Hiring to resume in earnest
10-07-2017 | 03:24 AM
#51
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From: C-17/MD11
It's going to change, so get your hopes up. I know the crowd around here is for the most part continually negative, but how could anyone believe the 450 for all of 2018 or whatever garbage number that's been published when we have that many retirements alone?! Sometimes you just need to not think too deeply at what's been said, and most certainly take the emotions out of your analysis. Once you can do that, then look at what the company has done.
Let's start with the investor call about a year ago. "we have some initiatives we are going to implement and test out before we fully commit".... That's a hint at growth if there ever was one, but when you're at a go big or go home point you need to make sure your playbook is fixed and set because these are multi year decisions that could ruin you if done incorrectly.
What's Kirby been saying? We can be the biggest airline, we are going to defend our hubs, shrinking is not the answer to profitability, United is an amazing opportunity because of the network and structure, LAX we need to compete in, terminal 9 is going to happen, we must fly mainline into competitor hubs, we need to rebank to more effectively connect pax, gate space issues can be mitigated some by upgauging, etc.
What's Oscar said: No early retirements because we're about to embark on a major growth initiative. We need to focus on the more lucrative domestic side as that's been ignored, but still fly international where it makes sense. Must enhance customer service and passenger experience.
Don't remember who, but most importantly, it was said we aren't going to disclose everything for competitive reasons. Hmm. Now if you could hire all day from Frontier and Spirit, who also happen to want to grow in hubs you want to dominate, and this hiring would create staffing problems, would you want them to know what's on the horizon for pilot poaching so they can lead turn their impending problem? This is a bit conspiracy theory, but totally plausible as one way to stifle growth is to not have the necessary people to do the job.
What has the company done in last year? Major tng center investment. New base in Denver. Enhanced Hawaii service to become largest carrier. Look at all the new service from SFO. Lots of 75s into Seattle now, so more seats in a market we should have never left. Payne Field announcement. Engagement with LAX for term 9. Reopening of IAH 787 knowing damn well that would be egg on the face. Interviewing in the XJT CPP that's never stopped. Tons of new RJ service locations and mainline into competitor's hubs-which Kirby first said needs to happen, and it has! Mainline grew 10% last yr, or a number close to it so don't quote me, but it exceeded all other carriers ML growth. Lots of staffing shifts to become more efficient, granted this may impact some pilots QoL so your opinion may vary on it. Rebanking in hubs. Upgauging in lots of places. Polaris. FA ability to compensate pax on the spot. Going to stop here.
Oscar and Kirby have said several public things that if reversed on would create a total loss of confidence from the BoD, imo. In the publicly traded corporation world, you can't just throw comments out there you never intend to follow through on like you're a young Capt in a Squadron bar. You need to develop a strategy, test it, then commit to implementing it if the test goes well. That's business. Telling all your employees something to get them excited then totally changing course could happen, but if that was your strategy you sure as hell wouldn't announce this to the rest of the corporate and investor world. Anytime someone has does that to you, what has that done to your faith in their leadership ability?
It's a good time to be at United. If I were applying somewhere that would see a fair amount of instant seniority, this will be the place.
Let's start with the investor call about a year ago. "we have some initiatives we are going to implement and test out before we fully commit".... That's a hint at growth if there ever was one, but when you're at a go big or go home point you need to make sure your playbook is fixed and set because these are multi year decisions that could ruin you if done incorrectly.
What's Kirby been saying? We can be the biggest airline, we are going to defend our hubs, shrinking is not the answer to profitability, United is an amazing opportunity because of the network and structure, LAX we need to compete in, terminal 9 is going to happen, we must fly mainline into competitor hubs, we need to rebank to more effectively connect pax, gate space issues can be mitigated some by upgauging, etc.
What's Oscar said: No early retirements because we're about to embark on a major growth initiative. We need to focus on the more lucrative domestic side as that's been ignored, but still fly international where it makes sense. Must enhance customer service and passenger experience.
Don't remember who, but most importantly, it was said we aren't going to disclose everything for competitive reasons. Hmm. Now if you could hire all day from Frontier and Spirit, who also happen to want to grow in hubs you want to dominate, and this hiring would create staffing problems, would you want them to know what's on the horizon for pilot poaching so they can lead turn their impending problem? This is a bit conspiracy theory, but totally plausible as one way to stifle growth is to not have the necessary people to do the job.
