Gloopy-spot on
 

You said it better than I did. Thanks for hitting the high points. Most people seem to think "economics" today is simply applied math. It is not... It is political and very subjective.

SGT,
Although I agree with the pay off every month, the use of credit cards fails to account for risk in the "Makes me money" argument. These snakes can change the terms of the agreement AT WILL, eliminating points, increasing fees, enacting a "you pay off your balance every month fee", etc. The 12 pages of small print is very enlightening. We all agreed to those usurious terms when we took the card. I have an AOPA credit card in which BOA increased the interest rate by 6% without any changes in my credit report, job status, etc. Good thing I read one of those "throw away" junk mail looking letters they sent. Called AOPA to complain (20 year member) and they basically said get bent, not their problem.

Sorry for the drift...:(

Trickle-down economics doesn't work. At all(well, except for the very wealthy). And that comes with the the loony guy who might change fiscal policy. The same fiscal policy that was practiced, if not pioneered under your hero Republican party.

So when are you going to run for office and make a difference? If not, please get off the soap box. As much as I agree with some Of the things being said here, this has almost nothing to do with the future of JetBlue and has far more to do with the future of our country which is a whole different discussion board. Please leave the politics out, because that's all this has become is politics. This stuff has as much to do with JetBlue as much as the European debt issues, currency exchange or eastern philosophy. Let's get off the soap boxes and back on topic.

So do you think Lin will be a star in Houston?

Nice!! At least it's not politics.

Very valid points. One other..

I had a friend that did the exact same thing I do except puts a lot more money on the card each month for business. After 2 years of only getting reward cash back and not paying any interest the credit card cancelled him. I cant remember how they worded it or made it happen but they did. They don't like to lose at their own game. It's like Vegas, even when they are losing, they are still winning.

Someone kick the soapbox out!:cool:

Well everyone, I was doing some digging in the AMR Bankrupty forum, and found this little gem. It came from a July 26th conference in L.A. The time has come for US to take hold of our future. We need to make it happen.

Quoted:

Someone asked for this to be posted. I've already voted NO, not on emotion, but i've read the whole LBFO (last best final offer) i've listened to 2 of the 3 teleconferences and attended a roadshow.


Executive Summary: IF the American Airlines / APA Tentative Agreement were to be voted down by a close margin, American Airlines would immediately Re-negotiate to gain a speedy resolution with this key labor group.


Fellow APA Pilots,

We have less than a week before the final tabulation results of American Airlines Last Best Final Offer is revealed. I would be terribly remiss if I did NOT disclose to the membership a dialog session which transpired in Marina Del Rey, CA. The locale was the Warehouse, a restaurant, and I was accompanied by 15 fellow pilots of the LAX domicile, ranging from line pilots, check airmen, Flight Department Pilots who all dined with Captain John Hale and Senior VP of Operations, Mr. Jim Ream.

The meeting occurred on the eve of July 26th. Captain Hale was the financial host of the get together which was arranged specifically to give both Captain Hale and Mr. Ream a cross stratification from the most Junior in our base ranks to the most Senior, from managerial types to union advocates, for the sole purpose of edifying where the rank and file actually stand on this LBFO.

Once dinner was concluded, the small talk ceased as we moved to a more private setting in the restaurant where Captain Hale delivered some opening remarks then handed off the dialog to Mr. Ream who gave us a Macro Economic overview of American Airlines and the goals and Objectives he and others are trying to achieve.

After an opening question by one of our former negotiators was posed regarding the culture of distrust and apparent over reach of this TA, I followed on to ask Mr. Ream a multi faceted question relevant to his Macro vision, which is the heart of my post today.

I stated to Mr. Ream, since it is the public posture of APA for regime change with US AIR being the desired player, that the equity ploy (including F/As & mechanics) would still leave organized labor 15% short of a blocking vote. I felt the POR blocking strategy was indeed a long shot and would very possibly still find us working under a very draconian TA for the next 10 years.

I further stated, I feel American would pursue purchasing JetBlue. Therefore, the existing TA as it stands, leaves the American Airline pilot exposed.

