Future of Jetblue?
 

Just copied this from another board.
We're ****ed boys and girls ifs it's true.

The airline industry is awaiting another major consolidation. American Airlines, a subsidiary of AMR Corp. (AAMRQ) is evaluating its merger proposal with the fifth largest U.S. airline US Airways Group Inc. (LCC).

Now, according to Reuters, four other candidates - JetBlue Airways Corp. (JBLU), Alaska Air Group (ALK), Frontier Airlines, a subsidiary of Republic Airways Holdings (RJET) and a privately held Virgin America have expressed interest to be the merger partner.

After seven months into bankruptcy restructuring, the third largest U.S. air carrier has improved its revenue and reduced costs to a certain extent. The company is progressing well with the labor union negotiations aimed at generating more than $1 billion in annual cost reductions.

Now, American Airlines together with its creditors will carefully review all the strategic alternatives that could make the airline even stronger. The team would evaluate synergies, costs, and tax and capital structure that would be generated from each merger.

JetBlue and Alaska have wide networks on the East and West Coast, respectively. The merger with these two carriers do not appear lucrative as American Airlines already has partnerships with them, providing services in cities like New York and Los Angeles. *

American Airlines could get a strong foothold in Denver by merging with Frontier. However, United and Southwest already have a strong presence in the city, which is not large enough to support the three major airlines. The next alternative, Virgin America is struggling with losses and has a huge debt in its balance sheet. As result, American Airlines may scrap this option altogether.* *

So, we see American Airlines-US Airways as the hottest pair in the industry as it will be in the best interest of the customers. Two months ago, the three labor unions of American Airlines supported a merger with US Airways.

The combination would be strong enough in scope and size to compete with their larger rivals, United Continental Holdings Inc. (UAL) and Delta Airlines Inc. (DAL). In fact, the combination would create an airline identical to the largest U.S. air carrier, United Continental, in terms of revenue and traffic, and would be better than the second largest airline, Delta.

This is an opportune moment for American Airlines to regain its lost profits and operational efficiency. As United and Delta will be long-term beneficiaries following the merger actions on both capacity and cost fronts, we believe American Airlines will also emerge as a successful candidate by balancing its debt level and lowering costs.

American Airlines currently has a Zacks #2 (Buy) Rank for the short term (1–3 months).
Read the Full Research Report on RJET
Read the Full Research Report on LCC
Read the Full Research Report on JBLU
Read the Full Research Report on DAL
Read the Full Research Report on UAL
Read the Full Research Report on AAMRQ
Read the Full Research Report on ALK
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Read the analyst report on RJET,LCC,JBLU,DAL,UAL,AAMRQ,ALK

The sky is falling? Should I preemptively quit to stick it to the man?

One of the more unlikely scenarios, however in this industry stranger things have happened.

— JETBLUE, VIRGIN AMERICA, FRONTIER OR ALASKA
Merging with a smaller airline isn't practical. JetBlue, the largest of this group, would add only 170 planes to American's 900-plane fleet. JetBlue and Alaska have great feeder networks on the East and West Coast, respectively, but American already has partnerships with both carriers that bring passengers to its hubs in cities like New York and Los Angeles.
JetBlue has been expanding in the Caribbean and cities in the Northeast — many locations abandoned by American. JetBlue's lower labor costs make this possible, said Ray Neidl, an airline specialist with the Maxim Group.
"A lot of markets JetBlue is expanding into, American can't make money in," Neidl said.

What we would like you to do is stop burying your head in the sand and vote for a CBA. This mentality of JetBlue, values, "do the right thing" is ridiculous. You believe because you received another retirement increase which still sets you well below industry standard JetBlue is doing the right thing?
When AA or another carrier comes to buy us what do you think JetBlue management will say? What do you think the courts will say? Even if JetBlue argued in your favor the courts and the acquiring carriers union will state but you signed a PEA and it says "this". And what "this" says is you can have separate operations, a 50% staple and be let go. Oh yeah, you also get $2,000,000 to fight your sli AFTER you exhaust your own resources.

Again, take your head out of the sand.

I un-bolded the part you're worried about and placed some emphasis on the parts that really apply. If you actually read the article, the opinion is that Jetblue isn't a likely candidate for merger. Just because JB management "expressed interest" doesn't mean it'll happen.

The guys who need to be worried are the AA pilots. Merging with US Airways is like surgically implanting cancer into a patient. The conflict at that airline is already epic - add them to the AA-TWA mix and it will be decades before there is peace.

You guys are too much.

In the little that I wrote I do not recall mentioning any of the generalizations you claimed for me. It's the weekend, I'll be on the lake with a beer of you need me.

Awesome!! I agree...:) Some extremists can't leave well enough alone...Beer time!

Unwad panties. There's nothing we can do about it until it happens - except voting YES to a CBA.

After a quick visit to reuters.com, I'm having trouble locating where "Zacks Investment Research" acquired this information. Type "jetblue" into the "Search News & Quotes" bar at the top of the page, and you will not come across an article expressing their interest in becoming the merging partner. (I'm suspecting the same will be true for the other 3 airlines... I did not check.) You will, however, find this article stating AMR's interest:

UPDATE 4-AMR to advance with merger review, source says 5 airlines eyed | Reuters

Perhaps I'm overlooking the article Zacks is referencing. If so, does someone have a link?

If this merger goes thru their may not be time for another union drive. That being said I think I agree it's time to get a beer and stop worrying about things we can nothing about!!

