Financial implications of the Hudson ditching on U.S Airways.
 

What are they?

Are law-suits a possibility? Or have some already been filed?

Just wondering how this incident will affect the company.

Without a body count, they'll make out pretty good. Airlines get sued every day, without airplanes swimming.

• The owner of the airplane will probably come out well on the insured value of the hull in this market.
• The recovery team, owner of the crane and barge, just won the lottery, as did the Company that stores the wreckage for the next few years.
• The passengers' claims are going to be interesting. Most reported no injury. I will update this post when I find the correct case citation for your further perusal.
• The Flight Attendants have Worker's Comp claims, unless they can tag a third party (ie someone other than their employer ... who signed off the maintenance, outside contractor?).

I figure at a minimum, Capt. Sully saved underwriters in the ball park of $1,125,000,000.
(150 wrongful death claims at $7.5 mil each, avg. Of course much worse if he had tried for Central Park and ended up on Fifth Ave.)

The stock price jumped after it was reported that there were no fatalities/serious injuries. You can caluculate the rise from Thursday morning, through close of business Friday to give a picture of what the flight crews actions did for wealth creation for USAir shareholders. It would be interesting to see how many shares Parker had and how much they increased in value because of the good news. Of course, Pilots are still radically overpaid and if it weren't for Parker they probably would not have been able to pull it out (EXTREME SARCASM).

Happens All the Time
 

The Vice President -Corporate Legal once told me that United gets 2-3 new lawsuits filed against them every working day. Most are thrown out but it's nothing new to see law enforcement personnel or a certified letter arriving with an "opportunity to excel for corporate legal".

Same stuff...different day.

G'Day Mates:)

Just an update, US Air is giving all passengers a $5,000 check, along with the cost of their ticket. Thats about $780,000.

That's a tool to establish friendly contact and set up a rapport in advance of the Plaintiffs' attorneys finding their way around the Family Assistance Act. Next, expect law firms and all sorts of self deemed "Experts" to pop up online and in print with "by lines" that lead right back to a Plaintiff Attorney.

Still, I'm not so sure these claims will go forward if the initial report was "no injury."

...
 

$5000 FOR LUGGAGE? That is a lot of money for a Wal-Mart luggage. I'd bet when those people cash the check, they are legally forfeiting all wrights to legal recourse. I'd bet that is some law or paper that they have to sign in order to get the check. I'd bet the only one that did not get the check was the chick that broke both legs.

X

People are already filing lawsuits in the Continental runoff. I'm sure some ambulance chasers are drooling.

I wrote this after the Hudson landing... someone can adjust my numbers:

Just a quick observation... With all the discussion on this forum regarding pilot compensation and getting paid what we are worth, something came to mind.... I was always told that as a pilot you "never want to have to earn the money you make, for that day is a really BAD day..."

As far as compensation... With a market capitalization in the 950 million range, USAir must have around 115,000,000 shares of outstanding common stock. Since the crash and reports that all pax are safe, the USAir stock (NYSE: LCC) is up by over 15% (as of 950a this morning). That is a value of roughly 20 million to shareholders, that is $20,000,000.

The stock was down over 20% since Jan 8th until a monumental reversal yesterday. Now these numbers are all rounded and could be a bit off, but it appears to me that the crew may be deserving of a significant pay raise (or at least some stock options...) :D:D

Just an opinion... :)