In short, I explained that I felt manipulated and used by BOTH sides and he would not achieve labor peace with the pilots when the depth of deception was revealed. He appeared surprised by how much push back he was sensing from the pilots for he had been led to believe that this TA was a good deal for the pilots inside of bankruptcy.

My question was could He alter the TA before the vote was tabulated, if we could propose a viable argument for why such amendment was necessary.
Mr. Ream responded:

(Not exact quotes, but accurate content, vetted by three other pilots present.)

1) It is the desire of AAL to purchase JetBlue. This would be completed through a complex deal including debt, private equity and preferential shares. He explained that we are far along the road to negotiating this deal and the critical part is HAVING Contracts in place with LABOR. He further acknowledged that the same people that would be loaning us the money for Americans desired POR were consolidating Americans debt. By doing this, they are buying debt at a discounted rate, gaining power on the UCC and have little exposure for they know the financing is viable to emerge from BK.
2) IF the TA were to be voted down by a close margin, they would immediately RE-negotiate to gain a speedy solution with labor. Time being the critical factor to American Airlines due to the in place financing. He stated, the labor stress just ADDS to the Cost of Financing.

3) IF the TA passes, they have done their job for the creditors and have achieved the best deal possible for the debtors.

4) He indicated that changing the TA at this late stage was problematic. The money factor being locked and reported to the UCC. However, he wanted to hear what the pilots felt were the problem areas of the TA.

Dinner was concluded and some very valuable information was exchanged between all parties in attendance. The remainder of the eve was spent discussing the TA and how it affects the pilots. Mr. Ream asked those in attendance to send him 5 bullet points they would want to see in TA #2.

Friday / 27 July:

I was informed that a pilot who was present, had written a debrief and forwarded it to Negotiating Chairman Neil Roghair as well as both LAX Base Representatives.
The remainder of my day was spent sending the attendees 5 Bullet points to Captain Hale and Captain Smith.

Saturday / 28 July:

Captain Hale informed me he was going to be addressing MR. Horton, Ms. Denise Lynn (HR) and would be informing them of the pilots view of this TA from our dialog session.

I assured Captain Hale I would not disclose nor campaign the content of the Warehouse Revelations for five days to allow him to possibly get an internal solution to the very defective TA.

In Conclusion,

True to my word, I promised not to disclose nor discuss the events of 26 July 2012 in order to allow Captain Hale to affect an amendment. Nothing has transpired from either Captain Hales focused efforts, nor has the APA in any official capacity commented on these developments.
PLEASE, Understand this.

1) Americans Stand Alone Plan is fictitious; JetBlue is their goal.
2) The APA is so myopic on management change that we are continuing a course of action, so shaky and anemic in terms of substantiation to the failed logic of you wont have to fly under it.
3) If you Vote YES / In favor of this LBFO, you will likely suffer under its compromised content for a minimum of six years.
4) If you elect to REJECT this TA, American will renegotiate to gain a labor agreement.
5) Last, but certainly not least, I am staking my own personal reputation behind stating these facts of the evenings dialog. My passionate pursuit of doing what is right has led me to revealing these details to you today.

Ladies and Gentlemen of the APA, look within your soul and please find the strength to vote with your dignity intact and overcome your fear.

Respectfully and In Unity,
name deleted by 7576FO
LAX 767 FO International

It's time for us to make the JB management's life a living hell!

This isnt about management, or burning the place down, it is about getting a CBA and protecting our careers and families.

A merger might happen, and it might not. Either way we need to focus on a CBA.

Right...by getting a CBA, this would do the very thing I mentioned beforehand. Believe me, I'm not looking to burn the place down either.

Posted this afternoon on the Dallas Morning News website:

American Airlines: We haven’t made any decisions about mergers, including ones involving JetBlue
*5*1*comments (0)
By tmaxon
[email protected]
3:41 pm on August 3, 2012 | Permalink
American Airlines has responded to the Los Angeles-based pilot’s letter that quoted senior American Airlines executives as saying that the airline was working on a deal with Jetblue Airways.

