Here's the article from the link I posted...


Airline CEO Jeff Smisek started 2010 with a vow not to receive any salary until Continental Airlines turned a profit, and ended the year with a pay raise and $4.4 million in total compensation after pulling off a merger with United Airlines.

Smisek, who is CEO of the merged carrier’s parent company, United Continental Holdings Inc., received salary of $791,250 and $3.6 million in other incentives at year's end. Directors determined that Continental would have been profitable for the year and also bumped up Smisek’s base pay following the Oct. 1 merger to $975,000, according to a proxy statement filed Friday with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

But Smisek’s compensation was dwarfed, on paper, by the $16.8 million awarded to Glenn Tilton, his pre-merger counterpart at Chicago-based United Airlines.

Tilton and other senior executives reaped hefty rewards for consummating a deal that created the world’s largest carrier and contributed to an 85 percent jump in the airline’s share price. United also exceeded its targets for customer satisfaction, on-time arrivals and financial performance for the year.

In addition to his base pay of $822,999, Tilton also received $2.7 million in a discretionary bonus awarded in September, shortly before the merger closed.

Tilton agreed to convert the cash severance he was eligible to receive by stepping down as United CEO into 207,157 restricted shares, with a grant date value of $5.1 million. The shares will vest at the end of next year, or earlier if he leaves his chairman’s role due to death, disability or without “cause,” according to the SEC filing.

Three senior United executives who left the company following the merger also pocketed ample pay and severance packages.

Former United president John Tague received $11.7 million in total compensation, including a $1.6 million bonus awarded in September. Former chief financial officer Kathryn Mikells received $9.4 million, including a $1.3 million bonus; while Graham Atkinson, president of the carrier’s Mileage Plus program, walked away with $6.9 million, including an $888,376 bonus.

In addition to health and life insurance benefits, the departed United executives are also eligible for lifetime flight benefits, elite frequent-flier status and lifetime membership in the company’s airport lounge clubs, according to the SEC filing.

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United CEOs reaped rich rewards for 2010 merger - Chicago Tribune

Just dollar and cents, indeed.

 

Look we all know from your hundreds of post that your bitter and you can’t let it go but the BOD determines executive compensation. It’s done it’s over Smisex is gone. Let it go for Gods sake. We are a business trying to make a profit and a return to our shareholders. It’s not personal. Reserves aren’t gonna make 85 hrs to sit home and not fly, ain’t gonna happen. Our union will negotiate a fiscally responsibile contract with some tweaks improvements and increases to pay, enjoy it let the past go and move on. LET IT GO.

 

Nice tie.

You may be happy to accept the scraps, but many of us are not. All I am doing is illustrating how profligate airlines have been while cheating labor out of every nickel they could, under the guise of reorganization and "shared sacrifice". To "save the company" and all that. Utter horseradish.

I am not bitter. I do not expect to sit reserve and make 85 hours without flying. That is just crap. This may surprise you, but I am a line holder. Does that forbid me from opining on improving that aspect of the contract? I love this job and I busted my esophagus to get it. However, the difference between you and I is that I am unwilling to settle for scraps. I know what we had, and I know what they took without reasonable justification. They took it because they could.

I choose to remain informed and to highlight some of the more egregious elements of labor's struggle for the benefit of open-minded and curious FNG's, as well as the willfully ignorant. If you would like to forgive and forget that is your choice. Every single CEO, (and their extensive teams) has been richly rewarded for their work here, no matter how poorly the airline performed or its stock price. Does that not rankle your epidermis?

This has zero to do with letting anything go. Rather, it has everything to do with moving forward armed with knowledge and laser focus on how we got to this position. I cannot change the past. However, we can affect the future IF we hang together. We know from your hundreds of posts that you'd work for peanuts because this job strokes your ego. Well many of us are beyond that level of self-gratification. You hold an ATP for goodness sake. Clearly, it is worth far more to me than it is to you. Yet, you just told the company that more scraps are AOK. If you don't learn from the past, you're F'd in this business. Have you not learned that?

We're in negotiations. Put on your war paint! Even if it's just for show. Zoomie's post was full of good ideas.

