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40 more at NWA

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I think I smell BS

NEW YORK -(Dow Jones)- Unit revenue at Northwest Airlines (NasdaqNM: NWAC - News) Corp. , the nation's fourth-largest carrier, will likely be down "only" about 2% this month from a year ago as the carrier's revenue performance continues to improve from the post- Sept. 11 falloff, said Richard Anderson, the company's chief executive, Wednesday.

Northwest's systemwide unit revenue, or revenue for each mile a seat is flown, declined 2.2% in May from a year ago - an improvement from the first quarter's drop of nearly 7%, Anderson said at a Merrill Lynch transportation conference in New York .

"The revenue performance of the airline continues to improve," Anderson said


From another article: "Northwest ran a 13 percent smaller schedule in the first quarter than a year earlier, Anderson said. The airline expects the schedule to be 11 percent smaller in the second quarter than a year ago and 5 percent smaller for the year.

"We may actually pull down a bit more (capacity) in the fall, depending on what traffic looks like," Anderson said.

Northwest reported a $171 million net loss in the first quarter, when it had about $2.6 billion cash on hand. It has more than $2.7 billion in cash right now, Anderson said. "


O.K., let me see if I got this right. Revenue is only down 2% from where it was last year at this time. "Revenue performance continues to improve" Anderson says. Right now we're running an 11% smaller schedule than last year, but by the end of the year it's only going to be 5% smaller. So flying is gonna increase. We have more cash on hand right now than we did after losing $171 mill in the first quarter.

So we're gonna furlough another 40 in October?!

I certainly am no expert on economics or pilot staffing or how to run an airline or just about anything else, but holy sh!t does this seem more than a little strange to anyone else? All indications up to this point made it seem like NWA was holding its own in bad times, if not outperforming most in the industry. Anderson's statements above seem to back that up. So now out of the blue they're gonna put another 40 on the street? Is it just me or does anyone else smell BS? Any chance there's a connection between this and the fact that contract negotiations start next Jan? I'm not implying there is, but this just doesn't seem to add up.

Not the news I was expecting or wanting to hear.
 
"We may actually pull down a bit more (capacity) in the fall, depending on what traffic looks like," Anderson said.

That is why the furloughs are going to happen. They are going to squeeze every last drop of work they can out of each pilot they have (can we say most productive major airline pilot group?). It is not going to be pretty, especially from where you and I sit.

If this is BS, let's hope that it was doled out to the pilots and not to Wallstreet. I much prefer RA's spin to JC's.
 
When you replace DC10s with B757s you need less people.Flying hrs will be the same next winter so 100 less S/Os needed, 60 retirements = 40 pilots out of work till spring.
 

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