First, this statement from American Airlines spokesman Bruce Hicks:

“Contrary to a mistaken perception at a recent meeting with pilots, the company has made no decisions regarding consolidation at this time. American was asked what would have to happen if we wanted to merge with JetBlue, and there was a discussion of the considerations involved in merging with any potential partner.

“As we have repeatedly said, we are undertaking a thorough and objective evaluation of all consolidation alternatives and can say with absolute certainty that the process is proceeding with no preconceptions.”

And John Hale, American vice president of flight, one of the executives in the July 26 meeting that the pilot described, echoed the same message on his weekly hotline to pilots, after assuring the pilots that the company would throw out the current pilots’ contract if a new deal isn’t approved by pilots:

“Contrary to another misperception from the meeting, the company has made no decisions regarding consolidation at this time. As we have communicated previously, we are undertaking a thorough and objective evaluation of all alternatives and options regarding consolidation.”

Interesting read in the WSJ today as well, also very interesting last paragraph!

JetBlue Prefers to Play the Field

Discount carrier JetBlue Airways Corp. JBLU*-0.59% is flattered by the recent merger attention from American Airlines parent AMR Corp., AAMRQ*-0.59% but the company thinks it is having too much success playing the field.

JetBlue has carved out a dominant position at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport and in recent years has leveraged that gateway by entering a series of lucrative tie-ups with mostly international carriers.

"We're focused on our own plan of organic growth, which we believe will produce better value for our shareholders, crew members and customers," Chief Executive Officer Dave Barger told employees in recent meetings.

Last week, Mr. Barger declined to say if JetBlue has received a nondisclosure agreement from American, which, if signed, would allow the two carriers to share confidential financial data to see if a combination was worth pursuing. But a person familiar with JetBlue said the airline hasn't received such a document and wouldn't sign it if one arrived.

AMR, which is in bankruptcy-court protection, is under pressure from its creditors to explore merger possibilities as an alternative to a plan to exit from Chapter 11 on its own. The Fort Worth, Texas, company, which has a smaller hub at JFK, recently identified five possible candidates and began the process by sending a nondisclosure agreement to the largest, ardent suitor US Airways Group Inc., LCC*+1.97% late last week.

People familiar with AMR indicated it that "multiple" confidentiality agreements have been sent in recent days, without saying which of the other carriers besides US Airways have received them. Details of the language couldn't be learned.

JetBlue, which has declined to join one of the three global airline marketing alliances, is focusing on what it calls its "open architecture" model of joining with a growing roster of airlines. Those carriers want access to JetBlue's extensive route networks out of New York, Boston and, to a lesser extent, Los Angeles and several Florida airports.

In 2010, American joined JetBlue's club as a way of bolstering its domestic offerings from New York and Boston. American offers its passengers travel on more than two dozen domestic JetBlue routes that the larger airline doesn't serve. JetBlue passengers can fly on more than a dozen American international routes from New York and Boston.

By inking such "interline" agreements with others, JetBlue can take a partner's passenger arriving from abroad to interior U.S. points and to the Caribbean with a single ticket and automatic luggage transfer. And it make available seats on partners' overseas flights to its domestic customers.

JetBlue, which signed its first partnership in 2007, now has 21 such relationships, with carriers as diverse as Emirates Airlinein Dubai; South African Airways; Aer Lingus EIL1.DB*+0.74% of Ireland and Deutsche Lufthansa LHA.XE*+0.64% of Germany. It signed up Hong Kong's Cathay Pacific Airways 0293.HK*-1.56% last week, and Beijing's Air China 601111.SH*0.00% in June.

JetBlue said the number of passengers received through its partnerships is up 40% over last year. It won't break out the total number or overall revenue gains, but said on flights between JFK and Boston, about 125 passengers a day are coming from or connecting to the partner airlines. The relationships have boosted JetBlue's passenger counts by 50 a day on both the JFK-Los Angeles route and the JFK-Tampa route, the company said.

Rather than join an alliance and be restricted to working with a pre-defined subset of airlines, JetBlue is 'going retro' by remaining independent and signing contracts with a broad mix of airlines it sees as complementary partners," said Henry Harteveldt of consultants Atmosphere Research Group.

