Unical Retirements
03-18-2011 | 03:58 AM
#21
Gets Weekends Off
Joined: Nov 2010
Posts: 3,071
Likes: 0
03-18-2011 | 06:43 AM
#22
Gets Weekends Off
Joined: Nov 2010
Posts: 451
Likes: 0
From: 737 Cap
I hate to agree with you, but yes. Smisek cares about 2 things: his paycheck and slashing costs. 737-500s and 767-200s are now on his chopping block.
I would love to see the following things by the end of this year:
1. A full page ad in USA Today declaring that United's pilots have no faith in their "leadership."
2. The mother of all strikes.
I would love to see the following things by the end of this year:
1. A full page ad in USA Today declaring that United's pilots have no faith in their "leadership."
2. The mother of all strikes.
I'll be on the line with the rest of you.
Scott
(a 16 year UAL guy that makes less than a 2nd year SWA f/o)
03-18-2011 | 07:05 AM
#23
Gets Weekends Off
Joined: Feb 2011
Posts: 3,866
Likes: 0
If they park even one mainline jet instead of a stack of 50 seat RJ's, we'll know that this has NOTHING to do with fuel. Nothing. Just like parking 96 737's at UAL - nothing to do with fuel. Nothing. What a crock of BS. That aircraft (CRJ or ERJ) is absurd in this fuel environment. UFB.
I'll be on the line with the rest of you.
Scott
(a 16 year UAL guy that makes less than a 2nd year SWA f/o)
I'll be on the line with the rest of you.
Scott
(a 16 year UAL guy that makes less than a 2nd year SWA f/o)
I take this to mean if he can do the entire domestic ops with outsourced planes, he will. He has no interest in having or running a domestic airline as a business or a profit. For him, it's over. International only, park every mainline non-international plane possible, outsource as much as possible.
United Continental's Smisek on oil prices: 'I feel a bit like a piñata at a 10-year-old's birthday party'
ByTerry Maxon/Reporter
[email protected] | Bio
10:05 AM on Fri., Mar. 11, 2011 | Permalink
Elizabeth Souder, our energy reporter, is sitting in at the always interesting CERA conference in Houston this week. United Continental Holdings CEO Jeff Smisek spoke there Friday morning.
You might ask, why is an airline CEO speaking at an energy conference? But as Elizabeth reports, energy is very much on the minds of airline executives these days, with jet fuel prices zooming past $3 a gallon.
Here are some of Smisek's comments captured by Elizabeth:
• With these oil prices: "I feel a bit like a piñata at a 10-year-old's birthday party."
• United consumes one out of every 350 barrels of oil produced. A modern air traffic control system could save 10 percent of the fuel airlines burn.
• United hedges about 40 percent of its fuel, but "all you're doing there is hedging against a spike so you can survive it." He added: "Hedges burn off, and Las Vegas wasn't built on the backs of winners."
• "We're taxed more heavily than alcohol, tobacco, and firearms. We're taxed as a sin." (He was talking about taxes on passenger tickets, which amount to about 20 percent on the average domestic ticket.)
"I'm not talking about corporate taxes. The airline business hasn't made a profit so you don't have to worry about taxes. There are 16 or 17 different taxes, I think, by six different federal entities who, I believe, never talk to each other."
• He said he follows crude prices on the Bloomberg terminal outside of his office every day. Smisek joked: "I don't have to follow our stock price because it's so highly correlated to crude."
• "Nobody wants us to die because everybody makes money off of us."
• Smisek said he expects United Continental, a merger last year of United Airlines and Continental Airlines, to shrink in the U.S. "We'll have the domestic [operations] sized solely to feed the international traffic."
Smisek had been chairman and CEO of Houston-based Continental before the 2010 merger, and runs the merged company now out of Chicago.
ByTerry Maxon/Reporter
[email protected] | Bio
10:05 AM on Fri., Mar. 11, 2011 | Permalink
Elizabeth Souder, our energy reporter, is sitting in at the always interesting CERA conference in Houston this week. United Continental Holdings CEO Jeff Smisek spoke there Friday morning.
