StripAlert

It's a hammer, to be sure, but the real nail is the combined management. Thanks to LOA 19, RA knows that 7,000 Delta pilots won't even consider signing off on a JPWA with SLI a big unknown, unless it is a significant improvement over LOA 19. Why would we? We've already got LOA 19. They can cry about oil prices and the economy all they want, but the fact is that there will be no synergy without putting even more scratch on the table for everyone, including NWA, since a B-scale is a non-starter.

So yes, LOA 19 does pressure the NWA group into being reasonable on SLI, but more importantly, it benefits both groups by ensuring that the LOA 19 terms remain a baseline for JPWA negotiation that won't be abrogated by doom-and-gloom industry forecasts from management (and the DAL MEC, apparently).

It's a big hammer that says, "Shrink capacity if you need to, in order to raise prices to cover your costs, because the competent, professional employees of both of these airlines are done subsidizing cheap family vacations with their salaries." Personally, I'm looking forward to not commuting alongside torn-jeans pierced-nipples spiked-rainbow-mohawk-man or any of the other riff-raff that our incompetent leaders have so thoughtfully enabled to fly from Podunk Muni to BFE Regional, clogging up our hubs connecting RJ to RJ, keeping mainline salaries low and regional salaries lower, all on chump change dredged up amidst year-old corn flakes and marijuana butts from between their couch cushions. Some day I'd like to get on a Delta flight and not see some chick flying home from college for the weekend in sweat-pants and flip-flops, looking like she just rolled out of bed, clutching her big drool-stained pillow. Good riddance.

capncrunch

So true........sweat pants, flip flop, pillow girl is everywhere.

slinky

When flying stops being mass transit and is a premimum service, the nations air service will improve in quality, safety and performance.

tsquare

That's a really interesting theory.. What makes you really think pillow girl is going away? This industry is whack-a-mole... Capacity will never go away. When has it ever? It might shrink for a little while, then some SWA wannabe gets a few old 737-200s or throw away airbusses and there you have it... capacity is back and nobody can raise fares. How many airframes are going to be on the market in the coming months? Nice rant though

StripAlert

What's different this time is the lack of freely available capital to finance it. It's the same aspect that has already caused smaller failed carriers to skip Chapter 11 and go straight to Chapter 7. This is not just about the airline industry. It's a perfect storm of peak oil, credit and housing crises, and stagflation, and all the political ineptitude that continues to accelerate it (regardless of who wins in November). Open skies might delay the inevitable for awhile, but the collapse of the Euro won't lag far behind the Dollar.

Even were that not the case, our leadership could do better courting a more affluent and respectable clientele. Let SWA and its imitators cater to that other market. I'd rather see Delta/NWA be known as the airline that a smaller base of well-to-do business and professional travelers turns to for a classy trip across the pond. As it stands now, we're too expensive for discretionary travel, while the experience continues to disappoint exactly the customers we need to be focusing on retaining, as we continue to cut amenities and aggravate our front-line personnel through wage and benefit concessions for what? To keep top spot on the cheap sort on priceline.com with $150 oil looming?

I say that's ridiculous. If the routes aren't profitable, raise the damn prices. If, as a result, we can't maintain a load-factor high enough to keep it in the black, then abandon that route to anyone foolish enough to try, and let them bleed some. If SWA can do it profitably, more power to them. They're geared for that kind of thing. Let's stop being the guy bringing a knife to a gunfight trying to match Southwest on price. Let's have fewer daily flights from those less-profitable markets to serve our premium and international clientele. If it's really that important for somebody to save $10 in airfare on an international connection, then let them fly SWA to our hub, go out and get their bags, check them in with us, and go back through security. Perhaps in the future, SWA can be a lower-cost option for domestic feed for our more price-sensitive passengers through interline agreements. It would be a great way to get them to our hubs, and they would be happy with the service and a few more dollars in their pockets, while being fed there by a partner airline who actually cares about the bottom line, unlike our current RJ operators. At the same time, our premium customers can still enjoy a Delta Business Elite or higher-quality coach experience that might actually meet their expectations. In exchange, SWA could ticket pax straight through to international destinations on Delta.