Not to mention that it is NOT going to happen.

Once a merger is announced its too late. Although AirTran voted in ALPA the negotiations with SWA began while the in-house union was in place. Because of this AirTran in house contract was used which ultimately lacked a merger of operations clause like the JetBlue PEA's.
Time is of the essence when it comes to the next union vote.

Bottom line...

You fly airplanes owned by other people. They will determine what color the airplanes are and what they will do with the money. If it gets bad enough, you'll go somewhere else, IF that is better. In the meantime, live below your means and fund your own retirement. As in almost all other jobs, lifetime employment is over. It was always sketchy at best in the airline business...most guys have had 3 different uniforms in their closets.

Plan accordingly.

Golly Gee thanks for the lesson dad. Now go take a running you know what at yourself.

He actually had some pretty good points.

Some guys get lucky for a few years, but this industry will bite you in the a$$ eventually.

Tool of the day!!!

"txbusdriver"

"Now go take a running you know what at yourself."


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No need, you just did it for me. Kharmic justice does prevail in aviation.

Good luck with your career.

Best,
Jack

Been there done that, got the furlough/merger tshirts. Thanks for your interest.

You're welcome...."dad".

I don't agree. Pilot groups should not be passive.

Smart man.

I could probably be your grandfather...but he's right.

They aren't passive. But there's not a d##n thing they can do about it with an oversupply of pilot labor in a globally competitive, domestically deregulated business.

Heed his advice...hope for the best, plan for the worst and live within your means.

So few people do that though. We have collectively learned nothing from all our industry has ben though over the generations and even recently. We as a society define "affordable" as how much can we get on credit. That makes us weak and makes us our own worst enemies and puts management in charge big time. If you can't "afford" to walk away, you weaken your position significantly and will end up with much less.

Worker bees running up their "monthly nut" so they can't afford to lose the job has been one of the most powerful weapons in management's arsenal ever. With very few exceptions, if you can't (or won't) pay cash for it, you can't afford it. Period.

Words of wisdom. This industry(and country)would be in much better shape if people would take heed of your words.....

"I don't agree. Pilot groups should not be passive."

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Alas, the majority of pilots are somewhat passive. And pilot groups tend to throw each other under the bus. We have been out-maneuvered by management, the courts and the NMB. I wish activist pilots would change all of this.

Activist pilots at JetBlue were silenced by 1193 pilots willing to accept substandard pay, benefits, retirement, insurance, disability and the most important important contractual provision, merger protection.
Section 15 represents a gaping hole which allows the acquiring airline to operate the airlines independently, transfer assets from one to another while allowing each individual PEA to expire.

Unions and CBA's are necessary evils.

McCaskill/Bond might help you when it happens.

You're joking----right?

+1

........

This should be required reading for every citizen.

& posted in every airline crew room.

I don't think many economists would agree with you. Access to credit and deep pools of liquidity are required components of capitalism and the free market.

Since we are hijacking the thread....

I use credit for everything...however,

My credit card has great cash back rewards and is paid off in full every month. Buying things in credit instead of cash MAKES me money. When it comes to financing...I never turn down 0 percent. I get to buy something and continue to MAKE money on my money. Still basically the same thing as you said...I do not buy things that I can not "afford" regardless of the means of which I actually purchase them.

MOST economists
 

You are right, MOST economists think credit is essential to a "capitalistic" society. But the ate Keynesian economists and have bankrupted our country (world). Most of us know that living on credit doesn't work in our own finances. But we try to apply it to government finances and it leads to failure we are finding out.

Also, their capitalism is crony capitalism. Not free markets that the us was founded on.

And now, back to our regularly scheduled programming........


I'm going to buy JetBlue (the whole thing) with several other pilot friends and Tom Horton. Now that the company is in play, your stock options will go up! Day traders rejoice, it's the new world order !!!








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It's a joke.

Lorenzo? Is that you? ;)

You mean required components of crony capitalism/corportism where you magically print money and banks can loan out the same dollar 10 different times, at the same time, as long as everything magically grows and the music never stops. Then the banks can charge 10X the interest and command more principal and interest than exists, so the process grows politically to feed itself until it collapses. Look at our debt, it isn't working. Most economists are Keynesians by default, and all, 100%, Keynesians are idiots. No exception.

Might as well do my part in hijacking this thread...

You are spot on. Those who think voting out the incumbent in the upcoming election are replacing one Keynesian with another in a different wrapper. Read Hayek or Von Mises from the Austrian school of economics. It's as much fun as reading Stephen Hawking but just as fundamentally sound. One prez candidate has it right but is unfairly and incorrectly derided as a loony. Watch him grill Bernanke in some of the Fed hearings - in fact YouTube it. Not as much fun as watching Kim and Chloe but if anyone gives a poo about monetary policy and stopping the fiscal bleeding in the U.S. then it's a good watch.

Wow, fascinating how far off topic we can get.

Equally fascinating is how on topic it ends up being. Cool article on Motley about helicopter Bernake (the ultimate Keynesian moron) and his policies, including a 3rd round of "quantitative easing" (more money printing from the "Lord Keynes"/Chicago School of Economics playbook) as a likely destroyer of airline stocks later this year and/or next year.

While this stuff is broad based, some of it directly effects airlines and therefore our jobs. Plugging our ears and saying "la la la la la la I don't like politics la la la la la" is pretty poor career risk management.