- Ty Webb was voted employee of the year
Many people have probably forgotten that there was a time when I was the biggest cheerleader this airline had on this board. I wrote about how fortunate we were to have this management team, how they came in when we had only $10 million left in the coffers, and managed to turn this place around; they upgraded the entire fleet, reduced our debt load dramatically, doubled the airline's size in four years, all while making a profit during the toughest times this industry has seen.
Therefore, no one was more profoundly disappointed than I was that, when our Contract became amenable, instead of working together with the pilot group to maintain that synergy (we had given them 6 LOA's over the previous 5 years), they chose instead to pull out the old "Eastern Airlines Contract Negotiation Manual" and proceeded to decimate the goodwill that had existed between the pilot group and management, in order to save a few million in payroll costs . . . . a very 1980's decision, and a very bad one, in my opinion.
That "goodwill" doesn't have a dollar value on a Balance Sheet, or on an Income Statement, but it is the glue that holds this place together, and it is what makes the difference between us becoming the next Southwest . . . . or the next Eastern.
Hopefully, as the torch of leadership is passed on to the next generation, as is rumored, we will find our way back to the path we were on, and I will once again be proud to sport the tightest slacks and my "Employee of the Year" medallion around the Fox Bar,
but it is going to be an uphill slog for a while.
TW
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