A much likelier scenario would be management merely setting the table for furloughs. Something will occur, a significant geopolitical event, economic upheaval, a merger, take your pic. Something will impact earnings and future projections and bookings. A percentage of the pilots will micturate themselves and bleat incessantly on the forums. They will offer up idiotic solutions to solve someone else's problem. The sky will be falling and by golly, "we gotta save our jobs and the airline!" I've seen this show and it sucks. It first ran on the PanAm channel. Then reruns were shown on the TWA channel, the Eastern channel, the CAL channel, the USAir channel, the UAL channel, the AAL channel, etc etc etc.

While it's running, management will carefully and artfully manage the employee group's "expectations" until they decide the time is right to reach deeply into their wallets. Exactly as Spreyregan admitted they did on Frontline during United's bankruptcy. And guys like GCrap will be the first in line to help. They'll write emails to the CEO and even tell him how much they're willing to give up. The ToddSquad actually managed to memorialize this template with the LOA. An LOA that over 40 percent of the group thought was a dumb idea. An LOA that intentionally separated the membership into thirds and then played them off one another. Some claim that the LOA eviscerated the union's ability to negotiate an industry-leading contract. Seems plausible considering what they eventually rolled out, years late. The camels' feces are now ankle-deep in the tent.

Dubinski was exactly right. He told us that sometimes pilots need their union to stand firmly in their way in order to protect their contract. None of this is new. Yet there are those who insist that it's all new and that a profound paradigm shift has occurred. I submit that reasonable and proper change happened when the pilots rejected the recent TA by a huge margin and then booted leadership out the door. Yay team!

 

Mako,

Glad to hear some wise words of wisdom! We, collectively, have not done a good job educating the new hires.

Hope you are having a blast fishing.

 

Pilots took advantage early out, saved jobs, allowed others to stay in seat and equipment, prevented captains from downgrading, gave us a 5 percent raise, and allowed 1 year upgrades that we see today. While mako fishes and posts children barely wearing clothes, the pilots are enjoying their 5 percent

 

5 pct of what? What was already years overdue? What was already paid for? Have you looked at some of the commuter pilot wages and bonuses lately? Hell, at the rate things are going I may decide to go back to airline flying and make MORE than I made at UAL! And while we're at it, why did the ToddSquad negotiate that some early outs get 3 yrs of partial pay while others only got 2? More division within the pilot group, more BS. Your hero really knew how to divide and conquer!

A man much wiser than I said over and over, "they manage, we fly". IOW, it's not the union's job to right the ship when it's listing.

Please give my best to Todd. I really hope he enjoys flying the line! And I really hope he's on Reserve and getting multiple SC's and FSB's shoved up his cinnamon check valve.

Thanks for posting!

Here are some fun facts.....

https://www.google.com/search?q=How+...hrome&ie=UTF-8

"​​​​​​Mr. Kirby owns over 28,491 units of United Airlines Inc stock worth over $12,438,936 and over the last 9 years he sold UAL stock worth over $2,019,786. In addition, he makes $16,779,500 as Chief Executive Officer and President of United Airlines at United Airlines"

https://skift.com/2022/06/23/the-hig...-airline-ceos/United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby followed up Bastian making $9.85 million in 2021. His pay, too, was almost entirely stock awards on his $1 million base salary. United posted a $4.5 billion adjusted net loss during the year.

***If UAL was losing 4.5 BILLION that year, why didn't Scott and the upper echelon of UAL management take a pay hit? I will tell you why, they got the PILOTS and the rest of the worker bees to pay for it. Apparently this went right over your head.

A significant limiter of Kirby’s take home pay — as well as Bastian’s, and every other U.S. airline CEO — were compensation limits set by the federal CARES Act and payroll support program. The industry availed itself of the federal coronavirus relief during the depths of the pandemic through September 2021.


So while the PILOTS were taking it in the shorts and shooting themselves in BOTH feet, management was lining their pockets IN SPITE of covid.



https://skift.com/2022/06/23/the-hig...-airline-ceos/

Scott Kirby, Chief Executive Officer, received $9.8M in total, which increased by 11% compared to 2020. 89% of Kirby's compensation, or $8.7M, was in stock awards. Kirby also received $1M in salary and $115K in other compensation.
For fiscal year 2021, the median employee pay was $78,245 at United Continental Holdings. Therefore, the ratio of Scott Kirby's pay to the median employee pay was 126 to one.

 

This is basically what happened in 2020. Yes, the situation was dire, but there is no way the company was going to get 4,000 deep in furloughs. Yet they were threatening that & hinting at much, much deeper cuts. Why? To get us so scared that we’d volunteer to take pay cuts.

Ultimately, the outcome was about as good as we could hope for, but sometimes the risk of winning a bad bet is that you walk away learning the wrong lesson. I don’t doubt most LOA yes voters had the noblest of intentions but my fear is that many see that as the new standard for how we respond to economic downturns.

 

I think hindsight will be 20/20 in a good way.

 

Pre-merger UA are the only people on the property who've EVER negotiated a decent contract!

 

Except for the dude sitting in Indoc right now who was making $419/hour two weeks ago to carry 50 pax. S/he was probably making more per seat than any pilot in the history of 121 ops. Inflation or not.

 

and why is this person sitting in indoc rather than staying at their regional?

maybe because they think that $419/hr isn’t sustainable?