From First to Worst
 

When United and Continental merged, after a while the quality of the product from a customer point of view started to gradually then sharply decline. Not to mention the PR nightmares that UAL had regarding Dao and now a FDX deadhead lawsuit. Im surprised that the attrition rate in the PR department hasnt been sky high. Anyway do you think that UAL should read a take a few pages from the book by the former CEO of Continental, Gordon Bethune, From Worst to First?
https://www.amazon.com/Worst-First-C...n+bethune+book
It's a great book of how the CEO got the company from its almost 3rd Ch11 to ranked 1st in the industry. He let employees do whatever they needed to do their jobs, let them rewrite the whole ops manuals, and even gave them incentives ($65/every month of D:0) to get flights out on time. Why cant UAL take the airline back to its CAL days where pax got treated with dignity and got flights they wanted to where they wanted to go.
Here's a great commercial CAL did back in '09 before they got merged. This ad showed just how well CAL was at attracting and retaining customers. Also showed off their new fleet.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bw6RVa7GZA8
If only UAL was like this
https://i.gyazo.com/b934169e93ed1503...e60a177a54.jpg

LMAO. Gordo was a master snake oil salesman. No thanks.

When it comes right down to it, I'd prefer this contract over that reputation.

TCATESTOK .. You're a troll and an idiot. Take a look at the stats for the last 12 months and re-examine your misconceptions. It's been an uphill slog to undo the damage that Smisek (Legacy Cal) did while at the helm, but we are making progress. Go crawl back in your cave.

Wow really? Im just stating my opinion based on reading the book as to how great CAL turned out with Bethune at the helm and how UAL could try some tactics like it to get out on top. I mean that incentive plan was genius. Sure it cost the company money to implement but it got employees throughout the company to try their best to push on time and even increased moral.

Blah Blah Blah........Idiot

Ok so then explain it to me. How did Bethune screw up CAL? And why is he considered a snake oil salesman?

He fixed CAL but "screwed up" the employees. He had the pilots working at FAR work rules and below industry pay—and liking it. He was a jedi master, "This isn’t the contract you’re looking for. Move along." And then was asked to please take $50M and leave. Smart guy.

He "screwed up" the employees? By empowering them and letting them do their jobs without much interference from management? Also the 65 buck D:0 incentive?

I have no time for idiots, time to block TCATESTOK

Great? The place was a dumpster fire. They didn’t “rise” to first, everyone just crumbled around them in the post 9/11 world (where CAL already lay). He straight up raped his labor and and convinced them they were saving the world at the same time. Most understood that but the union leaders.... er, guys in charge were all feather bedding their own careers on the backs of their peers.

His legacy still lives. Everybody in Houston talks about the guy like he walks on water. By all accounts it sounds like he was really skilled at relating to people and making them feel like he was their friend.....thereby convincing them to accept less. Guy was clearly a master at it, because people still act like he was the best thing since sliced bread. On a related note.....does every LCAL pilot on the list have to retire before this “us versus them” stuff goes away?

Wow. Someone is living five years in the past

Empowerment is great, but it doesn’t pay the bills.

But they worked with their creditors and such to get out of chapter 11 and actually into the black.

They did a lot of good and created a lot of goodwill with the flying public. An MBA can appreciate that. But the employees gave a lot with no work rules, industry lagging pay, frozen pensions. A view of their "success" depends a lot on your perspective.

Flew with captain that spent 7 years digging out of the hole his first two years of CAL pay put him in. Only airline hiring at the time so I can’t blame him for taking them job but damn.

He had zero love for GB.

So was pay the only thing that did Bethune in or is there more to the story?

How about an unaugmented EWR-LHR leg with a deadheading pilot in the back making 50% on the way to the Windsor Marriott before coming back three man with a rest seat in coach?

I blame Stivala much more for that than Bethune, he negotiated a contract he knew the narrow body pilots could accept and it was game over. I’m sure it was strictly coincidental that the 737 rest seat stayed in FC.

If you don’t pay your bills for a decade you have money left to pay monthly bonus for the on time performance !! 100 to 200 dollars per month
That’s what CAL did from 1990 to 1998
Free planes , free engines and a lot of help from NWA and GE to make payroll
Let me remind you Bonderman , poison pill , all resources from Minneapolis, Dc9 parts , DC10 parts , 727 parts AOG from Minneapolis all the time
I can go on and on

Facts only

However it’s a new era for you guys
Stop bringing the past

I was a LUAL 1K before, during, and after the merger. I can categorically state that UAL service and customer relations became significantly worse after Smisek et al took over. It was a terrible experience.

