AirTran pilot conference call

[Max Powers]

Whats the scoop? More of the same or some new info?

 

[ngsp]

general theme was, we do not know anything yet, but we are working on it.

 

[Max Powers]

well no news is good news so far at least.

 

[Secret Squirrel]

-It is true that management has threatened the NPA with termination of pilots as opposed to furlough if something is not negotiated to keep training department as is. I would assume they would not even have to abide by seniority if they terminate which would allow them to just fire 737 or 717 guys thus reducing training costs. MB said they have no idea the legality or impact that would have.

The NPA will continue to negotiate with the company for other LOA's regardless of the fact that the last one is probably going to put more people on the street AND no progress is being made on our contract.

-Furloughs are a very good possibility and MB said anything from 70-over200 depending on how many planes we end up with and how low the block hours go. But nothing official from the company. The union is working on ways to try and mitigate the numbers.(except the LOA's which seem to continue to help the company and doom jr pilots.)

-The training department guy has pulled his request to return to the line.

I got disconnected after the first couple questions so I don't know what happened from there. I was pretty disgusted though.

 

[Critter717]

86 to 256 furloughs

Line values for Sept and Oct 70 hours

Company will seek voluntary leave of absence first

NPA will counter that Training guys go first, company will counter that probationary pilots are not "line pilots' therefore they can be terminated.

NPA obligated by mediator to continue negotiations despite economic state. Mike said if both parties willing we could have an agreement in August. Said company wants an agreement.

NPA now has a Training Commitee.

Constitution and Bylaw changes coming soon for vote.

Any pay cut/concessions will be put out for a vote.

Every effort being made to keep guys employed.

No new airplanes for thru 2009.

Lastly, for the love of god press 4 and the star button on your phone to mute it so the 150+ folks on the line dont have to listen to your dog bark or kid scream....actually, maybe it was not kids screaming

 

[Max Powers]

86 to 256 furloughs

Line values for Sept and Oct 70 hours

Company will seek voluntary leave of absence first

NPA will counter that Training guys go first, company will counter that probationary pilots are not "line pilots' therefore they can be terminated.

Were those number given as: "definitively stated by the company" or a best guess?

 

[Secret Squirrel]

He actually did not say the company will offer Leave of Absence. It is just one way that the union will try to convince the company to mitigate the number of involuntary. Our contract does not require the company to offer LOA's.

The training LOA did not go out for a vote so I disagree that ALL concessions will go out for a vote.

 

[Secret Squirrel]

Were those number given as: "definitively stated by the company" or a best guess?

He was just throwing out numbers based on projected planes on property/current pilots per plane.

 

[GuppyWN]

Wow. I can't believe the tone you guys are giving. I cannot fathom firing probies just because they can. That is complete BS. I just thought you guys were having morale "issues" before but I fully expect the company to drive you to the brink.

Good luck guys.
Gup

 

[27 driver]

General tone of the conference call was pretty somber. Looks like us probies will be on the street whether it be furloughed or terminated. The question is how many. I sincerely hope they can work it out so we can keep our seniority numbers and recall rights even if it is 2+ years down the road. Best of luck to us all during these tought times.

 

[Lear70]

Lastly, for the love of god press 4 and the star button on your phone to mute it so the 150+ folks on the line dont have to listen to your dog bark or kid scream....actually, maybe it was not kids screaming

No doubt...

Who's the mensa scholar that can make it this far in their career but can't figure out how to mute their phone or even think to try and make SURE their phone is muted after 3 people yell to mute your phone (not counting Mike saying it 5 or 6 times).

Like I said in the call, TOTALLY unconscionable what management is doing, and I would hope NOTHING gets agreed to that puts probationary pilots on the street without recall rights. :angryfire:

 

[27 driver]

I couldn't get my phone to unmute. I tried to hit 4* many times with no luck. Most my questions were answered anyway.

 

[RadioClash]

I couldn't get my phone to unmute. I tried to hit 4* many times with no luck. Most my questions were answered anyway.

I had the same issue. Although I hit 5* and it said "your hand is raised" I hit 5* again and it said "your hand is lowered". Guess that doesn't do anything. What are you using? I have a Palm Centro and it did the same thing on the last call.

