Bob Dylan
Well-known member
- Joined
- Sep 28, 2007
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Good luck to all the CAL pilots in Houston today. I honestly can't say that I agree with your rallying cry though! :laugh:
http://blog.cleveland.com/business/2008/06/continental_pilots_to_picket_i.html
Continental pilots to picket in Houston
Pilots for Continental Express carry signs outside Cleveland Hopkins International Airport in May 2004 to draw attention to their lack of a contract.
Hundreds of uniformed Continental Airlines pilots are expected to picket today outside the carrier's headquarters in Houston, where Continental is having its annual meeting.
The pilots want to remind Continental's management of $200 million in concessions they took in 2005 - what a union spokesman described as a "loan that is due."
"We now want to be repaid for those concessions," Capt. Mark Adams of the Air Line Pilots Association, International, said Tuesday.
Continental is weathering extreme jet fuel costs that are forcing capacity and employee reductions. The airline plans to announce details this week.
Adams said pilots don't expect the wage and benefit concessions to be restored right away, so long as they eventually are. The union released information showing new Continental pilots make less than $30,000 a year and fly more hours at a lower wage than eight years ago.
Continental has about 250 pilots based at its hub in Cleveland, and some are expected at the rally. The rest of the airline's 5,000 or so pilots are divided between its hubs in Houston and Newark, N.J.
One reason fewer pilots are based in Cleveland is that they fly only 737s out of Cleveland Hopkins International Airport. The pilots based in Newark or Houston also fly 757s, 767s and 777s.
Continental and the pilots are in contract talks, bargaining that typically takes years, not months, in the airline industry. The pilots are working under a contract reached in 2005 that can be amended at the end of this year.
"It's always good to show management that all of your pilots stand behind the union," John Persons, chairman of the Cleveland local of the pilots union, said in a phone call from Houston.
Continental is expected to detail what flights and routes it will drop, beginning in the fall, in an announcement Thursday or Friday.
The airline won't announce exactly where it will eliminate jobs because it needs to see first how much it can shave its work force through early retirements. Continental says it needs to shrink by 3,000 people and reduce domestic capacity by 11 percent in the fourth quarter, compared with a year earlier.
Analyst Michael Derchin of FTN Midwest Securities Corp. expects the deepest cuts in regional markets where Continental can't price tickets to make enough money, given today's fuel pressure.
Also vulnerable, he said, are "non-core" markets dominated by low-cost carriers, such as Florida, Las Vegas and California.
"This is not likely to be Continental's final move to resize its operation," Derchin noted in a report.
Robert McAdoo, an airline analyst at Avondale Partners in Prairie Village, Kansas, said Continental probably will target break-even routes and "developmental routes" that aren't profitable yet.
Continental earlier this year added a number of nonstop regional flights out of Hopkins to destinations that included Birmingham, Ala.; Savannah, Ga.; Charleston, S.C.; and Green Bay, Wis. A nonstop to Des Moines, Iowa, is supposed to start Thursday.
http://blog.cleveland.com/business/2008/06/continental_pilots_to_picket_i.html
Continental pilots to picket in Houston
Pilots for Continental Express carry signs outside Cleveland Hopkins International Airport in May 2004 to draw attention to their lack of a contract.
Hundreds of uniformed Continental Airlines pilots are expected to picket today outside the carrier's headquarters in Houston, where Continental is having its annual meeting.
The pilots want to remind Continental's management of $200 million in concessions they took in 2005 - what a union spokesman described as a "loan that is due."
"We now want to be repaid for those concessions," Capt. Mark Adams of the Air Line Pilots Association, International, said Tuesday.
Continental is weathering extreme jet fuel costs that are forcing capacity and employee reductions. The airline plans to announce details this week.
Adams said pilots don't expect the wage and benefit concessions to be restored right away, so long as they eventually are. The union released information showing new Continental pilots make less than $30,000 a year and fly more hours at a lower wage than eight years ago.
Continental has about 250 pilots based at its hub in Cleveland, and some are expected at the rally. The rest of the airline's 5,000 or so pilots are divided between its hubs in Houston and Newark, N.J.
One reason fewer pilots are based in Cleveland is that they fly only 737s out of Cleveland Hopkins International Airport. The pilots based in Newark or Houston also fly 757s, 767s and 777s.
Continental and the pilots are in contract talks, bargaining that typically takes years, not months, in the airline industry. The pilots are working under a contract reached in 2005 that can be amended at the end of this year.
"It's always good to show management that all of your pilots stand behind the union," John Persons, chairman of the Cleveland local of the pilots union, said in a phone call from Houston.
Continental is expected to detail what flights and routes it will drop, beginning in the fall, in an announcement Thursday or Friday.
The airline won't announce exactly where it will eliminate jobs because it needs to see first how much it can shave its work force through early retirements. Continental says it needs to shrink by 3,000 people and reduce domestic capacity by 11 percent in the fourth quarter, compared with a year earlier.
Analyst Michael Derchin of FTN Midwest Securities Corp. expects the deepest cuts in regional markets where Continental can't price tickets to make enough money, given today's fuel pressure.
Also vulnerable, he said, are "non-core" markets dominated by low-cost carriers, such as Florida, Las Vegas and California.
"This is not likely to be Continental's final move to resize its operation," Derchin noted in a report.
Robert McAdoo, an airline analyst at Avondale Partners in Prairie Village, Kansas, said Continental probably will target break-even routes and "developmental routes" that aren't profitable yet.
Continental earlier this year added a number of nonstop regional flights out of Hopkins to destinations that included Birmingham, Ala.; Savannah, Ga.; Charleston, S.C.; and Green Bay, Wis. A nonstop to Des Moines, Iowa, is supposed to start Thursday.
