Too many seats in the market
 

Whenever the airline industry finds itself in financial distress as it is today, airline management always cry out the words "too many seats in the market." It is nearly impossible to compete in a market in which your competition is some how subsidized by ways that other competitors are not privy to. The rules of international air commerce are always in a state of change, but you can be assured they are not going to be changed in favor of a U.S. publicly owned airline.

As pilots we all want to fly the biggest, highest paid, and glamorous jets. We want to go to the most exotic destinations and stay downtown in the hotels where the rich and famous stay in. And, we only want to do it 9 days a month.

Just like in 1941 the days of the big Battleships were coming to an end. It was the dawn of the Aircraft Carrier that carried a lot of small fighter airplanes. The Japanese (not the Germans) attack on Pearl Harbor made the Battleships obsolete. Today, this virus attack will make the big WB airplanes obsolete. If you have a market that has 500 passengers a day, rather than run 1 airplane you are better of running 2 smaller airplanes on that route. Our customers now have a choice of 2 departure times, and if one flight is cancelled you only ****ed off half as many passengers and only have to pay for half as many hotel rooms. Oh!, and the airline is going to need more pilots.

Over 25 years ago there was an airline management duo that came up with a "Go Forward Plan." Yes, they were the guys that ran the only legacy airline that didn't go BK after 911.

The Go Forward Plan had these four cornerstones.

) Make Reliability a Reality
) Fly to Win
) Fund the Future
) Treat each other with Dignity and Respect

It worked then and took an airline from worst to first. Would it work today? Maybe, but what we are doing now sure doesn't look good.

Now is the time to fund the future for the FNG's. Ditch the old, obsolete, unreliable WB fleet today. Pay the old Pilots enough cash today so that they leave UAL payroll. UAL and ALPA is killing this airline slowly "by death from a thousand cuts."

Fly Safe and do the right thing.

Cool story brah....

US Airlines ARE being subsidized right now.

No problem with it.

Wow, that sounds great! Any chance we could get rid of domestic crew meals for a while and offer to DH across the ocean in coach “if 1st class is booked full” and heck, while we are at it, take a row in coach for crew rest for a couple of years “to help the company sell revenue up front”! No thanks. I did that once and won’t do so again. I hope your post was in jest. If not, go *widebody*

If ALPA is so toxic and you’re so concerned about the new guys, may I recommend you donate all of your ALPA negotiated pay raises above 2005 levels back to the new guys. I’m sure they’ll take cash or checks.

I don't want to rain on your parade, but I think UAL has already made a lot of moves along the lines of what you are advocating. Remember the -400s? I have my doubts that we will ever see the -350s we have on order or the 777x. I'm pretty sure the 321-XLRs will be used primarily for TATL routes, replacing larger 757s and 767s and allowing us to serve new markets to boot. Meanwhile, we are still going to need WB aircraft for quite some time on exceptionally long or congested routes. Among U.S. carriers, we should naturally be flying the biggest average gauge aircraft because they allow us to serve the most customers possible within the infrastructure we have to work with.

I have to chuckle at your mention of the Go Forward Plan, not that it wasn't good but because it bears a passing resemblance to Core 4. Also, a long time ago I wrote a paper on Continental's turnaround and became familiar the Go Forward Plan. As I prepared to interview at merged UAL under previous leadership, I went on the corporate website to familiarize myself with the corporate culture at the time. There, I found almost verbatim the Go Forward Plan. A good plan is less important than good leadership. Our leadership right now is much improved. Hopefully I'll still think so in a few months.

This. ^^^^^^^

Sounds like fond memories of two bankruptcy filings in 7 years pre-9/11 followed by a negotiated bankruptcy style contract in 2003. I’m glad you enjoyed Gordon’s book though. Did you have to buy it or was it dropped in your V-file?

Thank you for your cogent and well thought out reply. It appears that GordoLove is alive and well. What a bag of miasma.

Pass it on.........like herpes

Solid post. Dunno why anyone is busting chops with decent content. Enjoy a virtual drink on me! Btw- I’d still like about a dozen big bada$$ battleships.

If dude is legit his DOH is prob ‘83-‘85

Lol 😆
The gift that keeps on giving.

Not the best analogy. Airplanes are measured by capacity over distance. Weaponry is measured by tagetting and leathality.

Battleships became irrelavent because of technological change and over the himorozon capability.

People are still going to travel.

People are still going to WANT to travel. The questions unknown now and for some time to come is will they? Will they drive to national parks and family/friends for vacation or fly to Cancun? Will companies embrace telework/teleconferencing? Or will companies still see the need/value of a face-to-face office call? All this is speculation and TBD. I’m in the bottom 20% and the best advice I’ve seen repeated over and again is use this time to prepare a plan B for Oct 1st. Hell I’d say it’s most likely my plan A and staying on property is plan B.

Yet again scabs will be unscathed/benefit from this crisis.

