Deafguppy

Gonna enjoy that FC DH, increased LTD cap, and baked-in pay raise.

AxlF16

The LOA allowed UAL management to PLAN for a recovery by giving them PREDICTABILITY - a worst case scenario if you will. THAT is what put us in the position we are in today.

The CARES funding was just a bonus for all of us. If you take away the 20/20 hindsight and go back to the fall, I thinks it's a very good bet that they would've executed the stated furlough plans until the CARES 2 bill was signed. It's entirely possible that they would've made fleet retirement decisions along with the furloughs as well. It has not been cheap to maintain our entire fleet in storage.

Try to keep in mind that we (pilots) are not the only lever management moves as they steering. IMO the uncertainty between summer 2020 and Feb2021 would've led to some 'pilot negative' decisions - lacking the LOA. We apparently have $21B in liquidity. Yes - 21 BILLION. Also the debt is at apparently favorable terms - maybe to be used for aggressive growth/defense in the recovery? Would we have been able to raise this type of liquidity without the predictability of the LOA? I don't know, but I do have common sense. The TA VOTE is in the past. The LOA is a FACT today, so let's just deal with it. If, for some reason, there must be an ongoing argument about the benefits or value of the LOA, please raise the analysis to at least a high school level of critical thought. To be balanced, it would also be a good idea to include how the LOA has harmed the pilot group. (Spoiler alert. It hasn't).

As much as we like to think we are the center of the universe (or at least center of UAL) and personalize the crisis as 'Kirby vs pilots', the fact is that managements responsibility to steer the company through the pandemic was much larger than just us. We just so happen to have a CEO that saw opportunity in crisis and decided to seize great opportunity since this was a HUGE crisis.

JimLaheyTPS

If only the US Government would have told us before the vote that they’d continue CARES another 2 times to come, we wouldn’t have had to vote on the LOA. And maybe if the world banned all Chinese travel in January 2020, none of this would have happened anyway!

Wow that is kinda fun to play the hindsight game.

Knotcher

The poster basically said that without the LOA those furloughed would have not gotten paid. That is not true. They would have gotten paid regardless...that is not hindsight, that's a fact...deal with it.

LeeFXDWG

They would have been paid absent CARES version X. Really? Please expand on that.

Knotcher

Oy vey.......not what I was saying.

hummingbear

Woah there, I think you’re greatly misstating my claim. I never said the LOA harmed the pilot group, I just said it hasn’t significantly helped us. It’s mostly sat dormant while we got paid with bailout money. I’m fine with that. But to say we’re hiring because the LOA gave UAL the predictability to be able to plan for the future I think is off. We lost $1.4B last quarter and we’re currently at 50% pilot block hours from 2019. Think about that- LOA or no, does anyone honestly believe we would be hiring under those circumstances without the financial cushion that billions in government funding has provided? Not a chance.

On the other hand, UAL has committed to waiving the LOA credit reductions while they hire- proof that they don’t actually need them. IOW, take away the LOA, and hiring still happens. Take away bailout $$$ and hiring is DOA.

I’ve said before I’ll make my final judgement on the LOA’s benefit to the pilot group once it’s closed for good, but at this point, it’s looking like a neutral to slightly net positive scenario. But crediting it with our current hiring is like crediting urinating in the ocean with rising sea temperatures. CARES did the heavy lifting here, not the LOA.

Winston

This is all like complaining about having paid for homeowner’s insurance after the fire department came and put out a fire before it got to your house.

We have the LOA, but didn’t need it. That only became apparent after the fact.

AxlF16

I didn't mean to say you specifically made the claim of harm from the LOA. But -- what's the point in minimizing the benefit of the LOA? The LOA most certainly did not sit dormant. There were seats taken out of RJs, there was pay protection, there were early retirements, displacements were reversed, we are deadheading domestically in 1st class, and most importantly we didn't furlough a SINGLE PILOT.

If you disagree that the TA provided the predictability that enabled the company to aggressively plan the recovery then you're being obtuse - or have no idea how planning works in complex environments. I don't have inside company or ALPA info, but I can guarantee you that we would not be in the same position without the LOA. There is no chance the company would've kept us this intact. We are hiring because we anticipate demand - AND because we have airplanes and we have training capacity (and we have several hundred spots created by early retirements). The CARES funding doesn't explain as much as you assert. I guess we'll wait for you to see what is obvious to most of us... I'm not optimistic that you'll see it though.

The ENTIRE POINT of the LOA was to position UAL to spool up capacity faster than our competitors when demand returned. THAT is what's being laid out in front of us right now...yet you don't see it? So yes, IMO we would be hiring this year (maybe not May, but certainly late summer or fall) if CARES 2 & 3 were not passed. Once again - the entire point was to maintain the airline in a state that could be ramped up quickly. We were planned to be heavy in NB captains - for a reason. I'm not making this up - it was in writing and words for all of us to see and hear. They are doing exactly what they said they would do.

Admit it.

AxlF16

I'll agree that in hindsight we didn't 'NEED' it. But I will disagree if you think it didn't make a difference in our post pandemic future.