A possible FLOPS solution

[inverted1]

Well here I sit on another broken airplane and more angry disserviced owners. The standard thought that always runs through my mind at this point is “can’t wait to finally leave this place and move on to bigger and better.” But like most of you, I sit and stare at the illustrious AirlinePilotPay.com, FL 350, etc and mull over most of the possible options I have. To be perfectly honest, none of them except UPS, FEDEX, DHL/ASTAR or Southwest are even options(in my mind). I have plenty of resumes out, but would have to ask myself if I got the call from any of the "others" what kind of future they have in store. We have had a lot of pilots bail to Jet Blue, but the obvious question is, when it comes time for the company to make the payments how will they fare? My personal opinion is that none of the passenger hauling airlines is stable except for Southwest and for very good reason. Ever increasing fuel costs will do nothing but validate my claims in the next months to come. Although many people including myself have different opinions about the type rated pilot methodology, you have to admit the airline has it above all the rest and continues to grow. I believe most of their success is due to the following:


- Fuel Hedging
- - Employee owned airline.
- Unparallel management team

- Company owned simulators, training sites.

- Extraordinary Morale and Motivation



I highlight the Morale and Motivation because I personally believe that the employees are the Back Bone to a “Service oriented company”. M.S. loves to preach the policy, but obviously has no interest in protecting or motivating the vital asset… the employees. The upper management is trying to run a fractional airline as a commercial carrier. You and I both know that the two are both very different animals. You see if Delta irritates the pilots, yeah they may disservice a few $200.00 customers, but the customers always return. If we disservice owners they take their 10 Million and leave.



Our first instinct is to rebel and find ways to bash the company for which I am guilty of. But in the back of my mind I still look back to over three years ago and remember what it felt like to work for a company that had our best interests in mind. PRIDE IN LOOKING AND ACTING PROFESSIONAL. To be motivated to go to work and enjoy the brotherhood I have with many of you. And to be honest I don’t want to see this place self destruct as it most certainly will if we continue in this direction. Let me list the problems I see with the company and I think most of you will agree need to be changed.



- Absolutely no accountability in the OCC for mistakes made in reposition flight problems and owner service failures.(company waste)

- Total lack of communication throughout the entire company

- Lack of service to owners

- Maintenance issues across the board in all fleets.

- Crew efficiency on the road.

- Lack of Morale throughout the company



A union has its place in the industry and might just have one here now, but it WILL NOT solve the above mentioned problems. Sure we can get together and bring a union on property and tell them we want our crew meals, domiciles, etc BUT if the company folds due to a total lack of management that a union CANNOT control, then it means nothing and we have wasted our dues.



I value our truly unique pilot staff and the talent that comes with it. There is a reason we have a good safety record in the industry and for the jobs we are given, we do exceptional tasks that the Airline guys cannot even imagine. I have to laugh every time I read the “You might be a FLOPS pilot if….” thread. As comical as it is, it is very true and only the “brotherhood” could understand the realm of insanity we endure on a daily basis. But the insanity and total lack of schedule is what brought me here. I got sick of the day-to-day point A to B knowing every approach, airway, frequency and time schedule by heart. BORING!!! Now I wake up…look down on the BB and see DAL..ASE…MSY … MKY …HOU and just laugh. A union will protect us and our rights as pilots and eventually we will need to invest in that protection, but for now I propose we try to straighten out the company and repair the holes in the hull before she sinks!



So then I asked how? Management could care less what the pilots have to say. We are all just whining, sniveling pilots who are just looking for the big bucks and quite frankly current management is the cause of this mess. There is an alternative option we have, IF and ONLY IF you are as committed as I am to do something to get control of what could be a great company. Ever heard of an Employee owned company? Just the pilots alone could provide a substantial amount toward controlling stock in the company. Of course the biggest problem we face is the implementation of a new CEO and strong management team. To be honest I would be willing to gamble on this company with a Great CEO than a $6-7000 type at Southwest. I would have to believe that Raytheon Aircraft would love nothing more than to dump the annoying “thorn.”



I wish I had a camera now installed in your computer to take a snap shot of your face. I made that same face when I was confronted with the solution. But the more I thought about it, the more it made sense. It is a huge step for most of us but right now I have nothing to loose. The ENTIRE industry is in the tank right now and I would ask that you think long and hard about what I have said here realizing what enormous things WE could do with this company. Instead of a $25 feel good fuel card from the company, you could be receiving a $5,000 Profit sharing bonus in the mail. I would be willing to bet our owners would be up for a change and be thrilled that the employees now have a VESTED interest in their safety and service “Promise.”



I am very open to constructive criticism and more importantly SUPPORT! If you have something to add please be professional about it. The last thing I need is some hard work being destroyed by someone with a negative attitude who doesn’t even work for a fractional posting garbage and destroying this thread. Please take it somewhere else. I would hope that only people with a vested interest in Flight Options or the Fractional airline industry would reply to the post and if the interest arises, help organize a movement. If you like what you hear, please pass it on!