 

[Ty Webb]

Aaaargghhhh Welcome Aboard, Sailor

Lastly, for the love of god press 4 and the star button on your phone to mute it so the 150+ folks on the line dont have to listen to your dog bark or kid scream....actually, maybe it was not kids screaming

Yeah, sounded like that un-muted mouth-breathin' clown was at the Zoo with his kids . . . but at least he was wearing his hat.

Seriously, I think we are lucky to have MB at the helm. He has gone to great lengths to educate himeslf on the issues, is much more organized than past NPA Presidents, and is not aiming for a Managememt position.

 

[Capt.LongThrust]

-It is true that management has threatened the NPA with termination of pilots as opposed to furlough if something is not negotiated to keep training department as is. I would assume they would not even have to abide by seniority if they terminate which would allow them to just fire 737 or 717 guys thus reducing training costs. MB said they have no idea the legality or impact that would have.

The NPA will continue to negotiate with the company for other LOA's regardless of the fact that the last one is probably going to put more people on the street AND no progress is being made on our contract.

-Furloughs are a very good possibility and MB said anything from 70-over200 depending on how many planes we end up with and how low the block hours go. But nothing official from the company. The union is working on ways to try and mitigate the numbers.(except the LOA's which seem to continue to help the company and doom jr pilots.)

-The training department guy has pulled his request to return to the line.

I got disconnected after the first couple questions so I don't know what happened from there. I was pretty disgusted though.

I think the Polar pilots had a taste of firing the probies during their strike. They were all hired back with retro but a $hitty thing to do regardless. I am not sure the Airtran management has the cojones to actually pull that one off.

They have spoiled every last drop of goodwill with this pilot group and a mass firing might be a door closer for this company. I just don't think the company is willing to risk so much to give a hundred probation pilots walking papers not knowing the ramification of it all.

Management is taking one straight from the ole playbook. FEAR. Plain and simple. The most powerful human emotion. I truly think this pilot group is like an old tired dog, that has an owner that comes out a couple of times a week and kicks him in the gut. Sooner or later (hopefully sooner) we will get tired of getting kicked around

 

[Ty Webb]

They have spoiled every last drop of goodwill with this pilot group and a mass firing might be a door closer for this company. I just don't think the company is willing to risk so much to give a hundred probation pilots walking papers not knowing the ramification of it all.

There is this little teensy thing called a "class-action lawsuit" that would likely be the result of that decision. I don't have my calculator handy, but "100 fired pilots times career expectations" is several hundred million dollars' worth of exposure that they'd be fools to accept. . . . not everything has to be settled under the RLA.

 

[8v8tr]

Remeber the term: FLY SAFE!!!

Time to make the company understand who is actually in charge out there. We are the ones who are ON TIME, SAVE FUEL, EMO'S ECT......

 

[FlyWolf]

God, and the bad news just keeps coming, best of luck to all the trannies out there, we just had an Airtran jumpseater who was truly a class act, at this point no one is immune to what is happening right now.

All the best to all.

 

[JT12345]

From S&P.

"We think AAI is likely to benefit from
scaled back industry capacity in its markets, allowing
for yield gains in excess of the industry
average."

Ehem... The BOD said publicly they are not getting rid of airplanes. Until they annouce that I think these furlough possiblities don't make any sense.

Also about oil.. the head of the Commodities exchange said that the cost of oil is due to speculation, and people buying on margin, so I still think oil could go way down. The government is talking about regulating the markets ability to buy oil on margin. If this hopefully happens in the near future we should be looking ok.

 

[Secret Squirrel]

Fernaro said even if oil prices go down the company plan is a no growth plan until 2010. What Airtran might benefit from is the reduced capacity in the industry allowing for higher seat prices.

 

[Lear70]

From S&P.

"We think AAI is likely to benefit from
scaled back industry capacity in its markets, allowing
for yield gains in excess of the industry
average."

Ehem... The BOD said publicly they are not getting rid of airplanes. Until they annouce that I think these furlough possiblities don't make any sense.

Ummm... yeah, they did.

