XJT e-mail regarding Skywest purchase
 

Apparently there was an e-mail sent to the XJT pilot group regarding Skywest's aquisition, and XJT guys are not very happy about it.

Can someone post the e-mail. I have a lot of friends at XJT and I wish them the best. I can see a lot of good coming out of this purchase if done correctly. I can also see some bad if done incorrectly. I am following the situation very closely.

Check you PM's.

It was from the Union and I personally don't see why people would be upset about it.

I can sum it up for you

Jerry wants to buy us, and only fly 205 airplanes for CAL..........

I forgot about the furlough part. That is something to be upset about.

That would tick me off to no end. Give them he!!.

At what price is Skywest going to pay for XJT?

don't know,

What was the purpose of the meeting if Ream just last week turned down the skywest offer? Is skywest going to offer more now, or has Ream decided to throw in the towel? and get his money in a buyout?

Sounds like XJT and skyw management are working together to get an agreement. which means they have a price for the purchase.

See, not much of that was indicated in the letter.

What a joke, I hope the Skywest and ASA guys see what this will do to all of us. None of us will get the raises we deserve.. ever.

It's called whipsawing, I hope you guys stand with us.

None of us will get the raises we deserve because we won't be around long enough to see them. Personally, I've decided tonight I'm jumping ship. I see nothing good coming out of this over the short and long term.

this thing is a wounded duck and is getting shot down without question. why would we want to be "saved" just to give all of our flying away. skywest would take the delta flying out of lax and slc, take additional CAL flying above our 205 airplanes, ground branded (which might have to be done anyway), and ground charter.... but give us 205 airplanes with crappy stipulations in place. a one for one trade for larger airplanes ... i dont know what CAL, SKW, etc management is thinking about but your gonna have to dangle a pretty big F'ing carrot to get CAL pilots to relax scope. We dont need any more 70-90 seaters at the regional level.

how about we let our management attempt to reach an agreement on a new cpa with CAL, we scratch branded, we are able to keep our contracted delta flying till the spring of 2010, and keep charter open... all of which have been profitable and we keep 2350 pilots around instead of reducing ourselves to 2050-2100. this skw proposal is BS. VOTE NO

Guys and gals me being a skywest employee I want to let you know that I am ashamed of whats is going on from my management. I have a few very good freinds flying for xjet and I dont want to see them on the street. I hope that you dont think that our pilot group wants to see anything hapen to any other pilot group. Anything that management does is out of our control. Best of luck

I'm not talking about the guys that will get furloughed, but the guys left at XJT and those at SKW and ASA will never get any short of decent wage. They will basically have 3 groups competing against each other.

Good to hear, Thanks!

Any other ideas?
 

Are there any other plans out there to return XJT to profitability without hacking branded?

"Mongo just pawn in game of life"

Thanks. Yeah, it stinks. I can see the management wanting to gobble up carriers to secure contracts. But having TWO out of the three pilot groups on property being unionized could be trouble if the SkyWest management wants to try and dismantle one of the two down the road.

I know it's the smallest piece of the XJT pie, but I wonder what the intentions are for the LAX DelCon operations.

The pilots are just pawns in all of this but its nice to hear there is still some camaraderie left within the profession. Theres going to be people on the street regardless of the takeover bid but from what SKW management is saying they want close to 700 xjt'ers on the street and to hire brand new pilots to fill the vacancies for the "new" flying. I cant tell if they are playing hardball or are they really expecting us to vote this through.

Yeah, like I said, it sucks. What's worse is that we have very LIMITED information about what is going on here, for obvious reasons.

Makes you wonder though, is this it, or it just the opening salvos of negotiations between the two parties? I mean, who is to say that their proposal is the last, best, and final offer? You know, SkyWest wants to put X amount of guys on the street. Maybe they are banking on our MEC trying to protects as many jobs as possible, AND grant them that pending scope relief, cheaper operating costs, etc.

I seriously doubt that if the buyout goes through, that it will happen quickly. Just too many things going on.