Thanks!!

 

[dime line]

Hey Inverted, you said this.....

"A union will protect us and our rights as pilots and eventually we will need to invest in that protection, but for now I propose we try to straighten out the company and repair the holes in the hull before she sinks!"

This company will go under with or without a union on property, JS is not going to quit anytime soon (Moral #1 Problem) and MS (moral #2 Problem) might get canned, but I'm up in the air on that one.

So you need to reread your above sentance, and really think about what you already know and said.

Remember, No Flight Options Pilot, can make management do something they don't want to do.

 

[Sky High]

funny...I am sitting on a broken aircraft as well, APU INOP, multiple other defered items as well. Something has to change

 

[xrated]

That brought a tear to my eye....anyone have a tissue?

 

[luvu]

I'll bite

How do you propose to get to 51% ownership as a pilot group? Even if the pilots decided they wanted to negotiate for 51% ownership, that only takes care of who controls the assets. How do you propose to divide the liabilities? Do you think the pilots as a group would be willing to assume the billions in liabilities that are represented by hugely underperforming contracts and a rapidly expanding bunch of "pi$$ed off" millionaire owners and their lawyers?

Interesting point of discussion. When you decide what terms you would accept to assume operational control of the company then you may begin to understand why Raytheon hasn't been able to unload it.

Try to get a handle on all the known or potential liabilities. Put a number on that. Tell Raytheon if they put this much $$$ in the kitty to cover the cost of getting out of the hole they have been digging for 4 years then you will accept control over actually directing the commercial recovery.

Liability #1, billions of dollars in underperforming five year contracts.

Liability # 2, hundreds of pissed off pilots who were terminated or left and who have every reason to file lawsuits over the pressure to fly illegal or unairworthy aircraft or follow unlawful duty time instructions, or ...... you get the picture.

Liability #3, billions of dollars in potential lawsuits from any and all owners that actually get pi$$ed off enough to hire an aviation attorney and get a peek at the maintenance and flight records on the aircraft they have been flown around on. The words, "I want every penny back that I ever paid you guys plus 9 times that amount in punitive damages due me according to state or federal law." might make you rethink any thoughts you might have had about assuming any liability for "past" unlawful acts on the part of the company.

Feel free to add to this list. These are just the first three scariest things that come to my mind. It's all out there on the public record and even if Raytheon stockholders haven't been informed in accordance with the law, the company and its pilots know the score.

Here is what I would suggest if you don't trust Raytheon to finally step up to the plate. As a pilot group, unionize. Once organized enough to get a union, go to the owners. Ask the owners to support you in showing Raytheon the door. Pilot's shoot for 51% control. Owners get 49 % of control.

Raytheon ponies up $2 billion into kitty, turns over all stock, and owners and pilots all agree to drop present and future rights to litigate over any alleged illegal activity on the part of Raytheon.

Throw into the mix, a Raytheon maintenance guarantee equal to what NetJets just negotiated which is vastly superior to anything they agreed to on behalf of Travel Air or Flight Options owners. Don't believe this. Get a copy of the proposed "ten year" maintenance guarantee on the Horizon!

 

[luvu]

follow up

Last time I looked at books related to Flight Options, Raytheon was carrying an approximate 146 million in "goodwill" for Flight Options. This represents an approximate 76 million of "goodwill" that they inherited from Ricci in the merger and an additional 70 million in "goodwill" that they have added in the intervening three years.

For those of you who don't read balance sheets, this is the amount that needs to be added to the equation everytime Raytheon adds money to the company to cover losses.

Simple math will tell you that the company is losing roughly 20 million a year and growing with each of the last four management changes.

This is the just the current accounts annual deficit. The liabilities mentioned above are long term liabilities and they are potentially enormous.

Pilots should not be asking how much money they are willing to put on the table to buy Raytheon's stock. They should be asking Raytheon how much Raytheon is willing to pay the pilots to take the stock off their hands.

I am not hyping this. This is, in my opinion, the nature of the hole that Raytheon has dug and continues to dig. Pilots need to fully understand this and go into this discussion with their eyes wide open.

When pilots are unionized they will get to see the books under federal law. Then and only then will you know the totality of what you are dealing with.

 

[Publishers]

I really do not know how you add goodwill over the last three years.

Goodwill is value paid above book value for a company. In the beginning of a company, you can capitalize start up costs and carry them forward but how do you gain goodwill yearly?

One of the problems with this kind of company or Netjets is that someone else owns the hard asset, the aircraft. In tems of physical assets, what exactly does FLOP own themselves outright?