 

I do not want my union negotiating a fiscally responsible contract with some tweaks here and there. I want my union to negotiate a contract with a value $1 less than which the company would never sign. My concern is not with company profits but rather my compensation/QOL and returning it to my family.

Obtw , it's getting hot back in the cabin.

 

...And the company's negotiators bargain with ALPA to determine pilot compensation. What's your point?

Do you think Mr Munoz and Mr Kirby go into negotiations on their personal compensation with the mindset that they want to cut their salary so that United can make more money? If you do, I have a bridge to sell you...

All we're saying is we're in the best profitability and position to negotiate a union contract right now, and raising reserve guarantee to a level where current local lineholders would actually bid it and prevent junior guys in BES from needing to commute to reserve would be a win for most pilots at United. It's also a simple metric that doesn't require difficult language that can be misinterpreted by a mediator after we sign a contract.

You say that 85 hrs is ridiculous to pay a guy/gal on reserve? If pilots thought the current model were fair, why don't people bid it? Instead, people are stuck with it, or you get the response, "You chose to sit reserve" You assume a pilot on reserve is getting paid to sit at home and "not fly" is what we pay a reserve pilot for.

No. A reserve pilot is paid for his/her availability. You are paying for a pilot to have an unknown schedule. It's hard to buy tickets to a football game or concert tickets, or even know if you can be there for your kids soccer game or theater performance. It's hard to run a business on the side if you might be called out of the country for 4 days.

There's a cost to this model. Who are you to say that 85 hrs is too much?

I asked everyone to forgo numbers in this discussion due to section 6 negotiations, but you choose to throw numbers out there anyway which shows your disrespect for the process. My guess is you're super senior or you are at the seniority where you are comfortable and have no plans of moving further up.

We are not the only career field with this type of model. I have friends who are doctors that have "call" that get paid for their availability too. They get compensated well, whether someone comes into the emergency room or not.

Companies only job isn't a "profit and a return to it's shareholders". If it were, then sell the whole airline, cash out, and put the money into an industry with a much higher ROI.

Why does "any" position at a union company have to suck on all aspects(ie reserve). My original point stands, make reserve a good enough deal so that it goes to local pilots who would be happy to sit at home with an unknown schedule until they are called.

We all recognize this is a "first world" problem and we all have it pretty good at United, but let's "make hay while the sun shines".

Please everyone stop selling the profession short.

 

Not sure what the LPA is, but at Delta, the ALV (average Line Value) is what PBS will build the average line to (in credit) for the month. Reserves get ALV-2 with a limit of (72hrs - 80hrs) for the month.
There are months where the ALV is 72 and reserves get 72, and there are months where the ALV is 84 and the reserves get 80.

Ironically, you can get a line built that is below ALV (obviously that's why it's the "average") so I've had it where PBS built a line worth 69hrs (and I'd have to pick something out of open time to get more) whereas if I had bid reserve I'd at least been assigned 72hrs out of the gate.

What Delta reserves want that UAL supposedly has is the extra hour OVER guarantee if you stand a short call with no usage. Right now Delta only gets 1 hr credit TOWARDS guarantee for the month, nothing extra.

And yes, Delta was still able to make a profit despite paying their reserves 80 hr guarantee in some months!

 

Ya LPA is Line Production Average... Same as your ALV

 

Sorry, but QOL does make a huge difference. It directly affects how available a reserve pilot is. Horrible QOL directly leads to fatigue, and sick calls. Yes, these have a calculable cost. You don't' think both the union and company know exactly how much QOL costs? If not, then we need a new negotiating team.

It's all about how much ALPA QOL is willing to accept, and how much the company wants to pay for it--meaning productivity until sick leave goes up.

Direct cause and affect.

 

"Reserve is a Choice". I remember that during the BK years!

 

What’s interesting about the whole reserve debate is this, times and life styles have changed since the first reserve ideas were penned.

When I started very few people commuted to work from other parts of the country and living in base on reserve wasn’t bad at all. These days things are far different and whether it be by “choice” or not people commute to reserve.

Now what are we willing to negotiate for, higher over all pay, QOL for reserves, RJs, and the list grows...

Of course we can have it all?