What has the company done in last year? Major tng center investment. New base in Denver. Enhanced Hawaii service to become largest carrier. Look at all the new service from SFO. Lots of 75s into Seattle now, so more seats in a market we should have never left. Payne Field announcement. Engagement with LAX for term 9. Reopening of IAH 787 knowing damn well that would be egg on the face. Interviewing in the XJT CPP that's never stopped. Tons of new RJ service locations and mainline into competitor's hubs-which Kirby first said needs to happen, and it has! Mainline grew 10% last yr, or a number close to it so don't quote me, but it exceeded all other carriers ML growth. Lots of staffing shifts to become more efficient, granted this may impact some pilots QoL so your opinion may vary on it. Rebanking in hubs. Upgauging in lots of places. Polaris. FA ability to compensate pax on the spot. Going to stop here.
Oscar and Kirby have said several public things that if reversed on would create a total loss of confidence from the BoD, imo. In the publicly traded corporation world, you can't just throw comments out there you never intend to follow through on like you're a young Capt in a Squadron bar. You need to develop a strategy, test it, then commit to implementing it if the test goes well. That's business. Telling all your employees something to get them excited then totally changing course could happen, but if that was your strategy you sure as hell wouldn't announce this to the rest of the corporate and investor world. Anytime someone has does that to you, what has that done to your faith in their leadership ability?
It's a good time to be at United. If I were applying somewhere that would see a fair amount of instant seniority, this will be the place.
10-07-2017 | 06:41 AM
#52
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From: Narrow/Left Wide/Right
Curious, how long have you been in the 121 industry? This post sounds heavy military background, with a healthy dose of naivety and newbie to 121 management thinking. Don’t be offended, many of us had at one point thought management didn’t have their heads in the sand. I may be wrong, I may have just been around 121 ops for far too long, but I’m not getting my hopes up about PhD level thinking by any 121 management.
You know for years SWA dogged the industry in pay and benefits but their Mgmt had probably been the most focused on the slow plodding growth without taking on debt and when the #<|€{£ hits the fan they were in a position to buy Deltas fuel hedges at huge discount and then proceed to slowly grow while the legacies went BK.
When I hear pilots rah rah huge expansion initiatives I usually cringe because history shows that huge rapid debt laden expansion usually results in the steepest cuts.
Good luck to us all.
10-07-2017 | 07:43 AM
#53
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Curious, how long have you been in the 121 industry? This post sounds heavy military background, with a healthy dose of naivety and newbie to 121 management thinking. Don’t be offended, many of us had at one point thought management didn’t have their heads in the sand. I may be wrong, I may have just been around 121 ops for far too long, but I’m not getting my hopes up about PhD level thinking by any 121 management.
Personally, I think from a pilots perspective it will be a good time to get on the list at United because we'll continue to make money, barring some unforeseen drastic macro economic event, and there will be organic growth. However, I believe the strategy to influence the net profit margin is a couple years too late. It'll improve some, but it's going to decline first due to competitor factors and an inability to fill seats with the same load factor. Mgmt has hinted at this already and we've seen it with the basic economy tactic pseudo failure. Delta played it right a few years ago while United was trying the shrink strategy with Smisek. Now we're following their playbook a couple years later. It's like buying another house because you just made a ton of money on the last one. United pilots profit sharing checks will lag delta for the next five years I'm sure of it. Only variable i can see is what happens there with this new c series tariff and the maddog retirements. Growth there may come to a total halt or the significant increase in c series price drops them down to us rather than our strategy brings us up to them. I haven't tried to run any numbers on what the price increase will do, or if they will even follow through on the order, but WS analysts certainly are. As long as economic conditions remain the same, the biggest issue for major carriers is getting aircraft, as we have already seen here at UA. I do not know if maddogs can be extended or what the 717 age is. If not, and delta balks at paying the tariff, they won't be growing without scope relief that's a certainty. If the tariff is upheld, I bet you see delta attack the scope issue. Jmho.
My b fund is invested in oil as a hedge, not airline stock.
Mil. 3 years. Fairly extensive finance background.
10-07-2017 | 08:14 AM
#54
Gets Weekends Off
Joined: Oct 2015
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From: Gear slinger
Pay and Work rule wise, UAL beat AA. AA has the older pilot group so you’d be more senior faster.
