Agreed. 10/char

 

I think you are underestimating GK and his hand picked board , along with his puppet .

 

Where can I buy some of those rose-colored glasses?

 

What do you think BoJo's vision is? Or what about BOD? LEADERS can easily share their vision of what it is they're trying to do. What is Bob's vision? Or the Board's? What's their vision beyond the next quarter? Or how about in 5 years?

I'm not convinced we have a vision beyond 'don't die next quarter.'

 

What is the outlook for ATL, how much and when are they planning on reducing it?

 

I think you may need to read the SWA Board of Directors Corporate Bylaws and Articles. Specifically, article four section five. BJ has full authority to do what he wants. The board has the abilty to hire and fire him. That's pretty much about it. Since GK has been one of the longest tenures as CEO of a major airline, the board of course will ask him to hang around for while. Parker at AAL is also Chairman of the Board. Institutional investors want it. Since 80% of SWA stock is owned by institution's, I would assume they want him around to protect their investments. Almost all CEO's that have had long tenures in any company, retire to just Chairman. That's corporate America.

Just as GK admitted many times, he would lean on Herb sometimes when things would come up, I would assume that BJ does with GK. But make no bones about it, BJ runs the company.

 

Forget the BOD. Their job is to maximaze shareholder return. They have no vision because that's not their job. That's the CEO's responsibilty. As far as Bob's vision, he stated yesterday, on investors day in Sept that he will have more color. I just hope he moves with caution because on the CC yesterday, they were talking about making some pretty big business changes. What work's at other airlines, can be very hard to implement at this place.

 

Precisely... we went from $65 per share down to $27. I'd like them to maximize the shareholder return and they're failing at that just as Bob is failing as the CEO.

Personally, I have no faith in our C-Suite. I would maybe retain AW, but everyone else would be spending more time with their families.

 

I don't personally know the guy. He had the chance to meet our upgrade class about 5 times but declined because of the meltdown. He reminds me a lot of some "leaders" I had at my last job that would rather hide in their office than get out and lead. He communicates no real vision and is as uninspiring as they come. I am sure there is "a plan", but our coporate overlords never communicate it for various reasons and he will never lead from the front, so we won't hear it from him. They have sent signals in earnings calls and investor reports, and that is that they are going to grow capacity year over year.

Right now, they need to thicken the network in our legacy markets because that robust network was our strength and now we are allowing competitors to syphon that off. That's clearly why we are pulling back from weak markets. We were supposed to get the airplanes to restore that network and now we aren't. You can't operate a station like IAH, ATL, and ORD with a legacy gorilla on your back and compete head to head with their scale. You can't create OE traffic to fill a 175 seat airplane where there is none in places like SYR and BLI. That has never been the business plan here and I am not sure why they tried it other than to say that they did it.

Here are two things I know. I would rather them stop hiring than to be in another severely overmanned situation like during the max grounding. I would rather them close stations that aren't turning a profit and likely never will. On TOF guys are whining about "shrinking to profitability". Look at the numbers. That isn't what we are doing. We are still growing, but we are constrained.

Bob Jordan was never intended to be CEO, but here we are. I would personally fire the guy if I were in charge, but I'm not. I would also make a lot of changes if I were in charge, but SWA is a big ship with a tiny rudder and a bunch of ground ops pirates at the helm. Change isnt easy in a place like this. The only way to get change done quickly is to get an activist investor to threaten the board. Is that what you want? It may happen here soon if the share price keeps on its current trajectory.

The whole point of my last post was just to interject some facts into the whine fest. Bad news sucks. I don't like it either, but if you step back and look at the whole picture, it is far from doom and gloom.

 

Don't you know that any optimism is expressly forbidden on any forum? Doom and gloom only please.