Vernon

You sound like one of my junior FO's flying to the UK on the 757 out of Newark. If you were in fact there then you knew how hard it was to vote on whether to go BK like all the other airlines, or be like SWA and take big concessions and keep hiring. Well, we did what we did! We kept our frozen pensions, took more airplanes, stayed out of BK court, and kept you from hitting the street. Aren't we lucky to be here today?

For those of you that hate $cabs. Sorry, I was an early 1987 hire. I grew up under an ALPA contract family. My Uncles rised me and yes I walked the picket lines with them. How many of you hired here in the last 25 years even seen a pick line? Let alone joined one.

Guys, this is going to get real ugly! We have to stick together. There is going to be massive airplanes and jobs leave the industry and it will be many years to get back to where we were 45 days ago. This industry has always eaten it's young. Maybe we should do it different this time. Retire the old to save the young, and move forward.

Pass it on

The sky is falling, the sky is falling...

Agreed..... But the post was on WBs being obsolete.... Not people stopping flying.

not really
everything is peachy
I woke up this morning thank you God

Belching up horse manure about The Great el Gordo and how erudite and astute his team was (while being bankrolled and enabled by employees making FAR less than industry-standard wages and bennies) is really a farce and reeks of revisionist history. CAL was a likely candidate for BK prior to the merger so spare us the BS.

"And kept you from hitting the street" Nice! Well done captain.

Stay classy San Diego.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^This^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ^

Nailed it.


Likely? A any pragmatist can look through the financials and see it was a certainty.

Okay let me clarify: my battleships would have reactors, rail guns, a larger flight deck for F35 VSTOL, 5 bars with included happy hour (off duty), a massage deck, oh yah- a few nuclear tomahawks, torpedoes and depth charges delivered by sharks, and good food. With or without the Wuhan. The risk ya take.

Virtual Quarantini’s for all my fellow aviators. This baby gonna play out how it does.

Before the merger, which airline was on the Blloomberg News Bankruptcy watch? UAL

Before the merger, which airline was paying over 25% interest on secured debt? UAL

Before the merger, which airline had an aircraft order that the WSJ called more akin to a loan instead of a serious aircraft order?

How many of those Airbus aircraft have been delivered? When was the last time UAL received a new aircraft that was ordered pre merger?

Which airline had pilots on furlough at the merger announcement? Oh right, UAL was such the financially superior airline that they had to gut its domestic fleet to make itself attractive of a merger partner.

Queue a link to a blog post, from an unheard of website written by an unheard of junior college student, claiming to see something that Wall Street missed about CAL.

Now that it’s been post merger for going on 10 years, who really cares about any of this garbage? Let it go. There are bigger issues now.

They can’t help themselves...sad really.

They hate us cause they ain’t us!

So we’re going through the most significant (I hope) health and financial crisis of our lifetime and you’re still butt hurt about the merger. Wow. Just. Wow.

This appears to be the mantra of BOTH sides.

Where did 10 years go. First half of April 2010 UAL was reported to be in deep merger negotiations with USAir. Given all that was being reported along with the hush internally, that appeared to be what was going to happen. Smisek suddenly jumped in last minute and stopped it with the ugly girl thing. At the very least, I think UAL / USair and AA / CAL would have been worse for all of us.

Now back to the black hole in front of us.

Incredibly sad you took the time to register and then write this crud. Look man, maybe .05% of our pilot group gives a flying rip anymore about what each ‘legacy’ brought to the merger. Many of that .05% were dumb enough to dump money into a lawsuit against ALPA led by a guy who can best be described as a ‘stable genius.’ Remember how the judge threw it out of court after about 5 minutes? I did and as a CAL guy all I could do was chuckle at the pathetic misguided drivel you guys threw out. Bye Felicia!

Which airline was on track for Chapter 7? (CAL, per their own SEC filings)
CAL also furloughed in the 2000’s
Which airline got pecker slapped in the SLI?
Which airline needed Boeing to cover payroll?
Which airline couldn’t pay for airplanes in order?
Whose CEO stood before the DOJ proclaiming it was merge or die?
Who bought who?
Which airline was the last choice of hire for most pilots from 1983- (circa) 2004ish?
Worst to first doesn’t count when the other racers all get shot in the foot.


We can play these stupid games until the cows come home. In the wake of NWA/DAL it was merge or die and UAL/CAL were quite literally made for each other. Move on.

One final question....whose name is on your paycheck right now?

That is the only thing that matters. People need to move on.

Pretty rich you are preaching to other people to move on when you waste no opportunity to take your potshots...as usual

holy cow people that train left the station eons ago and nobody cares. try to focus on the current batch of fecal matter working its way through the fan blades

Hey oldfish you stink of revisionist history "Cal was likely a candidate for BK". Who lost their pension, furloughed twice from same company, longest bankruptcy in history, and gave away scope. A pilot hired in 01 or 08 did better at cal than ual. Your union folded like a dead fish. Well done.