UAL has WB @ IAD and AA has just announced PHL as their Gateway to Europe from the east coast and will focus more there. Junior WB flying in AA is G3 767 in PHL.
I have family about 1.5 hours from IAD and 2hrs from PHL. If I had the choice between the two, I’d personally choose UAL. YMMV
10-07-2017 | 08:38 AM
#55
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Posts: 257
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From: 737
Don't mistake my corporate analysis for a belief they are actually going to close the margin gap, establish the 1.5% premium a few years from now, and it'll be rainbows from here on out. Few on these boards understand corporate governance, can decipher an income statement, or even know what GAAP stands for, and my analysis has nothing to do with what I hear from other pilots or my own unbridled optimism. It is simply an analysis like I do for any other company I want to invest in. Take the emotion out, evaluate the strategy, then see if the numbers back it up. I never believed the 450 for 2018 number based on what mgmt has told the investment world coupled with their actions on new and/or expanded routes, and the hiring pause of 2017. The way I saw it, mgmt was either going to throw the briefed gameplan given to the investment world out the window (that may get oscar fired given the bad PR of 2017 and a disturbing change of course from the claimed margin premium by 2020), or, more hiring is coming. They have yet to announce any strategic changes to the investment world. I believe there will be a public announcement of substantial hiring very shortly.
Personally, I think from a pilots perspective it will be a good time to get on the list at United because we'll continue to make money, barring some unforeseen drastic macro economic event, and there will be organic growth. However, I believe the strategy to influence the net profit margin is a couple years too late. It'll improve some, but it's going to decline first due to competitor factors and an inability to fill seats with the same load factor. Mgmt has hinted at this already and we've seen it with the basic economy tactic pseudo failure. Delta played it right a few years ago while United was trying the shrink strategy with Smisek. Now we're following their playbook a couple years later. It's like buying another house because you just made a ton of money on the last one. United pilots profit sharing checks will lag delta for the next five years I'm sure of it. Only variable i can see is what happens there with this new c series tariff and the maddog retirements. Growth there may come to a total halt or the significant increase in c series price drops them down to us rather than our strategy brings us up to them. I haven't tried to run any numbers on what the price increase will do, or if they will even follow through on the order, but WS analysts certainly are. As long as economic conditions remain the same, the biggest issue for major carriers is getting aircraft, as we have already seen here at UA. I do not know if maddogs can be extended or what the 717 age is. If not, and delta balks at paying the tariff, they won't be growing without scope relief that's a certainty. If the tariff is upheld, I bet you see delta attack the scope issue. Jmho.
My b fund is invested in oil as a hedge, not airline stock.
Mil. 3 years. Fairly extensive finance background.
Personally, I think from a pilots perspective it will be a good time to get on the list at United because we'll continue to make money, barring some unforeseen drastic macro economic event, and there will be organic growth. However, I believe the strategy to influence the net profit margin is a couple years too late. It'll improve some, but it's going to decline first due to competitor factors and an inability to fill seats with the same load factor. Mgmt has hinted at this already and we've seen it with the basic economy tactic pseudo failure. Delta played it right a few years ago while United was trying the shrink strategy with Smisek. Now we're following their playbook a couple years later. It's like buying another house because you just made a ton of money on the last one. United pilots profit sharing checks will lag delta for the next five years I'm sure of it. Only variable i can see is what happens there with this new c series tariff and the maddog retirements. Growth there may come to a total halt or the significant increase in c series price drops them down to us rather than our strategy brings us up to them. I haven't tried to run any numbers on what the price increase will do, or if they will even follow through on the order, but WS analysts certainly are. As long as economic conditions remain the same, the biggest issue for major carriers is getting aircraft, as we have already seen here at UA. I do not know if maddogs can be extended or what the 717 age is. If not, and delta balks at paying the tariff, they won't be growing without scope relief that's a certainty. If the tariff is upheld, I bet you see delta attack the scope issue. Jmho.
My b fund is invested in oil as a hedge, not airline stock.
Mil. 3 years. Fairly extensive finance background.
Just Curious, what was your corporate analysis for the 2017 year? 2016? Did you just come up with this because you saw a leaked memo from our Director of pilot hiring? Going from 500 pilots hired this year to 700 next year is a big push? Im just not following your logic at all. The investor briefings that you're referring to do not indicate a big push in hiring at all. They indicated desire for increased productivity, not only from the aircraft utilization but from the pilots themselves. They want to grow the airline while hiring as little as possible. We have no idea how many future orders are growth aircraft or replacement aircraft. Right now, save for Dulles, we don't have the gate space to park a bunch of growth aircraft. I see this Airline hovering around 12,700 pilots for the foreseeable future.
