Cabotage, can PAC stop it?

[Flopgut]

Probably going to see a Super Bowl ad this year.

Their public goal as communicated by Tim Clark is to make the Emirates brand as recognizable as Coca-Cola.

Australia/UK/Africa/Euro its all over the place.

Getting pretty deep in here...

What I *think* is going to take place: US policy makers will realize there is not a single industry that Dubai can't take from us if Emirates is allowed to flourish here. Dubai only has to wait and see what US industry their lunatic cousins/neighbors decide to attack, and then move in on it. Airlines are the first thing the former oil industrial complex Middle East nations want to dominate. Taking advantage of dispicable acts that originate in their own complicated region and religion should not be what make the difference.

 

[scoreboardII]

Emirates is a bubble with no bright ending.

They are the purest form of a political/hegonomy and only exist because their owners/governmnet throw billions at the airline. They have an oil based economy we just scoffed with fracking technology. They have NO industry other than oil and a need to transport indentured TCN's from Paki or Bangla to Dubai, and the rich Sheiks from UAE to the hot travel spots they want to visit. They are riding a bubble which will burst sooner than later. Check out the parking lot at Dubai airport, thousands of abandoned vehicles left to rot when the wave of expats departed.

https://www.google.com/search?q=aba...ASK84CQBw&sqi=2&ved=0CCkQsAQ&biw=1461&bih=651

 

[fareview]

Scoreboard

You are completely wrong on your description. Dubai has no oil. Emirates were given seed money of $10m in the mid 80's to start. Since then they have made money since then except for one year.

Granted they enjoy the support of a govt that understands the airline is key to the "Aerotropolis" vision.

Abandoned cars? Wrong decade. That was 2008. The city is bursting with arrivals contributing to the Dubai property market being the strongest performing in the world (Bloomberg: Up 68% since 2008).

Despite continued assertions by competitor airlines over the years that EK have been subsidized (Qantas being one) - no one has ever produced evidence that Deloitte (our auditor ) is cooking the books.

The model works for three reasons: Location, Service & Execution.

The US is important but take moving Africans to Asia & India and Chindians going the other way - total market population - 5bn plus. That's just not an arena that American & Europeans (more but limited) can effectively compete on.

The world is changing - it's that simple.

Finally on GLs point of no profit share. On average Every seven years there is a global crisis - at EK historically when the music stops - everyone has their seat, the same seat. In the US there are guys always put on the street or downgraded. From SARS, 2 Gulf Wars, Swine flu, 9-11, GFC etc....we know another one is just around the corner.

To that end our (pilot group) upward trajectory is a shallower gradient in the good times but also shallower in the bad time. The US system is different and obviously has it's pluses and minuses. EK is extremely efficient, everyone gets paid the same regardless of type, so no mass training movements when new bids come out - those efficiencies benefit the airline in bad times.

This is not a ours v. Yours post. I think we flogged that horse enough, just want to educate Scoreboard and others on the situ.

Now Emtihad - totally different story.

fv

 

[waveflyer]

It IS an interesting point, Wave. However, I'd venture to say that it's less "anti-union" per se, and more "anti-the other stuff" that a lot of the more militant unions and typical 'pro-union' politicians support. Do you not see any difference here?

Bubba

Name the other stuff. It gets specific.
Most of that political ideology is mired in hubris-
How only the best of the best deserve the wealth of their efforts- and of course as major airline pilots we are in the room with them. We apologize for executives nationwide an empower their greed - until our CEO gets a pay raise while wanting us to stay flat - or in other's case redistributes wealth by extracting cuts from pilots and giving it to management
We don't view ourselves as middle class labor so we don't vote for that.
Pilots: Stupid smart people

 

[SWA Bubba]

Name the other stuff. It gets specific.
Most of that political ideology is mired in hubris-
How only the best of the best deserve the wealth of their efforts- and of course as major airline pilots we are in the room with them. We apologize for executives nationwide an empower their greed - until our CEO gets a pay raise while wanting us to stay flat - or in other's case redistributes wealth by extracting cuts from pilots and giving it to management
We don't view ourselves as middle class labor so we don't vote for that.
Pilots: Stupid smart people

The other stuff? This will rapidly devolve into a left vs. right political discussion. However your comment above basically boils down to, if a pilot is not as left as you, then he is an idiot, an elitist, or supports the "1%" (or CEOs, or however you term it) taking all the money from the poor little guy. Well, it's not that simple, Wave.

You said two things that belie your bias: that we "don't view ourselves as middle class labor," and "so we don't vote for that." Personally I do view myself as middle class, albeit upper middle class. And right now, due to my hard efforts, I am at the pinnacle of my middle-class working life. I started off in the military as an E-1 making diddly crap, and have worked my entire life to get where I am. Secondly, I soundly reject the notion that voting for other than leftists amounts to voting "against" the middle class. In 1980, the first presidential election that I was living on my own and old enough to vote, I grossed just under $7,000 for the year (I just looked it up), and I voted for Ronald Reagan. I voted to better myself, and I did. Sorry, but just because it's the left's current tagline doesn't make it true: the left does not own the middle class, Wave.