I really doubt this guy even works for UAL.

Exactly!!! Gordo allowed Fred Abbott and the truly evil Debbie McCoy to literally flourish and move way up ranks. She played havoc on many pilots lives and in gerneral enjoyed doing whatever possible to mess with pilots en masse. He also strongly endorsed Smisek on CNBC countless times before Smisek was fired.

I think you grossly 'misunderestimate' how abysmal CAL was prior to Bethune getting a chance to pull it out of the dumpster fire. Everything he did was an improvement over the prior regimes that were sill trying to follow Lorenzo's legacy. Yeah, the contracts were not industry standard, but that does not diminish the fact that they were better than before, employee morale and customer satisfaction kept improving while he was in charge.

You're using contemporary conditions to judge the actions of the past. CAL of the early 90's was as bad a place to work as any in aviation history.

Why the hard-on for $65 a month. Hell, we get a bigger bonus than that now.

If he/she is posting this in 2018 then he/she clearly doesn't

Munoz brought the monthly bonus back after Smisek got **** canned, he allegedly had a meeting with Bethune and the bonus was one of the outcomes. It's not a big deal to some but it's a whole days pay for the guys who work the ramp. If those guys aren't happy, you're running in quick sand.


Bethune was no saint and he certainly lined his (and his buddies) pockets but he DID make a point of purging all things Lorenzo- that was a big start. He certainly had a cost advantage but he was also smart enough to let the people in the trenches make their own decisions, something that scumbag Smisek completely eliminated in the name of a spreadsheet. Smisek was Bethune's boy so some of that is on him.


The operation continues to improve as the Smisek stink wears off, I think a lot of people underestimate just how badly he ****ed this place up in a relatively short amount of time. Talk to anyone who works in Willis Tower and they will tell you that it's a different company since Smisek left.

He was knob gobbling Smisek on CNBC even after he got fired!!!

Remember when PanAm and Eastern were the bee’s knee’s? The company in it’s current form is in the best shape it has ever been. Both legacies are lucky this merger happened.

Yep.................

I can’t disagree. But 10 years later when it was back on its feet it could have returned to the fold. Blame it on the Union, management, both. It didn’t and it wouldn’t have (IMO having seen the final CAL contract openers).

I’m doing no such thing. CAL 87 hire. Gordon did do good things no doubt. But he was also very lucky given the timing of everything. He does deserve some credit, but I also believe Alot of credit of the CAL turn around goes to Gregg Brennernan the brains behind the turn around.

Gordo was in the Houston pilot Lounge using obscenities to describe Brennerman after he left. Gordo’s ego got way too big. Point being Gordo’s not the perfect almighty that many make him out to be.

He also screwed up big time significantly with CAL’s cash position a few months prior to 9/11 that put CAL in a severe liquidity crisis immediately after 9/11. All other majors had a far better cash positions and overall liquidity after 911 .

Gordon wasn’t a Saint, nor was the devil. He was management...he did what he was supposed to do, and he did his job well. To his credit I don’t think any other airline CEO valued and empowered his employees like he did. The principles that made CAL successful in the book are true even if you may not like it (seems a lot here don’t). I don’t worship him at all, just calling it like it is.

The working conditions at CAL can be blamed on the SCAB leadership at the time.

Smisek may have been LCAL, but seemed to be more a disciple of Tiltion than Bethune, definitely was asleep during class.

Then why did he pay his employees substandard compensation and work rules?

Doesn’t mean he’s going to hand out bags of gold, but you pay enough to keep employees happy and the scabs were happy with that.

I'm only being the devils advocate here but why did the union sign the contract?

It's what you negotiate, not what you do that can determine what you get paid.

Probably going to generate some heat for those comments...

Cheers,
Biff

You've asked a fair question, but on this forum you'll likely not get many fair answers. Too many egos and parochial interests.

The United management model is antithetical to the model of CAL and Bethune. It's more akin to the Amtrak because of industry consolidation.

All the Oscar alcolites here should be reminded that he was a CAL board member for almost a decade before the merger, but he is as far from Bethune as you could find. Bethune, a Navy vet was an ops guy that could fly an airplane and unabashed skirt chaser. Oscar, kind of a new age brand manager with an affinity for being all this progressive-ly popular. (and maybe empowering men to wear a skirt).

Based on the trend I'm seeing in our financial and real,operational performance; I think we will be a candidate for a new book , Worst to First and Back Again".

Does this mean I can stop wearing a tie?

Thanks for the great answer. Just what I was looking for, instead of being called a Troll.