Endeavor Air-(Pinnacle, Colgan, Mesaba)

[xjlifer]

Pinnacle had some of the best performance stats of any airline in America for most of the past decade. Senior management never could figure out labor relations but they were ruthless in pursuing the synthetic metrics that executives use to weigh and measure airlines. Generally, pilots have a completely different idea of what a "good" product is though and airlines that pilots think are "good" usually fail in the marketplace (i.e., Mesaba).

Sad but true

 

[jynxyjericho]

Generally, pilots have a completely different idea of what a "good" product is though and airlines that pilots think are "good" usually fail in the marketplace (i.e., Mesaba).

Your position is that we got sold to Pinnacle because we were failing in the marketplace? Have you read your own SEC reports prior to and up to the bankruptcy? Parking the Saabs was expensive because it meant retraining the pilots, however Phildo planned to get reimbursed by Delta but it never happened (Delta's fault or Phils fault depending who you want to blame).

Are you talking about the previous shamrupcy? MAIR just x-ferred our money (100's of millions) to another holding company and pretended like we failed. No money came in because Northwest was in bankruptcy, but the sham didn't hold up in BK court twice (one win, one fail, one win on appeal) and we got a concessionary contract worth more than your '99 agreement and your TA1. We still made money afterwards, Northwest owned us. Delta kept us and sold us to Pinnacle as a profitable asset.

Yes Phil ran us out of money and yes he couldn't manage the parking of the Saabs but none of that was Mesaba's doing. Maybe Mesaba's previous management, Delta, but that's a tough sell.

 

[gojo]

Pinnacle had some of the best performance stats of any airline in America for most of the past decade. Senior management never could figure out labor relations but they were ruthless in pursuing the synthetic metrics that executives use to weigh and measure airlines. Generally, pilots have a completely different idea of what a "good" product is though and airlines that pilots think are "good" usually fail in the marketplace (i.e., Mesaba).

What are you talking about???? Year after year Pinnacle was cancelling flights around the holidays because crews were timing out for the year. I remember several computer crashes that sometimes lasted for days and resulted in many canceled flights, a poor safety record for a period of years because they had one of the worst training departments with some of the highest numbers of washouts for both new hire and up-grades in the industry. I agree that the performance stats did start improving during the last half of the decade that you speak of, [FONT=&quot]Particularly while you guys were in extended contract negotiations. I don't know, maybe I'm missing your point[/FONT]

 

[jynxyjericho]

What are you talking about???? Year after year Pinnacle was cancelling flights around the holidays because crews were timing out for the year. I remember several computer crashes that sometimes lasted for days and resulted in many canceled flights, a poor safety record for a period of years because they had one of the worst training departments with some of the highest numbers of washouts for both new hire and up-grades in the industry. I agree that the performance stats did start improving during the last half of the decade that you speak of, [FONT=&quot]Particularly while you guys were in extended contract negotiations. I don't know, maybe I'm missing your point[/FONT]

Glad I'm not the only one seeing this, are we back to "Pinnacle saved Mesaba!1!" again? Good God.

 

[1.3XVso]

What are you talking about???? Year after year Pinnacle was cancelling flights around the holidays because crews were timing out for the year. I remember several computer crashes that sometimes lasted for days and resulted in many canceled flights, a poor safety record for a period of years because they had one of the worst training departments with some of the highest numbers of washouts for both new hire and up-grades in the industry. I agree that the performance stats did start improving during the last half of the decade that you speak of, [FONT=&quot]Particularly while you guys were in extended contract negotiations. I don't know, maybe I'm missing your point[/FONT]

I can assure you that our performance was up in the 90% bracket. I know for a FACT because my blood will boil when i see the report colored graph we had. Every time the company stripped our perx our performance will go up. Union will sent out memos " lets get the ontime performance up to show delta what we got". While phil sucked money out of the company and feed these clowns with memos about " thanks for all you do" our ontime will go up and stay up. I can go on and on and on.

 

[DoinTime]

Simple fact....in the decade from 2000-2010, pinnacle grew by over 400%. Mesaba shrank by nearly 50%. In business terms, that is a marketplace failure.

 

[jynxyjericho]

Simple fact....in the decade from 2000-2010, pinnacle grew by over 400%. Mesaba shrank by nearly 50%. In business terms, that is a marketplace failure.

Is this trolling or do you really think you can rewrite history? Do you think no one is going to question your stupidity?

2010-2014 Pinnacle (including the Colgan subsidiary) will shrink and have nothing left, the only thing left will be that Mesaba -900 fleet and some planes awarded by Delta. That's an unfair illustration of a fact.

