hummingbear

Maybe, maybe not. To your point, they certainly don’t seem very worried about it. From my perspective, this management’s aggressive growth strategy is at its face refreshing & has been received enthusiastically by many of our pilots. Having that wind at their backs would have been the perfect moment to sell us on a new standard of brand ambassadorship, which is- at least ostensibly- a fundamental tenet of their United Next plan. But where they’ve been quick to spend big money on fleet growth & route expansion, they’ve continued to drag their feet on this investment. What’s worse, they’ve become the victims of their own messaging. A couple months of earnest negotiations is not that long a timeframe; but after repeated promises of an industry leading contract in 2 weeks, to be fighting for the middle of the pack 2 months later feels like a crushing blow.

To me it feels like a big miscalculation that is going to cost them more in the long run than they are presently considering. The point you make about having seen this cycle multiple times in your tenure here nicely underscores what I’m saying. That cycle has given us decades of being little more than a frequent inconvenience and an occasional insult to our paying customers. If they really want to be the “biggest & best”, they have to do something fundamentally different; yet they (discouragingly) seem to be drawing from the same tired playbook that brought us the failures of decades past.

Spesiellsporing

Different levels of hearts and minds. They're concerned with jets operating and on time, while we think gate PAs and First Class grip and grins move the needle. Their fears going forward were alleviated with the lawsuit in 2009.

Smiles and pats on the back are cheap when they're free. I liken them to "our goal is to be the best". Honestly, who publicly doesn't want to be the best? Being the best requires money. Some aren't willing to undertake the incremental costs and are happy with #2.

hummingbear

Sure. And I totally get the airline who “wants to be number 1”, meanwhile they’re flying old jets, pulling out of competitive markets, etc.- seen it a million times. What puzzles me here is these guys are walking the walk in ways we don’t often see in this industry. Very aggressive on growth, fleet expansion, branding, etc.; so why get so “penny wise” in this one area?

Your analysis if I understand you correctly is that they’re just full of it & don’t think the whole “brand ambassador” thing makes a significant difference. My best guess is that they do actually believe it, but they are exposing a troubling naivete regarding what it actually takes to make that happen. Either way, we’ve both seen the “please be industry leading employees at industry average rates” show before & know how it ends.

Zoomie

Here's the thing about nickel and diming pilots on something that is earned or even if Management only think it's a "perceived" earning of 5% over DL...
1) DL will have to match, and probably AA for that matter.
2) Pilots will get that 5% back with interest. They just do. It comes out of overs, walking to a new hotel, not "extending", not taking a middle seat, not coming in on reserve until the last minute, etc.

Better just pay for something most of your competition is going to match anyway.
I expect we'll sit with rates 5% better than DL (Then DL will add 1% to those, and AA will too if they sign something before us)
Fixing all those work rules is a lot harder. I suspect the final offer will be 5% greater than DL on rates, but much < than DL on work rule improvements, but those are a lot harder to calculate $$ figures.

However, both the Union and the company will tout "$8.5 billion in improvements over 4 years".

Do you really think DLs is worth $7 Billion? I don't. Is it a good contract? Yes, and eons above our TUMI, but my guess is the real number is significantly less. They tend to tout what added costs are added, but never subtract whatever "efficiencies" they extract from the contract.

Do you really think the TUMI TA was $3 Billion in improvements over 2 years? I think it was maybe $500-1Billion in improvements in 2 years[total WAG]... those numbers they make up are totally imaginary...

khergan

So....with the latest MEC chair update and Kirby's bonus + apparent sense of playing hardball, what do we think?

I don't get a good feeling about this from GT's latest email. I think if it keeps going like this we are likely to the MEC filling for mediation come summer and a long, tough fight ahead.

Thoughts?

SeamusTheHound

Fight the fight. Nobody’s going to just “give” you anything. It’ll be a long, brutal summer for Mr Kirby if he can’t bring himself to realize what “industry leading” means.

Good leads the way???

JoePatroni

https://youtu.be/s4LSYmLjh9Q

SquawkIdent

To misquote Sir Winston:

Now this is not the end. It may not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.

This is the fight it's always been coming to. But that fight has been on a horrible creeping delay because of the previous MC/MEC, COVID, and then Kirby's smokescreen from the Delta TA (and maybe again for an AA TA, who knows?).

But it's finally here now. Kirby's true nature and intentions are revealed. We're going to have to be resolute and unified, and it's probably going take a while. I say bring it on: I've got my war chest in place and I'm up for the fight.

SquawkIdent

(Too late to edit my previous post to add...)

At the risk of stating the very obvious, there's a negotiating psychology aspect to this. By dragging it out so long, the company hopes that by the time we get to the real fight everyone is so worn out from the run-up that they just want to get the thing done.

I'm starting to think of this negotiation as a triathlon. We've done the swim and the bike, now it's time for the run.

You might say - wait, I just swam 2.5 miles, then rode my bike 100 miles and you're telling me that was all just to get to the starting line of a ğcking marathon? Well, yes, maybe so. The sooner we as a pilot group come to grips with that the better.

hummingbear

This. Kirby had a narrow window to keep enthusiasm high in our post-COVID restructuring & he’s floundering. If he really wants to fight over contract points he’s already admitted are industry standard, fine- we’ll fight. But he’s made as many big promises to the BOD as he has to us, & we’re not the ones who have to defend ourselves when customer satisfaction scores start moving in the wrong direction & United Next is stuck in a ground hold. I’m actually pretty surprised that his brightest idea is to ask us nicely to be GAS pilots at DGAS prices, but guys smarter than him have tried it, & I guess he’ll learn the same way they did…