Big difference here ladies,

The problem is that Houston was historically the biggest Continental hub and the 737 was the growing fleet thus it was staffed as such.

By now moving 737 flying to the legacy United hubs who got a helping hand by the unbiased arbitrators and ALPA national, the legacy United pilots gained bidding power while the legacy Continental pilots lost bidding power thus any moving of flying away from the Continental hubs will produce a negative movement to the legacy Continental pilots, thus the letter from Ben.

While this might seemed "Allright" to many of you, it is absurd to believe that there is not an invisible hand at work here to remove junior Ca's from IAH and then have normal vacancies giving LUAL pilots those same seats that attrition would provide within the scope of few years.

If the airline was experiencing difficulties, we could agree that it would make sense, but not in this environment of growth, hiring and natural movement.

 

Well, that's a load of BS!

Houston has been overstaffed for years. They had some favoritism over EWR since those guys were more militant. Lots of DH to do flying of other bases.

They are finally fixing the problem.

I guarantee you that this current management HATES legacy UAL pilots and will do NOTHING to help them over the LCAL guys.

ALPA has absolutely no control over staffing. (This isn't CAL where the union and the company are good buddies making back-room deals).

 

I think Bugs hit this one square on the head with his reply.

 

To add to Untied's post, are you aware of the decline in the price of oil? Do you know what the impact has been on Houston's economy? Here's an article from yesterday: Local manufacturing industry sees effects of oil price decline - Community Impact Newspaper

Layoffs/increasing unemployment is never good for a city's air traffic. Houston's unemployment rate has increased by .5% in January 2015 alone. Compared to a decrease in national unemployment.

Economic contraction in Houston = Less O&D out of IAH = Less flying needed out of IAH.

Don't want to downgrade and don't want to go to one of those 'evil' LUAL hubs? Bid to EWR; you should have no problem holding your seat there. 'Problem' solved.

 

I have not heard of any decrease of flying out of Houston...have you? Have they cancelled any cities???

The change has been that flying is going from IAH to other bases as those crews fly through IAH...

The shifting of flying out of IAH is being done purposefully and with intention to arrive at a set result desired by those that do not like the current staffing in IAH...not because of lack of flying demand...

 

Yes, oil related companies have slashed their budgets for this year. I guarantee that there is a decrease in passenger traffic out of IAH due to those cutbacks.

There may not be any individual flight cuts yet (I don't know; I haven't been monitoring schedule changes), but they've already said that base manning would be addressed after the summer. I would expect a reduction in scheduled flights this fall that should match the decreased demand. The only published traffic statistics that I can find are through June 2014 which are not going to reflect the economic downturn in Houston.

Do you think it's a good idea to adjust flight scheduling to maximize passenger traffic?

 

There has no been no reduction in flying from Houston. The company five years into the merger is still trying to move assets from the two legacy carriers to where they maximize return on investment. The flying has already been moved to a large extent. But some pilot positions are still out of place and need to be moved. Apparently some believe there is a conspiracy between Boston Consulting Group, the UAL MEC, and United management to stick it to junior former L-CAL 737 CA's in IAH to benefit former L-UAL pilots.

 

C'mon man. You were jumping for joy when Continental started "moving 737 flying to legacy United hubs" back before the SLI....when UAL dudes couldn't bid. Remember? I don't know what you're crying about now. You, Ben, and Sleeves won't even lose your seat. Enjoy the commute to Chicaaago.

 

Continental has announced that it was going to open new 737 bases in those cities because of the 100+ 737s on order. That would have happened regardless of the merger.

 

Yeah, wow, I get it now. The CAL powerhouse was going to challenge and decimate UAL and American in ORD, UAL and SWA in DEN, UAL in SFO, UAL, AMR, and DAL in LAX.

Sorry man, I was too naive.