Interline agreements are common in the airline industry, and allow carriers to price and sell connections between their flights and partners' flights. But many are perfunctory. JetBlue said it puts more work into its relationships, according to Scott Resnick, JetBlue's director of airline alliances. He said he recently visited Johannesburg and Dubai in a 10-day stretch, with a stop in New York in between. JetBlue must contract how the revenue is divided up with its partners, tweak connecting times when it can and make travel agents aware of the new routing possibilities. This comes on top of the challenges of volatile fuel prices and JetBlue's relatively high growth rate, which could be upended by an economic slowdown.

While acknowledging that it is hardly blazing a trail with these types of partnerships, Mr. Resnick said, "We're selective about who we work with, the brand fit and network fit, and we're very personalized and nimble in how we work with our partners."

In a few cases, JetBlue takes the relationships further. Lufthansa, Emirates, South African, Japan Airlines and Hawaiian Airlines put their flight codes on select JetBlue flights and sell them as if they were their own. In some cases such as American, JetBlue has frequent-flier tie-ins as well.

The epicenter of the passenger exchanges is at New York's Kennedy Airport, where JetBlue commands 39% of the passengers carried on U.S. airlines and offers flights to more than 60 destinations in the U.S., Caribbean and Latin America.

"While we're only 5% of the U.S. marketplace, we have the 5% that everyone wants and needs in order to be successful," Mr. Barger said in a recent employee blog post. More than 60 international carriers fly to JFK, but most have little access to interior U.S. points unless than have a big U.S. partner through a global alliance.

Aer Lingus, JetBlue's first international partner, said the relationship enables it to offer its customers 30 destinations JetBlue serves from JFK and Boston. "We've more than quadrupled our connecting passengers in New York," said Jack Foley, the Irish carrier's executive vice president of North America, from fewer than 4% of customers before 2008 to more than 16% today. Aer Lingus once was in a global alliance, but quit.

Alliance-free Emirates teamed up with JetBlue in late 2010 and received 300 bookings in the first month, said Jim Baxter, the airline's vice president for U.S.A., Caribbean and Central America. Bookings now are running around 6,000 a month, he said. The program also "expands what we have to sell in countries outside the U.S.," he said, because Emirates can sell a ticket that takes a passenger from Orlando to Mumbai, via New York and its hub in Dubai.

Emirates plans to add a second daily superjumbo A380 flight to JFK from Dubai in January, which will represent an increase of 1,000 seats in both directions every week. "That is a challenge," Mr. Baxter said. "That is where JetBlue comes into play."

Even if JetBlue were interested in looking at a merger with American, some analysts think such a deal would face antitrust barriers because the pair would be so large at Kennedy, a slot-controlled airport with limited entry. Among U.S. carriers, American controls nearly 17% of the passengers at that airport.

Why on earth does anyone want to work for Jetblue. For those of us here it's one thing but to uproot your career for the shell game that is this airline is mind boggling. Add to the the email from Flight Ops some sort of knowledge of the industry and mergers and the whole charade is laughable.

Bargers question and answer session with the analysts last week was very telling. Barger may not want to sell Jetblue but based on his answers it's becoming ever more apparent the board may.

We can't control any of this as we have zero contractual rights but anyone thinking of applying here or staying here needs to give considerable thought to their decision. With our PEA's we have little or no chance of being integrated.

Trickle-up ain't working real well these days either hot shot.

Aaah, yes, and that socialism thing has worked so well in the past. Anything you do I should get pat of because I deserve it. I work hard too. All for one and one for all.

Just ask the soviets how that worked out for them. I'm sure anyone in china will tell you how great it is to live there. The N. Koreans love their new ruler. You can google it... they can't but you can.

I love the FALSE choices. 1. We have not been practicing trickle up economics. 2. Nobody is suggesting socialism. Those are not the only 2 choices.

3. The Soviets, Chinese and N Koreans were COMMUNIST. Not Socialist....

Didn't the USSR stand for "Union of Soviet Socialist Republics?"