 

[luvu]

try this

Here is the basic formula:

Owners equity = (Assets) minus (liabilities)



If this starts out in year one as

1) $10 in equity = ($20 in cash) minus ($10 in liabilities)

2) and in the following year, the company's income statement shows $30 dollars in loses. It could cover this by burning through the $20 in cash and assuming an additional $10 in liabilities

3) then the Balance sheet might reflect these changes.
(negative $20 in equity) = ($ 0.00 cash) minus ($20 in liabilities)

4) the left side of equation (which is owners equity otherwise known as the book value of all outstanding stock) shouldn't actually go negative so the company can show that it has recapitlized company by selling a lot more stock which adds $20 in cash to the right side of equation OR it can increase a fictitious asset called goodwill to right side of equation.

5) this might leave the equation looking like this
($0.00 in equity) = ($ 0.00 cash + $20 goodwill) minus ($20 in liabilities)

6) Flight Options' goodwill is GROWING but now you know the "rest of the story"

 

[Sky High]

I like where you are going with this LUVU. I think the goal in bringing up this thread was to make people at least think about the possibilities, even if they are far fetched. As you can tell a lot of us are not as number oriented as we should be, but I would hope that the "accountants" in our pilot group would show their faces and start brainstorming. I too believe that Raytheon would be willing to can this "problem" before it gets worse at a substantial loss. Problem now is how do we get the owners and Raytheon on board?

 

[inverted1]

Well put sky... now where do we go from here?

 

[luvu]

First step- send in your card

http://p068.ezboard.com/brtapilots

http://asapflightdeck.com/

 

[CapnVegetto]

Sounds like FLOPS is becoming a regional airline. Wow......it used to be one of the best companies to work for, didn't it?

 

[ultrarunner]

Didn't the employees at UAL purchase a significant portion of that company through an ESOP?

We're they sucessful in getting a good management team running the company?

I'm behind in my reading, so someone bring me up to speed on how they're doing.

 

[longrangekiller]

Nice idea. Failed at United.

The Flight Options pilots are not united enough to organize. Why would you even have the slightest idea that the pilots would band together to make Flight Options an employee owned company?

Pilots are leaving the company fast and there has not been a new hire class since October. Owners are leaving Flight Options almost as fast as the pilots.

Flight Options is slowly passing into history. That is the reality.

I am leaving late Summer. I believe strongly that your time would be better spent seeking new employment rather that trying to plug all the holes in this sinking ship.

I mean even if the pilot force organizes before 1 July, which is unlikely even now, nothing much will change. I mean things will stay the same are they are now. "The Company and the Pilots remain far apart on many KEY ISSUES." I've read that one before very recently.

 

[Grim Reaper]

Impassioned letters continue to appear on the Flight Options Pilot Web Site. Pilots are leaving en masse. Owners are leaving. [Of course a good number of those owners leaving were unable to obtain another sweetheart (cheap, under performing) service contract and that is just fine.] There is worry that owner disservice will cause the company to close down. All the while, the CEO tells the employees just how proud and please he is with the efforts to take care of the customer. It is a sad situation.



Pilots with double digit seniority numbers plead for the submission of union representation cards hoping for a vote before all the announced policy initiatives are enacted and hoping to save Flight Options from itself. Ladies and Gentlemen, the sad truth is the announced initiatives are a done deal, with the exception of closing the remaining tier three domiciles and reserve schedule.

Crew meals: Done

CLE Domicile Pay: Done

Expense Reporting: Done

SOP Changes: Done

Per Diem: Done

Etc, etc, etc.


A vote at this point is too little too late to prevent current policy changes. A vote in the near future may say some remaining tier three airports and may prevent the implementation of a reserve schedule for now, but that’s about it.

All you can hope to do is prevent future policy changes without due consideration. So, by all means, continue with the effort. As for me, I’m outa here in the near future. The jobs are out there. All ya gotta do is look.

 

[luvu]

how bad can it get

before you think that you shouldn't support unionization because status quo at this point is too late a goal, you should consider how much worse it can get once management decides that it is going to put its mistakes on the backs of pilots.

How would you like Five days on / 2 days off?
How would you like to pay for your own commute out of a $4,000 a year transportation allowance. Anything more than that is on you.
How would you like to pay for your own initial type?
How would you like pay to be reduced across the board to $45,000 for a Captain regardless of seniority and $18,000 for First Officers. It won't matter if you were once a Captain. If you are now a First Officer, you get the pay cut.
Think there still won't be a stack of 10,000 resumes from hungry up and coming pilots with 1,500 hours and an ATP? Guess again. Sure they will constitute a substantial decrease in experience and safety but they are worth every penny in savings and management's a$$ won't be at the bottom of the smoking hole anyway.

Think this can't happen? Think it won't happen before the doors finally close? Whose going to put a stop to it?


If not the pilots, Who?
If not now, When?

http://www.asapflightdeck.com/foasap.html

http://p068.ezboard.com/brtapilots

http://asapflightdeck.com/