Conference call, MB said the company, "depending on who you talk to - maintenance or ops", is getting rid of anywhere from 1 to 4 airframes in the immediate future (I type fast, have notes of almost the entire call).

That combined with an announced capacity cut of 5% in September of '08 compared with September of '07 equals a total reduction of flying of between 16-18% from August planned flying to September planned flying.

If the LVI for 1,800 pilots is 94 hours, that's a total of 169,200 hours for the month of August.

169,200 * .74 (16% reduction in block hours - most conservative estimate) = 125,208 block hours for September, divided by 1,800 pilots = 69.56 block hours per pilot. The company HATES paying soft time, and will avoid it at nearly all costs.

It's going to be VERY close... and that's just ballparking it. The NPA has guys that are MUCH better at staffing models than me working on the Sched Committee and if MB thinks there's reason to believe cuts are coming, then you'd be a smart person to at least prepare for it.

I agree, a LOT of crap coming from the company is scare tactics, and there's no reason to panic, but only an idiot wouldn't start preparing his or her financial plan accordingly if they're in the bottom 200-250 of the list.

 

[carl p]

How many pilots are on the list now? I hope I am wrong, but it seems from this thread that the NPA isn't in a fighting mood. I would be surprised and disappointed if MB let the company walk all over us. We cannot let the contract be gutted. If we get furloughed, at least we'll have a decent contract to come back to.

 

[STL717]

Ummm... yeah, they did.

Conference call, MB said the company, "depending on who you talk to - maintenance or ops", is getting rid of anywhere from 1 to 4 airframes in the immediate future (I type fast, have notes of almost the entire call).

That combined with an announced capacity cut of 5% in September of '08 compared with September of '07 equals a total reduction of flying of between 16-18% from August planned flying to September planned flying.

If the LVI for 1,800 pilots is 94 hours, that's a total of 169,200 hours for the month of August.

169,200 * .74 (16% reduction in block hours - most conservative estimate) = 125,208 block hours for September, divided by 1,800 pilots = 69.56 block hours per pilot. The company HATES paying soft time, and will avoid it at nearly all costs.

It's going to be VERY close... and that's just ballparking it. The NPA has guys that are MUCH better at staffing models than me working on the Sched Committee and if MB thinks there's reason to believe cuts are coming, then you'd be a smart person to at least prepare for it.

I agree, a LOT of crap coming from the company is scare tactics, and there's no reason to panic, but only an idiot wouldn't start preparing his or her financial plan accordingly if they're in the bottom 200-250 of the list.

Please check your math


169,200 * .84 (16% reduction in block hours - most conservative estimate) = 142,128 block hours for September, divided by 1,800 pilots = 78.96 block hours per pilot.

 

[JT12345]

Last I heard we would have a 6000 hour reduction. 6000 of 170,000 hours is less than 5%, so lets say it's 8500.

I though the 16% drop was based on a 5% reduction in current capacity, and a 10% reduction in future capacity. Hense we were suppose to grow 10% this year. Instead we are reducing 5% for a negative expected size of 15%. We were suppose to have 147 airplanes by the end of the year, but will only have 141. BF said we would be flat and that we are not getting those additional 6 airplanes. Also we havn't received any additional airplanes for the last few months. If we would have kept getting airplanes the last few months we would have had like 152 by Dec08. Weren't we suppose to get 12 737s, but only got 4 this year?

Maybe I am just not getting what is going on.


This was put out last week. Havn't we already sold some spots on the assembly line at Boeing since March. I think we were suppose to have 58 737s by now.

Thursday, June 19, 2008
http://www.bizjournals.com/dayton/stories/2008/06/16/daily23.html?ana=from_rss

AirTran Airways will continue to cut capacity and costs as well as sell some aircraft in order to cope with the devastatingly high price of jet fuel, Robert Fornaro, company chairman, president and chief executive officer, told investors Wednesday.
In a speech at Merrill Lynch Global Transportation Conference in New York, Fornaro said Orlando, Fla.-based AirTran (NYSE: AAI) will cut overall capacity by 5 percent, a 15 percentage point swing from projections last September which had the airline growing by double digits.
"At this point the faster we can adapt the quicker we can recover and return to profitability," Fornaro said.
The low-cost airline, which is among the largest carriers flying out of the Dayton International Airport, also will try to restore some liquidity by selling aircraft. AirTran sold two planes in April and has plans to sell additional jets by year's end.
"Our focus is on monetizing the value we have embedded in those airplanes," Fornaro said.
AirTran had planned to end the year with a fleet of 147 jets, but has decided instead to cap the number of planes at 141.

snip

We have 141 airplanes right now. I have never seen a carrier furlough, but keep airplanes sitting around losing money.


sidenote:

It is starting to look like oil is on the down and out. Demand is down, and supplies are up unless you listen to the Iranian oil spokesman.

