? Or were the terrorist attacks during his presidency Reagan's fault?

The bad guys hate Americans. They want to kill us. They are not rational, and cannot be bargained with. Please keep that in mind.

Oil isn't the root cause....nor is "overcapacity".

Pay cuts won't solve much in the short term.......besides labor has already given too much.

There you go, you answered my question. There is no terreorist attack since 2001 and our economy is in worst shape ever, If you watch the economist they all say we have the worst economy since 50 yrs ago. I like how our beloved administration was braging about record home ownership but they seem to forget to mention the record forclosures and bankrupcys. Let me see, post terrorist attack the oil prices were at around mid 20's now 146$ i don't think it was caused by terrorism let me guess speculators and demand YA RIGHT:rolleyes: More banks are closing doors and companies going bankrupt and jobs moving overseas and the list goes on They're all caused by terroism, No my friend it's caused by record high oil and forclosures , unemployment, dollar in all time low and growing deficit which was brought to you by nothing but as i said once POOR AND INCOMPTENT MANAGMENT OF OUR ECONOMY.:o

I agree with you there. I don't think Bush going into a country and telling them how they will run it helps our cause though.

Care to enlighten us then?

Crandall made the same statement a while back, even when oil was cheap, airlines still managed to bleed red ink.

Overcapacity is misleading, look at the load factors that airlines are experiencing. Tell me how the hell they can't make a profit?

The revenue stream needs to be SERIOUSLY overhauled.....

Over capacity leads to more selection/competition. When the LCCs came to town with low pay, low longevity pilots, and good deals like no payments on A320s for the first five years, that gave them the ability to give away their products at dirt cheap prices. This results in them building a customer base, pulling customers away from the other airlines that actually charged for their product. In order for those airlines to compete with the LCCs, they had to match their dirt cheap prices and $49 fire sale fares. Combine that with greedy corporate america along with the bankruptcy's that stripped many of all they had, and you now have the current state of the industry. It will only help to see capacity be cut, and unfortunately, to see a few more carriers go Tango Uniform. Good Luck to us all.

Are you referring to JetBlue?

I agree, legacies will lose domestic capacity and should raise fares, leaving them up to regain pricing power. Pretty difficult with SWA and JBU taking advantage of cutbacks to obtain more market share.

That's pretty much my point. You see what has happened with the LCCs? Throw in foreign ownership and cabotage. Does it paint a pretty picture?

For the consumer yes.....for the employee.....nooooooo.

I love it when guys like Johnso and brownie show their venemous beliefs that George bush is to blame and that McCain would be a continuation of W policies. Advice, pull your head away from Keith Olberman and do some research on your own to find your own opinion. For example, one of many good sources would be to Google "Iraq index" and read from the brookings institutions research. Guys, get away from the liberal medias soundbites and get one of your own.
BD

It's not liberal soundbites, it's my own observations for the last 5 years.

Percentage-wise, that's almost every F/O if they whack the pilots 40%.

Any idea on what DOH this will go to on the pilots seniority list ?

well at least you are filthy rich. i am a poor fo at pinnacle and i would appreciate it if obama took some of your money and gave it to me... you do make over 65k a year right? well i dont and thats not fair!! lets share the wealth!!! i dont care how hard you had to work to get to where you are at now. i think i will just stay at pinnacle as an fo with 20 days off a month and let the money flow in from the people who worked hard all their lives to get where they are. he has so many great ideas, this is just one of them. :rolleyes:

People like johnso29 always want to blame SWA or JB for their company's problems. JB always was paying for thier airplanes, they just made firm order's for 100 and options for another 100 A320's and for that reason they got a great deal.....do you buy in Bulk at Cosco...same concept. SWA will always Hedge Fuel.

The difference with SWA and JB is they are well run, well managed companies that have a strong brand that customer's like. It is called good business. Now in the OLD Day's the Legacy carriers would overlap a start up carriers Route structure and loose millions on that route just to put them out of business. Or even better they would just BUY them and put all the employees on the Street. Unfortunately the Legacy's don't have that Pricing power anymore, so everybody wants to blame SWA and JB for their company's poorly run business.

They are lean because of productivity, efficiency and aircraft utilization rates. SWA pilot's are some of the best paid in the industry, and JB pay is getting close to industry average and industry leading in some categories.
They treat and COMMUNICATE with their employees well, and for that their employees offer a great customer service product. IT IS CALLED BUSINESS. Foreign Ownership is about a GLOBAL ECONOMY and a GLOBAL AIRLINE INDUSTRY....get with the program on market economics. The federal government is not going to keep saving poorly run company's that can not look to the future and make a business plan work.

My .02 cents.

Leftists tend to whine, complain and blame everyone but themselves for whatever problems they're experiencing. I'd say johnso29 fits that mold fairly well.

You mean like Amtrak??:rolleyes:

Hope you find my reply amongst the Bickersons. My buddy there tells me 1998 DOH for the cutoff. Junior captain, I think, will go back to 1990. Really kinda moot. If they go ch.11, they're done. TPG and Northwest will not put any more money into it. Then you have to find someone who will buy it. That won't happen. Figure any more cuts to get covered by Delta/NW. Kinda like what happened to STL. 88 seat 717's are easy to cover with EMB's and CRJ-900's.

Not saying it is right, but a real possibility is DAL/NWA are now calling the shots on this. They do not want Midwest in BK before merger DCC as it might cause problems w/DOJ. But after DCC, DAL then directs Midwest to file CH 7. As an owner, DAL would have first dibs on the assets...most important, the 25 717s. Not sure if these are owned or leased. I suspect DAL would love those airplanes. Great replacement for the DC9-30s and it keeps them out of competitors hands. Just a possibility...probably way off.

And the right side has really got the job done these last 8 years, huh? Yeah, that's what I thought.:rolleyes:

I loved bush's great idea of not allowing airlines to strike. how did that work out for you at pinnicle? you'll never see an impass just like expressjet, asa and others. mccain will be good for the airlines though...:rolleyes:

Thread turned political.