Another aircraft order from CAL

[justin15e]

You can't order the world's most extensive route structure.

PIPE

Be careful what you say "can't" be done. I believe that enough money can order just about anything, especially when United's CEO is just about begging for it...

For your sake, I hope you don't eat those words big fella.

 

[General Lee]

General, I use to like you up to this point. Now i've come to the conclusion that you're just an a**. You actually think your merger with NWA is going to be SO much better than our merger with UAL. It's going to be ugly no matter what. Will I be furloughed...maybe...maybe not. Will you be the gear bitch soon?......hopefully....hopefully so.

Huh? Come on now, I never said ours would be better than yours. They both will be troublesome. And, I am the gear bitch now, but there is a good chance I will be the left seater if it takes 6-8 months for DOJ review and we have another bid. If not, oh well, I will be there soon. I still have 22 more years to go you know.... Please don't hate me---don't be a playa hater...

Bye Bye--General Lee

 

[120% Torque]

Questions or should this pointless koolaid war go on? Your high nose junk sounds like some former intern new hire in March '99...

OUCH! Dont forget about the other "stacks" for applications. Interns was only one.

 

[Ex737Driver]

Staple, staple, staple, staple, staple, staple, staple, staple, staple, staple, staple, staple, staple, staple, staple.......................

I'm sorry...........did I say that out loud.....again?

Look, a merger NEVER assures a company's success. Bigger is not always better. Intergration is never easy. There are so many things wrong with ANY combination that NO ONE should be looking towards a merger. Have we not learned from the past? I would hope that both DAL/NWA mec's are stalling to enusre that a merger NEVER occurs.

If any more proof is needed, just look across the isle at USAIR and AWA.

 

[CAL EWR B737]

Hey CAL GUYS ARE YOU COMING TO WALL STREET ON THE 12th? I EXPECT TO SEE YOU ALL THERE NO EXCUSES!

SIGN UP ON THE CAL ALPA WEBSITE

 

[Furloughed80]

I hear some of these 777s might be -300s. This is definitely good news for CAL. 111 new Boeings to be delivered over the next 6 years!

 

[pipe]

Be careful what you say "can't" be done. I believe that enough money can order just about anything, especially when United's CEO is just about begging for it...

For your sake, I hope you don't eat those words big fella.

For my sake? Yeah, I fly the MD-11 at UAL. A lot of people aren't familiar with the UAL MD-11 operation.

See my earlier thread about career expectations. My point is that comparing corporate pemis size and then equating it to your career expectation is crap. Meaningless. Pointless.

But, the next time I'm looking for airline insight I'll be sure to find a 1900 hr Eagle driver to talk it over with. (No offense to Albie though. He does know of what he speaks)

PIPE

 

[Andy]

CAL pilots career expectations?
1. 3-5 yr upgrade
2. New A/C
3. New cities
4. Movement

UAL pilots career expectations?
1. 10 yr upgrade
2. Few deliveries
3. Stagnation
4. Shrinking capacity

Relative seniority is justified, anything else would be an undue windfall for the UAL folks. Fences should be in place. I am sure the UAL folks will want to protect the -400 along with DEN, SFO.........I don't blame them. Sound fair to me. I just can't see how anyone could articulate an advantaged position for the UAL pilots. This without even mentioning the financial position of UAL compared to CAL. Completely different worlds at the moment.

ATRCA, hold your ammo. All you're doing is dumping a ton of poison in the well, which will result in dividing the two pilot groups and accomplish exactly ZERO.

As for financial positions, taking on a lot of debt when the economy's going into a recession is exactly what got UAL in trouble.

 

[Andy]

ATRCA, I figured that you were a newbie at CAL. http://forums.flightinfo.com/showthread.php?p=1430591#post1430591

Your posts remind me of that ******************************bag flylow22 when USAir was in merger mode with UAL.

Stop feeding the flames of dissent.

 

[oldguy]

I got news for you. Every pilot hired at every airline (with a very few exceptions) has been told 3-5 year upgrade. Actually happens about 5-10% of the time. In fact, I'm on my 4th airline and was told as little as one year but never more than five. If you think that is a legitimate expectation you're very new to this.

