Longhornmaniac8

All of which was to support planned growth. There's a fundamental difference in that hiring must continue now just to maintain a status quo with the drastic increase in retirements vis-a-vis 2008. I'm not arguing, as I do believe there will be (significant) pains felt in civil aviation, many of which are TBD, but I also think it's important for people to not lose their minds and think this is the end of any hiring wave for the next 10 years.

Even a recession (which by all accounts we're careening towards) wouldn't see hiring stop, once the capacity cuts from COVID-19 are restored. This is a sudden and unexpected shift, but it's very unlikely to last beyond the year.

Concern is completely justified. Sky-is-falling predictions aren't.

fortyeight

No one has a crystal ball, but you’re right. The sky isn’t falling. I’d bet my years salary that this won’t result in anything even somewhat similar to what happened in 2001 and 2008.

Longhornmaniac8

I think it's entirely reasonable to expect the acute, short-term impacts to be greater than either 9/11 or 2008. United announcing a 70% reduction in bookings for April is, as best I know, completely without precedent. It is absolutely going to be bad for the next few months.

Beyond that, let's all just take a chill pill and see what happens. It almost certainly will get worse (compared to now), but the nature of disease spread is that it will, sooner (order of months) rather than later plateau, and things will subside.

As of now, we should all be doing everything we can to "flatten the curve," and try to reduce the rate of infection. That allows our healthcare resources to avoid being overstressed.

Jungle Jim

You guys can believe anything you want to, but so long as Joe Blow isn't buying airline tickets, no one is safe. No one. No hype, no blame the democrats, no smoke and mirrors. I hope this will "blow over" like the next guy, but you better clutch your handbag a little tighter because until people start buying tickets again, this is only going to get worse - possibly compounding month-over-month. I'm writing this on a hub-to-hub 737 with 40 people on it. That's not sustainable. That's the only thing that matters.

If even 1 person gets furloughed from our codeshare masters, grab yur ankles because it will be a wild ride for everyone. They park planes, we park planes; they let people go, we let people go. It's that simple. Our operating margins are a lot thinner than theirs, and you can bet your ass the gov't won't be running to bail the regionals out like they will the essential providers if it comes to that.

Not pandering to the hysteria, but a lot of really awful things in our industry are happening very, very quickly when this was supposed to be one of the best years. You guys are naive to think anyone is safe if this thing goes as widespread as some organizations full of smart people think it can, not APC part-time economists and epidemiologists.

Tpinks

Except that just about every airline has force majeure clauses that exempts that. AA for example has a 15 month period from a time a plane is parked until it affects scope limits. That is why the MAX grounding does not affect regional flying until Late June, in which 4 planes will be drawn down. The draw downs that the airlines have done I would wager have more to do with flying empty planes around than scope issues right this moment.


You can’t stop hiring for a month or two while expanding a fleet and then expect to be able to fully fly everything once everything is given the go ahead. Our CEO has specifically said we plan on hiring continuously. As of now, nothing has changed.


edit:
However, with the utter panic that is going through the population right now and the fact that ALL International flying has just been suspended from Europe, minus Great Britain, anything could happen. I still do not think we will furlough, however I could see possibly a slower paced Hiring period beginning IF this is shaping up to be a longer term issue. I think in 2-3 weeks, we will know more on how it’s going to shake out.

Lets assume we fly at a reduced rate. If the travel industry starts getting hit by people getting it and being placed in quarantine for two weeks, you have to have people to cover that flying. As it is right now, we are only staffed for a flying level that is 13% lower than what we actually have assigned to us. We will continue to grow that amount as we take additional Compass planes. While the flying is new to us, it is flying that is already within the DL system, so those planes aren’t just going to show up and not be flown. To furlough with such lengthy recovery periods would be setting us up for failure unless the entire industry is shut down.

mrfishy

Do you have a source for this for any or all of the airlines? I'd like to read through it myself

KCaviator

THIS^^^^^

Oh, and Trump just banned air travel to Europe. If you aren’t preparing for the worst and looking at Plan B, you are already too late.

Tpinks

I do not other than what I have read from other sources. I know the number of 15 months for AA is from one of the recent AA articles that specifically stated that AA were parking 4 regional planes at the beginning of June. A few weeks earlier than required by the scope clause. The Max was ground in March 19 and June 20 will be 15 months...

sanicom3205

Edit number three coming in about ten days.

In all seriousness the speed in which you just changed your outlook should give you pause. I know you aren’t willing to give a huge amount back, believe whatever helps you sleep tonight. We’re all generally in the same boat, and it’s taking water. We’ll see if we can bail fast enough.

But I will say that you shouldn’t be so confident.

sanicom3205

I have never voted on anything scope related.

I am not the one cheerleading this stuff, so maybe redirect your enthusiasm.