Simple fact might be that when you are wholly owned you will be shrunk. From 2000-2010 MAIR grew 2 whole other airline from scratch, one of which was bought by Valuejet and now owned by Southwest. Big Sky was shut down completely. Mesaba's time is done. Pinnacle's time is clearly done. Maybe we were both dead men walking and just didn't know it yet.

 

[gojo]

Simple fact....in the decade from 2000-2010, pinnacle grew by over 400%. Mesaba shrank by nearly 50%. In business terms, that is a marketplace failure.

I don't think you can compare most regional airlines to a traditional business. We are contract companies and only provide a service to mainline. They control the growth or the opposite in a much more aggressive fashion than say a company that sells their product to multiple venders or even multiple products. Skywest and Republic are an example of diversified regional airlines. With that said, why do you think Northwest/Delta usually didn't allow that. Pinnacle didn't grow because they were a good airline. They grew because they were cheap. Kinda like Walmart, the price is lower, but the shopping experience isn't that good. Performance has to be pretty bad for them to make a change. Face it, we are all just pawns in the regional chess game. It's rare that when a pawn gets a king into checkmate.

 

[Flyer1015]

Unity? I've heard it well spoken of on web boards. There will always be a pilot to take your place, there is no pilot shortage, and the company will always win.

If you are seriously in a situation like we were, Pinnacle, and you choose to shutter the doors and go the way of so many other airlines when you can keep working for another year until another airline hires you? Good luck. Some of us have wives and kids and won't be moving back in with the folks when given a chance to continue to make a wage which supports us. The only red line in the sand is crossing a picket line, and most of those guys who did it at CO are still there working. Stupid people on this board will try to elevate accepting a concessionary contract in bankruptcy as crossing a picket line. That's a good thing, it actually lets you know who the morons are. Hissy fits and temper tantrums screaming "I'm gonna die if I don't get that Matchbox car" worked on your folks because they were lazy and didn't want to raise you up to be a big boy. The rest of us have to put on our big boy pants and deal with the REAL WORLD.

Pinnacle is not special, we don't provide anything for Delta that they can't get from another airline in a few months. Some of you are convinced that "OMG if Pinnacle doesn't keep running Delta can't sustain the lift!" They kept us going AND can't sustain the lift. They. Don't. Care. Whoever is cheapest wins, so Republic and GoJet's I'd just keep those heads down because while all of us try to scrape along you two are going to get all the aircraft. Skywest will probably be the biggest winner because they'll reset the rates automatically AND still have a couple hundred million in the bank after it's all said and done.

Just pray if you have a union they draw out the inevitable. Many of you misunderstand a simple concept about unions. The union can't save your job, they can just give you an above market wage if you work real hard, and they can slow the company down from taking that wage if they play things real smart. Unions are great, I don't want to be without one. Unions can't fix the industry because you can't corral all the pilots and make them stand lock step. That's an economic and sociological reality.

Play along, let them "compete" and leave in a year or two. Yup it'll happen at the next airline too, except you'll have a bigger paycheck and more days off- still better. (The keyboard warriors will be there too, and we'll all have to get along.)

Maybe you think we'll all be hanging out at the gate ready to start flying so we can get to that 10 hour overnight (was 14 until the weather came in) rejoicing about the time you all stood together on flight info and declared you were going to stop the market from doing what it's going to do. Nope. The captain will probably just buy you a coffee and you'll tell stories about the last overnight where the stupid FA passed out at the bar from drinking too much and you had to drag her back.

Don't spend any money, save every buck you make and/or pay down debt aggressively. Talk to your grandparents if they are still alive and retired and find out exactly what they did. Don't be surprised when they tell you it had nothing to do with a 401k or anything else. Don't buy expensive phones or anything else expensive. Buy used, save your money, retire comfortably. There is no middle class in the future.

Everyone in the regional world is about to get screwed, because our vaunted regional business model is about to change. That's a market force and a business reality you can't change- no matter if everyone screams unity at the same time zulu every day.

If you want to be an airline pilot, these are your lumps. Some rich kids will get ahead of you, some will finish behind you, but if you just truck along and do your best and be reasonable it'll work out. Honestly a lot of those rich kids end up doing drugs and they get caught and you move up a #. It's not so bad. Think you are too good for it? Get a real job.

-Wow, sorry I blacked out there, where am I?

The only red line in sand is crossing a picket line? I didn't realize pilot standards had dropped that low, I thought they were a little higher than that.

 

[jynxyjericho]

The only red line in sand is crossing a picket line? I didn't realize pilot standards had dropped that low, I thought they were a little higher than that.

Educate me MAn.