Oh yeah, you may upgrade in 3-5. Then downgrade. Then upgrade. Then sit reserve for six years. Then, voila! After more like 10 years you REALLY upgraded.

PIPE

You are right... When I went to Chautauqua I was told I'd upgrade in 2 years. Turns out it was a year and 11 months.

Career expectations ARE real and not that financial positions can't change. But... It is unfair for a pilot at UAL to benefit from CAL's current $$ position, fleet renewal, and good management. You cannot argue against that.

I say that with all due respect to the UAL pilots. If they had a better system right now I'd just be happy to be getting under their umbrella. Not saying it should be a staple or anything but there should be some accomadation made.

My piece,

Oldguy

 

[Andy]

You are right... When I went to Chautauqua I was told I'd upgrade in 2 years. Turns out it was a year and 11 months.

Career expectations ARE real and not that financial positions can't change. But... It is unfair for a pilot at UAL to benefit from CAL's current $$ position, fleet renewal, and good management. You cannot argue against that.

I say that with all due respect to the UAL pilots. If they had a better system right now I'd just be happy to be getting under their umbrella. Not saying it should be a staple or anything but there should be some accomadation made.

My piece,

Oldguy

Oldguy, UAL's balance sheet is at least as solid as CAL's. In 2007, UAL paid off $2.7 Billion in debt. At the end of Q4, UAL had $4.4Billion cash on hand; $3.6 Billion unrestricted. I don't know where people come up with the idea that UAL's balance sheet is not solid; it is not ground in reality. UAL is currently a cash cow; fortunately, management's been smart enough to use that money for aircraft interior upgrades, paying down debt, and building up large on hand cash reserves.
UAL is seeing RASM premiums over competition. Granted, UAL's CASM is high, but I've found through the years that management can play with cost numbers to make things look better or worse than reality.
UAL has a clean balance sheet and is decreasing debtloads, exactly what you want to see going into an economic downturn. I don't know if you've priced out the credit markets lately, but now is NOT a good time to be taking on additional debt. The credit markets are getting totally whacked and double digit loan rates are becoming the norm. I don't know how CAL plans to finance all of those orders, but if they plan on a buy/leaseback arrangement, they could be in for a rude awakening. CAL's operations are not throwing off enough cash to pay for the new equipment, so financing is a requirement.
I do not consider taking on additional debt and ordering aircraft in the current environment to be 'smart' management.

You can't reliably forecast CAL's upgrade expectations at this time; CAL has a TON of training float. Once the vacancy bids to the left seat slow, the training float will vanish. With the amount of hiring that has already occurred, a current newhire would be foolish to plan on less than 5 years in the right seat. And even that's optimistic.

As for seniority integration, it won't be stapling or date of hire; relative seniority is the likely outcome. All of the negative comments about the other carrier will do nothing to change that.

 

[Cpt Oveur]

Well, there are quite a few spring '05 new hires who are sitting left seat in EWR right now.

 

[XShuttle]

FWIW, in the AAA/AWA case, Nicolau specifically gave "no weight" to pre-merger orders or options and used a zero growth basis for the integration.

 

[Andy]

Well, there are quite a few spring '05 new hires who are sitting left seat in EWR right now.

When they were hired in spring 05, what was their upgrade expectation?
When I was hired at United in 2000, there were guys getting to the left seat in less than 24 months. But there were a 2000 numbers between me and them; 20% of the company.
How many numbers are between the newest hire on property and the spring 05 hires?

Hasn't CAL had some left seat bids get cancelled since the age change?

Finally, if we're all lucky, no merger will take place. In which case, all of this will have riled up some people for no reason whatsoever. It's going to go by relative seniority, give or take a little bit with minimal fences. And everyone involved will complain for the rest of their careers about how they got screwed. Fun stuff.

 

[Furloughed80]

The only reason you hear pilots talk of career expectations is because it is specifically mentioned in ALPA's integration policy. If it is completely impossible to estimate this variable and make an adjustment for it, why would ALPA specifically include it in its merger policy?