You might ask, why is an airline CEO speaking at an energy conference? But as Elizabeth reports, energy is very much on the minds of airline executives these days, with jet fuel prices zooming past $3 a gallon.
Here are some of Smisek's comments captured by Elizabeth:
• With these oil prices: "I feel a bit like a piñata at a 10-year-old's birthday party."
• United consumes one out of every 350 barrels of oil produced. A modern air traffic control system could save 10 percent of the fuel airlines burn.
• United hedges about 40 percent of its fuel, but "all you're doing there is hedging against a spike so you can survive it." He added: "Hedges burn off, and Las Vegas wasn't built on the backs of winners."
• "We're taxed more heavily than alcohol, tobacco, and firearms. We're taxed as a sin." (He was talking about taxes on passenger tickets, which amount to about 20 percent on the average domestic ticket.)
"I'm not talking about corporate taxes. The airline business hasn't made a profit so you don't have to worry about taxes. There are 16 or 17 different taxes, I think, by six different federal entities who, I believe, never talk to each other."
• He said he follows crude prices on the Bloomberg terminal outside of his office every day. Smisek joked: "I don't have to follow our stock price because it's so highly correlated to crude."
• "Nobody wants us to die because everybody makes money off of us."
• Smisek said he expects United Continental, a merger last year of United Airlines and Continental Airlines, to shrink in the U.S. "We'll have the domestic [operations] sized solely to feed the international traffic."
Smisek had been chairman and CEO of Houston-based Continental before the 2010 merger, and runs the merged company now out of Chicago.
03-18-2011 | 08:25 AM
#24
HOSED BY PBS AGAIN
Joined: Mar 2005
Posts: 1,713
Likes: 0
.....Sadly, I'm afraid December 2012 might be the next "positive" thing for this pilot group. I would contend that age 65 did as much to destroy career expectations as $100+oil, 9/11, etc......Thanks again Prater!
03-18-2011 | 08:35 AM
#25
Line Holder
Joined: Dec 2005
Posts: 985
Likes: 65
Why thank Prater? The illustrious POTUS was the guy who ramrodded this down our throats, and in record speed too. (His family is good friends of Frank Lorenzo BTW.....so no big surprise there). Prater had NO sayso on whether it was going to be signed into law or not. It was going to become law regardless of what he said, so why bother WASTING our dues money on a war that was never going to be won? Many of our pilots keep voting anti-labor, and then wonder why they're getting screwed. Why are so many on here so surprised???
03-18-2011 | 10:19 AM
#26
Line Holder
Joined: Jun 2008
Posts: 1,980
Likes: 15
From: 737 CAPT
Staffing is a perception:
Management perceives pilots cost the company money.
My family perceives the company costs me time with them.
03-18-2011 | 11:12 AM
#28
Banned
Joined: Oct 2010
Posts: 690
Likes: 0
From: IAH 737 CA
Note the highlighted part. His intent is make the entire domestic operation a feed for international.
I take this to mean if he can do the entire domestic ops with outsourced planes, he will. He has no interest in having or running a domestic airline as a business or a profit. For him, it's over. International only, park every mainline non-international plane possible, outsource as much as possible.
I take this to mean if he can do the entire domestic ops with outsourced planes, he will. He has no interest in having or running a domestic airline as a business or a profit. For him, it's over. International only, park every mainline non-international plane possible, outsource as much as possible.
You would think that even with Smiesdcik's small mind that he could see the outsourcing bomb that will drop on him. We buy almost exclusively Boeing. Boeing promises us the 787 which they attempt to build by outsourcing. Boeing begins to produce 787's 2-3 years behind schedule, with reduced performance numbers, and increased aircraft weight.
When you take the people that make your product out of the process of actually making the product, you are left with nothing but a large pile of shti.
If Jeff continues to remove the actual CAL/UAL pilots from half of the operation, the undesired consequences can, will, and do show themselves.
03-18-2011 | 01:32 PM
#30
Gets Weekends Off
Joined: May 2006
Posts: 2,576
Likes: 0
From: 737 CA
I think the UAL pilots are just starting to see this merger is not going to save them. It will destroy them ( and CAL). This will go down as the worst merger in history and both airlines will be "history" in time.
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