A savvy real estate investor looks for properties that have a net positive cash-flow from Day 1. If the market goes up, the capital gain is just gravy. The investor that buys a property for more than it's worth, hoping it will appreciate in value, while feeding it cash every month is asking for trouble. How many investments can I own if they each produce $100 of cash flow every month? The answer is, "As many as I can manage." How many can you own if they each lose $100 every month? Right now, airlines are still playing the market share game, accumulating unprofitable routes so their competitors won't get them. It didn't make sense during the good times either, but we were making money hand over fist and nobody cared. It makes absolutely no sense now.

I interact with our customers every day on our international operation. When I do get to talk to them, they tell me that they understand fuel prices, because they're hit with them every week at the gas pump, not just on the occasions they fly. They wonder why we're still selling $400 transcon roundtrips. They think baggage fees and other various nickel-and-dime schemes are not classy, and they wish we'd just charge what it costs to run the business. They appreciate the professionalism that our pilots and flight attendants exhibit on a daily basis, and most of them understand that we're all doing the same quality of work for far less money these days. They wish our gate and ticket agents were friendlier and better in our hub airports, and they understand that it takes money to attract the kind of individuals we need for customer-facing positions, and that the money has to come from somewhere, and that somewhere is ticket prices. However, they also wonder why the girl working behind the counter at Chick-Fil-A seems a lot happier and more efficient. They think Oberstar's a self-serving fool. They understand that we need to charge more for bookings by phone than over the Internet, but they wish that extra $15-25 could buy them a conversation with a friendly American CSR, like at JetBlue.

Pillow Girl doesn't understand any of this. She's too busy hopping up to grab her backpack out of the overhead bin while we're on the ramp waiting for our minimum wage, non-contract, understaffed, high school dropout wing-walkers to get in position. Let her fly Southwest, I say. They can have her dad's $89.

Speedbird34

I love your fury

dtfl

Yeah but some of those college chicks have great butts and big boobs and are hot.......:-p

I'm more concerned with getting to work, PERIOD. With the combined pilot group, we now have thousands more pilots and their wives and daughters who have DOH on us.

Nothing against anyone's family...but my opinion is I (and every other employee) should get on an airplane before someone's wife or kid, regardless of their Dad's/Hubby's DOH. "I" work at the company, not them, and I am trying to get to work to fly an airplane so they can Non-Rev on it.

tsquare

Hey Strip.. I admire your passion.. Believe it or not, I agree with alot of what you say, and wrt to access to capital markets, you may be right. And the problem with abandoning routes could easily result in us becoming another Pan Am.. remember what killed them? But I think there is a balance there that can be exploited by good management. Hauenstein and Cortelyu are (in my opinion) the best in the industry. I am looking forward to watching them earn their pesos.

Ciao!

Deez340

Excellent! If the jugs are there however, I will gladly take her dad's $489.

hiflyer

[quote=StripAlert;411649]It's a hammer, to be sure, but the real nail is the combined management. Thanks to LOA 19, RA knows that 7,000 Delta pilots won't even consider signing off on a JPWA with SLI a big unknown, unless it is a significant improvement over LOA 19. Why would we? We've already got LOA 19. They can cry about oil prices and the economy all they want, but the fact is that there will be no synergy without putting even more scratch on the table for everyone, including NWA, since a B-scale is a non-starter.

Much of what you say is perhaps accurate in a sound economy. I have been around long enough to know that the DAL pilots will sign on the dotted line once the sales job starts.

Who would have thought a group would sign-off on a 32% pay-cut followed by another 14%, terminated pension, more and bigger rj's, etc.........

It could be sold like this:

More growth the sooner we capture synergies

More airframes are on the way, in addition to the ones we already know about.........

Can't tell you that, it's confidential, have seen the business plan, I promise the lack of pay increase will be made up by the growth and movement we will see. (see above)

Get the idea. Not saying it is right or wrong, just illustrating how the TA could be presented.

It'll pass 60/40, my opinion of course.