Originally Posted by Airhoss

Who are you going to work for after your lifeline Airlines all go bust? After all without UAL and DAL, Skywest ceases to exist.

Originally Posted by Skyw

It doesn’t matter to me if United or the regionals go bust. I have nothing at stake. Last time the majors went bankrupt, SkyWest and AirWisconsin had to loan money to American and United. Skywest is large enough now, they could just buy the used aircraft being parked at mainline should another bankruptcy occur and start their own airline. Time will tell. This industry never ceases to surprise me.

Originally Posted by Skyw

It doesn’t matter to me if United or the regionals go bust. I have nothing at stake. Last time the majors went bankrupt, SkyWest and AirWisconsin had to loan money to American and United. Skywest is large enough now, they could just buy the used aircraft being parked at mainline should another bankruptcy occur and start their own airline. Time will tell. This industry never ceases to surprise me.

Originally Posted by Skyw

It doesn’t matter to me if United or the regionals go bust. I have nothing at stake. Last time the majors went bankrupt, SkyWest and AirWisconsin had to loan money to American and United. Skywest is large enough now, they could just buy the used aircraft being parked at mainline should another bankruptcy occur and start their own airline. Time will tell. This industry never ceases to surprise me.

Originally Posted by Probe

What is the problem with United compared to its' peers? The same exact sentence has been uttered, well, forever.

For the first time in my two plus decades, we have a great CEO, and he has helped to make the workforce at UAL (lCAL was better at this) more engaged than it has ever been. Heck, maybe even me.

So what is the problem? Outside forces? Competition? We need more software? More RJ's will fix us?

When you eliminate all other factors, what is left? Post merger, lUAL employees were happy that CAL "took over" UAL. Unfortunately that CAL management was not the same as it had been 10 years prior. It was then "infected" and taken over by United management in the ensuing years.

I find it hard to believe that there is anything else to blame at United than a massively bloated, entrenched, "swamp" of management. Everything we do is too complicated, custom, and expensive.

A couple of years ago we bought new flight planning software, Sabre. It was so labor intensive, we had to hire 400 additional bodies in Dispatch to run it. Brilliant. We pay for automation, and we have to hire MORE people to run the automation.

God knows how many new employees "manage" our iPads. I am pretty sure it is in the hundreds. We only need WSI and Jeppro, and should just outsource everything else to them.

And EVERY department at United does this.

Our middle management is too bloated, too unaccountable, and too entrenched. When we "automate" something, it results in more employees making the automation work.

What we need is a hatchet man. My favorite quote about fixing management is to cut personnel until you notice a difference, then cut 10% more.

As an example, just look at Flight Ops. We could just pay Boeing and Airbus for Flight Manuals and flight planning software, WSI and Jeppeson to manage our IPADs (SWA does this). But no, our hundreds of minions at TK and Wanker Drive are smarter than everyone else, and we have to do it ourselves. I took a swag and I would bet it costs over 200 million dollars for all the extra bodies.

18 years ago, when we had 12k pilots, United flights ops had a Sr VP of flight ops, aka the "Chief Pilot". Now we have a Sr. VP of flights ops, AND a chief pilot, And a Managing director of Pilot Base Administration. I guess it takes 3 half a million dollar managers to do what 1 used to do.

Extrapolate that to every division of United.

Kirby is not the problem. The front line employees are not the problem. The problem is the middle.

Originally Posted by Probe

... Post merger, lUAL employees were happy that CAL "took over" UAL. Unfortunately that CAL management was not the same as it had been 10 years prior. It was then "infected" and taken over by United management in the ensuing years......

Originally Posted by oldmako

What? Who exactly was happy that smizek was handed the keys? I submit only those not paying attention. I sure wasn't. The deified CAL management team was gone before the merger occurred. Infected? What was GOOD about UA pre-merge was infected post-merge is more like it. Don't you recall our FC pax all leaving in droves?

There are a whole slew of reasons why UA is in third place. In my mind, the damage done during the smizek era is number one. It will take time to repair that damage.

Originally Posted by Airhoss

Sounds like you’ve made a great career choice. Make sure and stay there, but I’m guessing you don’t have any choice.

Originally Posted by Skyw

Thanks for the career advice. But, flying is not my career. Some people like you were probably hired at mainline with low qualifications. You don't have any skills that RJ pilots don't have...sorry to burst your bubble.

Originally Posted by Skyw

Thanks for the career advice. But, flying is not my career. Some people like you were probably hired at mainline with low qualifications. You don't have any skills that RJ pilots don't have...sorry to burst your bubble.