 

[maxblast72]

Ummm... yeah, they did.

Conference call, MB said the company, "depending on who you talk to - maintenance or ops", is getting rid of anywhere from 1 to 4 airframes in the immediate future (I type fast, have notes of almost the entire call).

That combined with an announced capacity cut of 5% in September of '08 compared with September of '07 equals a total reduction of flying of between 16-18% from August planned flying to September planned flying.

If the LVI for 1,800 pilots is 94 hours, that's a total of 169,200 hours for the month of August.

169,200 * .74 (16% reduction in block hours - most conservative estimate) = 125,208 block hours for September, divided by 1,800 pilots = 69.56 block hours per pilot. The company HATES paying soft time, and will avoid it at nearly all costs.

It's going to be VERY close... and that's just ballparking it. The NPA has guys that are MUCH better at staffing models than me working on the Sched Committee and if MB thinks there's reason to believe cuts are coming, then you'd be a smart person to at least prepare for it.

I agree, a LOT of crap coming from the company is scare tactics, and there's no reason to panic, but only an idiot wouldn't start preparing his or her financial plan accordingly if they're in the bottom 200-250 of the list.

Here is some better numbers for ya Lear70 for July 2008:

Total Block Hours 717 = 31030
Total Block Hours 737 = 22183
B717 LVI = 85.9
Total Pilots Bidding 717 = 904
Total Pilots Bidding 737 = 660

Total Airtran Block Hours X 2 seats = 106,426
Total Pilots Bidding both airplanes = 1564
Avg block hours per pilot company wide = 68 hours (816 annual basis)

Bring LVI from 85.9 in July to 70 in September is about a 18% reduction.

We have close to 1700 pilots on list but only about 1564 bid (rest in office, union business, medical, or loa).

 

[T3700]

Management is playing us like a fiddle -again-.

Convince us they are going to fire/furlough a couple hundred of us. Cut flying for the rest of us.

That 7% giveback they really want won't sound so bad then will it?

We will cave again and look like idiots when the bonus checks go out at the end of the year.

 

[Lear70]

Yeah, my math was off... that's what happens when I get in a hurry.

Here is some better numbers for ya Lear70 for July 2008:

Total Block Hours 717 = 31030
Total Block Hours 737 = 22183
B717 LVI = 85.9
Total Pilots Bidding 717 = 904
Total Pilots Bidding 737 = 660

Total Airtran Block Hours X 2 seats = 106,426
Total Pilots Bidding both airplanes = 1564
Avg block hours per pilot company wide = 68 hours (816 annual basis)

Bring LVI from 85.9 in July to 70 in September is about a 18% reduction.

We have close to 1700 pilots on list but only about 1564 bid (rest in office, union business, medical, or loa).

That's much better. Thanks for taking the time to break it down, I don't have access to all the latest numbers, just guestimates...

 

[Secret Squirrel]

Remember reserves do not actually fly 70 hours. With reduced lines and this new training LOA there are even less lines for reserve. So 10% of the pilot group only fly 30-40 hours a month.

 

[RIDETHELIGHTING]

At this point there are no furloughs. I'm a little irritated with npa talking about furloughs that might happen. We are getting everyone freak out, we need to keep our eye on the ball, and take wait and see attitude.

 

[tubelcane]

I don't think it's wrong for them to prepare for the worst. When I was furloughed in the past I was very unprepared. Simpler times though no kids and small house. It hurt but we made it thanks to the old lady and her job. I think the guys should be worried. They are overseeing and steering us through a pretty rough stretch. That being said if they fire the probationary guys all hell better break loose!