They would take our Delta ops out of LAX and hire pilots for this "new" flying.

what a joke

I think the reason most people say "ditch branded" is because of how unprofitable it has been. While startup costs most likely contributed greatly to the problems with the branded flying, continuing operation in the market with the aviation landscape in it's current condition, may not be the best idea, and as many people see it, branded is a money hole. I believe that Xjet knows this though, and while they're probing to find markets that will yield the best results for the branded flying, if any codeshare offered them a contract that would ensure profitability, they'd be fools not to jump at the offer, and pull planes from branded to do it.

The wording in this stuff makes it sound like a whipsaw attempt, which as we all know won't be good for the expressjet pilots, nor any of the other pilots operating under skywest management.

I'm not real sure how the CAL scope stuff works out, but i'd have to assume (since talks are going forward) that they could care less what other carriers you're operating 51+ seat aircraft for, even if it's on the same certificate? Either way, it'll be quite a fight....good luck to everyone, hope it all works out for the best, have friends at all three companies (xjet, asa, skw) and wouldn't want to see any of them lose their jobs in the future....good luck fellas.

So there was in fact a real email sent out by ALPA regarding this deal?

Is the branded flying losing money or not? Some people say yes and other say no. What was announced during earnings? Too lazy to look it up on my own, thanks!

no disrespect to you but i would like to post the email but i believe it is best left within the company. The key points have been stressed in posts on this board. in short the email briefed a meeting between skw management and our union on friday. SKW management told our MEC what they would like to have happen, our management gave the usual speech and they gave us just enough info to make us wonder.

I don't know what to believe any more, so thanks. Has the union MEC offered their perspective on it and made any recommendations as to how you should vote if it comes to that?

Nope, all we have is a snapshot of what was said at the meeting. I think many of us are waiting for more info before we form concrete opinions.

I don't understand what Skywest Inc. is doing with this deal. What we hear from Xjter's is that Skw Inc is out to nail them. But Skywest hasn't shown that in the past, that I've seen, with any group that they've bought or taken over....I may have missed something though. They've done good for ASA right?
If Skywest comes in and creates the turmoil in the ranks that it sounds like from the Xjt Alpa email, and 700 pilots get put out of work just to get hired back under a "new" agreement to start all over again, then the next Union drive at Skywest may turn out a bit different. Wasn't Skywest managements line during the union drive something about working together and they were there to look out for the workers? If this is the way they act now it totally shoots down their position. They would have just screwed people royally!
My opinion is that there is something we are missing and it isn't the raw deal that the email makes it out to be (I haven't read it so I'm no expert). Think on this, Mesa goes bye-bye and thier Erj flying is now up for grabs. Xjet needs it and United needs it covered. Xjet covered for Mesa out of Dulles a while back and did really well at it. Who know's
I'd just like to say good luck. We're all counting on you.

Right now the airplanes operating on branded flying, DAL, and charter are top notch (for 50 seaters). If we have any chance at additional flying, it's with those airframes. However, if this ceo of Skywest lets Kellner push him around, he'll probably shift those good airframes to CAL and take away the ERs and 37-seaters. If those are pulled off of CAL flying, they will be parked for good because no one wants them.

Don't count on CAL pilots caving on the scope. They have had a front row seat to see what happens. The two most financial sound legacies CAL & AA have zero (CAL) and minimal (AA has 25) jets above 50 seats.

My branded flights are largely FULL at this point, rare if we have more than 2 or 3 seats open (SAN is always FULL!, Long Beach and Reno too).

Every person I know who has flown on a Branded flight tells me how great the service is; fuel is hedged at $2.40 a gallon, JR has landed huge community grants for service and training..... those people saying Branded is a hole usually don't operate in Branded and still pledge allegiance to Continental, if not believe they are Continental.