However, the most important thing you said in your post that shows how little you understand people that don't agree with you is:

"Most of that political ideology is mired in hubris-How only the best of the best deserve the wealth of their efforts..."
​

How dare you.

Most airline pilots are somewhere to the right of center (some more than others, obviously); that's undeniable. However, it does not come from hubris, but rather the idea that we worked hard to get where we are, and to earn the good living that we generally do today. And the belief that anyone in this country with appropriate smarts, dedication/discipline, and hard work, can or could have gotten where we are today. Obviously, I can only speak for myself, but I suspect the majority of airline pilots agree with this sentiment--I don't think that only the "best of the best" deserve the wealth of their efforts; hell, I think that everyone deserves the wealth of their efforts. But here's where you and I differ, Wave: more importantly than that, I also think that nobody else deserves the wealth of MY efforts. That's why people like me won't vote for a President whose stated goal is to redistribute my hard-earned wealth to others who don't or won't work as hard in their life.

Somehow I suspect that you still won't get this, because it undercuts your rationalization if everyone doesn't agree with you. However, there it is: pilots who completely disagree with you politically, but aren't stupid, full of hubris, or morally bankrupt as you may want to believe.

Bubba

 

[waveflyer]

Nice long post I haven't read yet bubba
But i stand by my thoughts- it's hypocritical to be anti-union against everyone else, then militantly pro airline pilot union.
My single point is that we make things harder on our own collective bargaining efforts by not supporting it politically

 

[SWA Bubba]

Nice long post I haven't read yet bubba
But i stand by my thoughts- it's hypocritical to be anti-union against everyone else, then militantly pro airline pilot union.
My single point is that we make things harder on our own collective bargaining efforts by not supporting it politically

Certainly what you described above could be considered hypocritical, but you're pigeonholing pilots into the extreme case that you described. Your hypothesis is more often than not a gross exaggeration. Again, I speak only for myself, but suspect a lot of my brother pilots may feel the same way: I am neither "anti-union" for everyone else, nor "militantly pro-union" for airline pilots. You presume to put people who disagree with you at the fringe to make it easier to dismiss and insult their position.

Certainly, unions have a purpose. An extremely important one at that. Primarily, it's too provide balance, and to give the workers' voices the ability to be heard. However, -I- know it's possible for the power spectrum to swing too far to the left just as easily as it is to swing too far to the right. Liberals don't seem to see that, anymore than some CEOs can see the overall importance of unions in the first place.

One only need read history, or delve personally into highly union-controlled businesses to see examples of unions exercising too much power to the detriment of everyone. Companies going bankrupt and/or liquidating due to the inability to pay union demands, or even negotiated salaries in bad times. This is part of the reason for the hugely cyclic nature of our own industry, and it is a fine line to walk. Entire municipalities going bankrupt due to outrageously generous pension liabilities extracted by unions, that they were never going to be able to support indefinitely. This is especially insidious, as the "temporary" nature of the municipalities' bargainers leads them to giving in too much (as in it'll be "someone else's problem" when it comes time to pay).

By the way, this is one of the reasons I wanted to work for Southwest. Our union is a lot closer to keeping a good balance than some others. We haven't experienced those "cycles." We've had steady improvements for workers, all the while enhancing the company's bottom line and keeping it strong. It's not all about "us versus them." We haven't tried to "wring the neck of the golden goose until we squeeze the last golden egg from it," to quote an airline union leader of the past.

And finally, Wave, please stop telling me that I need to support politicians like the President, in order to not "make things harder on our collective bargaining efforts." I think this is crap. The current Administration's sole concern about you and me is in how to extract more in taxes from us (and, of course, he's already started doing that, plus he has great plans to do more). The President's personal definition of "middle-class" does not include any pilot from major US airlines, so I'm not going to hold my breath waiting for him to help me in any way.

Anyway, you probably shouldn't lob political grenades on the pilot forum in the first place, and then ignore the responses if they don't fit your preconceived notion in the second place.

Bubba

 

[waveflyer]

Agree to disagree on a lot of that and just don't care to dive into it ...again...for the 200th time.
But you have to admit that you are more even keeled than many. I do not lump EVERYONE into that category, but there is a large contingent that it fits.

And I'll say it again- support your PAC
Support our needs as airline pilots. Lobby republicans so that they support our needs, if supporting democrats is so distasteful.
But don't sit on the sidelines and say that'll be good for the career

As for Obama- that's the most ignorant thing you've written in a while