I disagree. Shrinking to profitability has never worked. If we have the airplanes and the people in place... How about we fly some people. We can't keep cutting back flights and wonder why no one is flying. Not flying to Geneva and Zurich until Oct out of ewr when our competitors are charging and getting 2000+ for a coach seat is just dumb. Let's get back to making money. There are pockets of demand and we aren't responding.

 

This^^^^? The question was asked by Bryan of that Network planning wonk Ankit....on the Town hall. He dodged it.

I still think Kirby is on that silly idea of being positioned to purchase other failed airline assets this winter during fire (bankruptcy) sales. He should be worried they’re not ours, because we have no revenue.

 

Thats a really simplistic way of looking at this. “Airline’s have never shrunk to profitability.” Well, airlines haven’t been in this set of complex variables before. Each situation is unique. I’m not saying they should or shouldn’t shrink, but that just throwing that sentence out there doesn’t mean anything with a new complex situation.

 

The reason "airlines have never shrunk to profitability" is because they are always in debt up to their eyeballs and need to service that debt. There is 1 particular cargo company that has absolutely no debt and could park every airplane if need be. And still be okay. Because the owner owns everything down to the staplers. Agree this is an absolute set of "complex variables" to navigate through. But if we break down the debt loads of each major airline. Obviously AA is in real bad shape. Now add in the complexities of each airlines route system especially international. I predict you will see $300.xx fares to Paris just to get people back in seats. Once they get back in seats and realize this whole thing has been overblown, America will be back in business. This is a wake up call for companies and employees to operate a financially sound business and personal life. A lesson not be taking profits and buying back stock. Just think, if each of these companies files bankruptcy. Each and every employee is going to take the hit when they come and want to renegotiate contracts. What happens to the Wall Street CEO that couldn't manage a lemonade stand?

 

He gets a $45 million parachute and the opportunity to ruin another public company.

 

They may not shrink to profitability but if the shrinkage causes them to lose $500 million instead of $1 billion, well...

 

K4 is definitely the exception and not the rule. Our old man is an old school business minded individual who only makes moves when it 1000% benefits him in advance. That's why we practically own everything and are also able to be very flexible.

When I first started at XJT I remember some senior pilots saying you will never know how your career turned out until the day you retired. I know a great handful of XJT pilots that took the risk and decided to skip on the CPP to United (mainly because of how long it would be).

As well positioned as we are at K4 i believe we will still be impacted on the other side of this "recovery". Even at top 20% I don't feel safe or at ease in this industry.

My hope for United is that you purposely staff fat on the NBs so that you can take full advantage of the recovery and protect your market shares! To do otherwise might be shortsighted.

As a former UAX pilot I'm pulling for yall!!!

 

He did not dodge the question. He said that there is very clear visibility on the numbers (bookings, demand, refunds, etc) and that the demand has not returned significantly. He showed a graph with the uptick many are asking about, and it was roughly a 2 percent increase...it only looks significant upon informal observation because we have cut our flights by 90%. 50% loads compared to 3% last month are encouraging, but still way off of typical 90%+ loads on a full schedule. He estimated the recent bump might have us at -95% versus -97% overall.

He also stated that we do have a relatively full schedule available for purchase further in the future (casting the wide net), but that cancelations inside (30?) days are much less efficient so we are prioritizing cash savings versus flying empty planes inside this window. They all sounded confident that we are winning this cash preservation / survival battle, and that it can be quickly reversed as demand recovers. This explanation encouraged me from the perspective of us opening more ground from the bear compared to our peers.

 

AA released pilot numbers through July 2021. As of 7/2021 AA is showing a 1,250 pilot surplus. No furloughs announced yet.

 

What demand level rebound are those numbers based on?