I believe the best bet is to continue Branded as JR states until the fall, and re-evaluate the service. Even if a furlough took place (which XJT has not offered to their pilots to this point), I would recommend taking on the additional airframes and EXPANDING the branded service. A temporary furlough might actually save XJT pilots and promote the expansion into our own venture. The current plan calls for a large expansion of our charter servece (and it apparently is a big revenue source)

We are all just pilots here with no true statistics on where the money comes from. I just fly the plane, and have minor input on work rules via ALPA votes. SIMPLE - believe in XJT management, they have protected us time and again from concessions and furlough - this is one management group that I truly believe has our best interest at hand, and is not adversarial with the MEC.

SKW has simply tried to press a hard sell to a company that hasn't expressed an interest in selling themselves. No-one is parking 50 seat jets idle in the desert, and SKW needs 205 airframes to secure the CAL contract. XJT is in an excellent supply/demand situation.... AND HOLDS FIRST RIGHTS TO LEASE ANY AIRFRAME released fromt he CPA.

BRANDED IS TAKING OFF; NAME RECOGNITION IS HERE!

And that's no accident!!

The letter is out there in internet land. If you really want to read it, you'll be able to find it.

Since ALPA has Express Jets back then I am sure they have nothing to worry about in this deal. All the Skywest Pilot group has is SAPA so I guress they have a ton to worry about if this deal goes forward, I mean we are talking furloughs, layoffs, paycuts, etc. cause SAPA can't protect them like ALPA can:)

Respectfully, unless you have something productive to add, this is a serious matter, please don't act like certain members of your airline, that come on here to try to rub our noses in the mud.

As far as the letter is concerned, every pilot I've talked to since Friday (roughly a couple of hundred) will vote it down, myself included. What JA is suggesting, has a more severe outcome than if we stay independent.

Branded may or may not work, but as far as I'm concerned the Delta flying is ours, and so is the branded (which by the way broke even for the first time for March, a great improvement). I'm realistic enough to face the possibility of branded going away, however, I can't justify those frames, along with our Delta stuff going over to skywest, and furloughing our guys. No thanks Jerry, well take our chances, and we will live with our decision.

I'm not sure I understand the furlough proposal. Why would those pilots not have return rights?

It sounds like JA is not talking about furlough, but outright dismissal.

Check your PM's

Congrats on your "wisdom", what goes around comes around champ.
What cracks me up many of you "people" that crack jokes about ALPA want to eventually work for a Major airline that more than likely is ALPA does that sound hypocritical?

Skywest is worried that if the mergers go through and the majors start reducing the regional feed like whats ALREADY happening that they will be in a world of hurt. What happens to the skywest contract if UAL goes out or merges? The DAL piece of the pie is getting too big and DAL isnt excited about that. Just remember todays "big regional" can easily be tomorrows "little regional". History repeats itself. good luck to both the skywest and xjt pilots.

Whipsawing isnt good for any pilot regardless of who represents your group. I am sure even the skywest guys know that. Its easy to see what your mgmt is trying to pull on the XJT pilot group and its a real shame.

I don't know if you're referring to the initial bravado displayed by some XJT folks, but I think you're late to the party. This post, unfortunately, will likely only start the next round of internet banter.

Now is time for serious, sober contemplation on the behalf of XJT.

And I hope for our company, too.

There are several major differences between our company's purchase of ASA and potentially XJT; the single biggest being that ASA has and does make money. So far, it's an asset that was bought at fire sale price (Delta paid about $1B, we paid less than half that).

XJT is not making money, and any fix to that will be painful.

Like I said, I feel it coming around, ALPA is not here to protect me and I am screwed because I can't be a pilot anymore and work with other cheapskate selfish pilots. Bummer...oh well looks like I will have to find another career....too bad so sad, and those of you who only have SAPA to protect you will have to join me too because ALPA otherwise known as "Daddy" is only there to help real pilots.

What? You make absolutely no sense at all, I can't even believe I am responding to this.

Please delete your post. You might fully believe what you post, even if somewhat incoherent, but your intent is to flame bait.

And yes, we obviously are dorky nerds, or we wouldn't be on the internet now. You, too.;)

Things that make you say wow...Everyone take a chill-pill, please. And yes, ladder14, do delete your last post.