10-07-2017 | 08:43 AM
#56
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Just Curious, what was your corporate analysis for the 2017 year? 2016? Did you just come up with this because you saw a leaked memo from our Director of pilot hiring? Going from 500 pilots hired this year to 700 next year is a big push? Im just not following your logic at all. The investor briefings that you're referring to do not indicate a big push in hiring at all. They indicated desire for increased productivity, not only from the aircraft utilization but from the pilots themselves. They want to grow the airline while hiring as little as possible. We have no idea how many future orders are growth aircraft or replacement aircraft. Right now, save for Dulles, we don't have the gate space to park a bunch of growth aircraft. I see this Airline hovering around 12,700 pilots for the foreseeable future.
10-07-2017 | 08:53 AM
#57
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From: 737
10-07-2017 | 09:14 AM
#58
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An evaluation period of the strategic initiatives and increased productivity on both the pilot and airframe side.
New mgmt, needed to see their strategy first.
No, I've already explained why I think big hiring is inbound.
Where did I say this? As far as numbers I said I didn't believe the 450 that's been quoted, and think the ultimate announcement will be in excess of 1k.
Publishing a hiring number to WS is irrelevant. The strategy matters, hiring is just a tool to complete the operation.
What do you think 2017 has been all about. Minimal hiring yet 10% mainline growth.
Not entirely true. Debatable as to whether some older frames get retired early once max's come online; dependent on macro demand factors obviously. Akin to what Kirby just said about the 756 fleet.
Mgmt has already said this and is experimenting with some initiatives to more effectively manage gate space while also upgauging to grow ASMs.
I see 2018, assuming no catastrophic macro events, ending with 13k or more.
2016?
Did you just come up with this because you saw a leaked memo from our Director of pilot hiring?
Going from 500 pilots hired this year to 700 next year is a big push?
Im just not following your logic at all. The investor briefings that you're referring to do not indicate a big push in hiring at all.
They indicated desire for increased productivity, not only from the aircraft utilization but from the pilots themselves. They want to grow the airline while hiring as little as possible.
We have no idea how many future orders are growth aircraft or replacement aircraft.
Right now, save for Dulles, we don't have the gate space to park a bunch of growth aircraft.
I see this Airline hovering around 12,700 pilots for the foreseeable future.
10-07-2017 | 09:46 AM
#60
Banned
Joined: Aug 2015
Posts: 257
Likes: 0
From: 737
An evaluation period of the strategic initiatives and increased productivity on both the pilot and airframe side.
New mgmt, needed to see their strategy first.
No, I've already explained why I think big hiring is inbound.
Where did I say this? As far as numbers I said I didn't believe the 450 that's been quoted, and think the ultimate announcement will be in excess of 1k.
Publishing a hiring number to WS is irrelevant. The strategy matters, hiring is just a tool to complete the operation.
What do you think 2017 has been all about. Minimal hiring yet 10% mainline growth.
Not entirely true. Debatable as to whether some older frames get retired early once max's come online; dependent on macro demand factors obviously. Akin to what Kirby just said about the 756 fleet.
Mgmt has already said this and is experimenting with some initiatives to more effectively manage gate space while also upgauging to grow ASMs.
I see 2018, assuming no catastrophic macro events, ending with 13k or more.
New mgmt, needed to see their strategy first.
No, I've already explained why I think big hiring is inbound.
Where did I say this? As far as numbers I said I didn't believe the 450 that's been quoted, and think the ultimate announcement will be in excess of 1k.
Publishing a hiring number to WS is irrelevant. The strategy matters, hiring is just a tool to complete the operation.
What do you think 2017 has been all about. Minimal hiring yet 10% mainline growth.
Not entirely true. Debatable as to whether some older frames get retired early once max's come online; dependent on macro demand factors obviously. Akin to what Kirby just said about the 756 fleet.
Mgmt has already said this and is experimenting with some initiatives to more effectively manage gate space while also upgauging to grow ASMs.
I see 2018, assuming no catastrophic macro events, ending with 13k or more.
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