baseball

First, There is no recession in Houston. There is a re-shaping of some energy markets and a cyclical contraction based on global supply and demand, which resulted in a temporary draw-down of exploration and some domestic production.

Second, Much of the worlds energy production depends on geo-political stability and right now while OPEC has decided to keep production up and prices low there is a residual effect on advanced economies such as ours. The Geopolitical issues are in part brought to bear as a punishment to Russia, and Venezueala, which don't much have an interest in OPEC, and decline in Chinese demand. OPEC won't keep the price low for too much longer. It's quid-pro-quo agreement to affect Russia and help the Obama administration will be over in 6 to 9 months.

Third, The union doesn't represent the IAH pilots over the DEN pilots. The abortion that was the ISL process is over. ALPA doesn't care, never did. ALPA just wants your dues money to keep pumping in. They don't care if you live in DEN or IAH, or SEA, etc. They know, no matter where you are based you still have a position on the list, and you continue to pay dues. Also, the company doesn't care where you are based either. If management wants pay for company moves all the time, that's their business.

Fourth, I thought the Airbus would come in to IAH along time ago. Supposedly its ideal for cargo (which we don't fully capitalize on) in Latin America.

Dragon7

Denver is nice in the Fall.

flybynuts

The reality is that realignment of flying, manning and personell. When the shifting of any of this occurs there are winners and losers. I'm losing on this last shifting but the silver lining is that we are close to being done. I think we needed this last year so we could be done with it. This allows us to then make the plans we need for us professionally and personally while providing much needed stability.

Blockoutblockin

No drinking and commenting. Step away from the keyboard and go to sleep, lmao!

flybynuts

Dang iphone!!!! Can't stand how you can't edit the posts after its been awhile.

Let me clarify...
Realignments of large magnitudes happen with mergers. This is one of the last to put people, planes and equipment in the right places for market capitalization and utilization. It's painful but once it's over we have stability. With this stability we can hopefully live our lives better and try and plan according to a more solid base and equipment structure.

Probe

Stability? In the airline industry? ROTFLMAO

Still looking for that bottle of JD...........

flybynuts

Probe,
You get what I'm saying. My Delta buds have had some crazy years going between bases and airplanes. Now it's more stabile over there because the company did the same. We are getting to that point after this bid and it will help for base/staffing normalization.

baseball

It's an easy train of thought to follow.

If the company gets it act together on the staffing and basing side sooner than later, then maybe the employees can plan their lives a bit better and communicate more effectively to family members what is going on and what they can reasonably expect.

Whenever we run a big bid I try and run it by the family. Every so often we talk about the prospect of commuting to a higher paying airplane, but that is quickly dismissed.

But, as an IAH based pilot who has been based here since 1996 our family has roots here now. It would be a major disruption in our lives to be displaced. I have one kid going into senior year of high school and if I were displaced that would drastically affect lots of things.

The company's lack of proactive planning and timely/accurate communications to the pilots is to blame for much of our uncompetitive routing of pilots. We get all of this talk about saving money here and there, and fuel this and that. How about the company run the place like a business? Put its resources (people and equipment) where they are needed and tell the pilots what we can expect?

I know plans change, but that should only happen about once every 4 years or so.

Attrition is a big part of what is going on, but......when a pilot retires it really creates 2 to 3 other training cycles somewhere else to backfill it. We have too many bases and equipment types for this to be a 1 for 1 game.

Probe

Just yanking your chain. No offense intended. But in reality, it is the truth. I currently own two houses, that I haven't lived in for 7 and 12 years respectively. I bought both thinking, yeah, I will stay here a while. One lasted a year, the other 3 years.

But I agree with you. 3.5 major carriers, and it should be more stable than in the past. I hope. But I am not buying another &%$#cking house for United.

Probe

Baseball;
We all have our "situations". The reality is nobody on Wanker drive cares. Hopefully your choices will work out. But they might not.

20 years ago, a 30 year airline pilot told me to buy an RV and live in it. I wish I would have taken his advice.