Yes, but that doesn't mean they were Socialists. Communism and Socialism aren't the same thing. The real name of the Nazi party was the National Socialist party, but they were hardcore fascists.

Socialism can actually co-exist with different governments. Portions of the EU show this. While not entirely socialist, socialist elements improve the QoL. Health care, public transportation, roads, schools, etc. All elements of socialism. People that get up in arms over universal health care have no problems driving on public roads or sending their kids to public schools.

Now, about that whole AA/jetBlue thing.....

Fascism and Socialism, a distinction without a difference. It was Mussolini who started the fascist movement in Italy and he was a communist who corresponded regularly with Lenin. He only started the fascist party when he decided the international communist movement really meant control of Italy by Moscow and decided to go his own way. The nazis incorporated socialist principles in their platform. They only stopped further leftward drift when they purged Roehm and the SA leadership in a deal to gain support of the Army for Hitler's bid for chancellor.

Theses aren't FALSE choices, they're FAILED choices.

1. When you use tax revenues gained from the populace to attempt to artificially affect the economy you are, in essence, using a trickle up economics.

2. Communism and socialism both advocate the spreading of wealth from those who have it to those who don't. In that sense, they are very similar.

And other portions of the EU (Greece, Italy, Spain, Ireland, etc) are functionally bankrupt because they borrowed to finance all those wonderful aspects of socialism - early retirement, single payer care, short work weeks, lots of vacation. We have only seen the tip of the ice berg with respect to the costs of socialism and they are the reasons a lot of us don't want it here. Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid are also already functionally bankrupt and it's just a question of how quickly we decide to come to terms with it (pay the bills). JMHO and YMMMV.

We haven't been practicing anything even remotely close to capitalism either. Crony corporatism maybe. Just look at all the banker bailouts, and yes way more will be "needed" (given regardless) in the future. Look at the revolving door between the biggest beneficiaries and the money printers. What's Mousilini's definition of Fascism again? And contrary to the activists in academia, fascism and communism are both hard core left wing.
wimp.com/thegovernment

isms
 

Try not to think in terms of communism/socialism/fascism/corporatism/etc... They were all totalitarian to some extent. Many differences came down to economic questions. They are ALL bad.

Remember to think slavery on one side, liberty on the other. Which one do you want?

That is the purpose of GOOD government, protect your freedoms, not plan your life and ensure your happiness.

Government is like fire....

Really? For Pete's sake. Socialism is a FAILED MODEL. Did you ever here of rationing under Socialized Medicine? Sure, under that crap model every citizen has coverage, but that doesn't necessarily mean you will get the requisite treatment.

Are people really that foolish and naive? Go pick up a textbook on basic economics 101 and go educate yourself. And for heavens sake stop sniffing the glue.

SOCIALISM: EWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW

Oh Goodie, everybody has the same! Yippie

I went back to pull out this thread to let the discussion continue. Let's keep this thread for the sky is falling-blue juicer discussion and the poolies thread for just that - JetBlue poolies.

Concur. Don't think the sky is falling but each successive communiquè from flight ops "leadership" is a bit more disheartening than the last.

For example?

I definatly think Sandman needs to fire his writer, his emails are not very polished.

Pm me his email address if you'd be so kind.

Where is the 3%?
 

August came and went. . and no extra 3% was added to my 401k. Am I missing something? Wasn't this the 'fix' that was thrown our way in May/June?

It's an I.T. issue, we are working directly with our business partners to address this problem. Thanks for the push back.

3% is deminimus anyhow, you won't miss it.

It was said in the conference calls that the deposit would be in Sept for earnings in August. No specificity beyond that. So sometime in Sept.

From the email announcing the retirement enhancement:

"The first deposit will hit your account on or around September 20, 2012 covering earnings in August".

Just in time to cover the "moderate" and "power" users on our newly "enhanced" insurance benefits.

Only on a magic carpet does Jetblue insurance work or make sense.


http://si.wsj.net/public/resources/i...0416171118.jpg

1193 pilots willing to accept..... in exchange for what?

CBA are evil.. CBAs are tools of a democratic society and free people.