FUD at Flight Options

[Hobbes]

You can do better than that. Is that what you are paying fud and harrisson for? You're point is impotent. You make no real argument towards your agenda...maybe you would be better served if you just responded to everything with your little anti union weblink...(funny, that is the same one Bob Tyler seems to like sharing...)

 

[realityman]

Okay okay. I didn't want to debate with this idiot, but when you send in a pitch nice and slow right over the plate it's hard not to swing at it.

Just because a 777 captain needed the sim to stay current doesn't mean he wasn't working. Those planes are utilized on very long-range legs. If you take-off and land during daylight hours, odds are you won't get enough night landings or IFR time to stay current. Note: they're working plenty of hours and days, just the type of flying in that aircraft means they need the sim to stay current.

I believe it was JAL or another Far East carrier that purchased a fleet of Lear 31A's to keep it's pilots current because of the same problem.

As for CEO compensation, B19 keeps missing or skipping over the important points. If a company is doing so poorly that it needs major concessions from its workers, how does it justify that kind of money and bonuses for the CEO's?
It has nothing to do with how many employees the company has, or how much revenue the company generates. If you need major concessions from your workers, then you should be willing to at least give up the entire bonus money negotiated, even if the CEO keeps the base salary.

Come on B19, one more time: Why should management have their contracts honored when the company is going down the tubes, but the workers should have to give up their contracts? You've even made a similar comparison yourself previously: how many workers at $35K/year would be able to keep working another year if JUST ONE CEO gave up the $30 million dollar bonus? And I'm sure for every company that has a CEO taking a $30 million bonus, there are lower level management types at that company walking away with 'only' a couple million in bonuses. So if they all gave up only the bonuses, what would that do for keeping folks employed?

But if you really want to compare a CEO's responsibilities with the average airline workers', I ask you then, how many people does the average airline pilot fly every year? Tens of thousands? Isn't the airline pilot responsible for the safety of each and every one of those lives? What about the dispatchers who work the numbers for all those flights? So a CEO is responsible for many employees. The employees are responsible for at least as many clients' lives.

What about FLOPS pilots? How many people do they fly each year? Not as many as the airlines true, but under much more dynamic and challenging conditions. They deserve market wages and benefits.

It's almost amusing because every argument you make against what the FLOPS pilots are doing is actually an argument FOR them doing it.

The conversation started in the fracs and is the most fun?!! Do you actually believe what you write? There are constant grumbles about unions at Flex and CS, also frac operators, yet you only post on FLOPS threads. No no, of course you're not a hired goon. It's funny because the union is ALREADY at FLOPS. Too late for them, right? You'd think your energies would be better spent trying to prevent unions at the other fracs. But for some reason it's FLOPS pilots you pick on.

By the way, you asked what a CEO is worth? I'd say if the company is doing well, maybe a lot. If the company is tanking, maybe salary only, no bonus. And don't start with your 'unions prevent companies from doing well' crap. If a union pulls a company under, it's only because that company had already reached the brink of disaster, financially speaking.

 

[1po'dpilot]

Because the fracs are where the conversation started and is the most fun.

Seeing that you worked for a 121 carrier (Eastern - you scab) previously and they destroyed your pathetic career, one would think that you would have an interest in trying to prevent other 121 carriers from unionizing?? Yet here you are posting your trash on a fractional board? Youre a fraud and youve been exposed.....

 

[dime line]

As for CEO compensation, B19 keeps missing or skipping over the important points. If a company is doing so poorly that it needs major concessions from its workers, how does it justify that kind of money and bonuses for the CEO's?
It has nothing to do with how many employees the company has, or how much revenue the company generates. If you need major concessions from your workers, then you should be willing to at least give up the entire bonus money negotiated, even if the CEO keeps the base salary.

And there is my point. Well said

 

[dime line]

What do you consider a fair income for a CEO that works nearly around the clock who is responsible for 70,000 employees and a multi-billion dollar budget?

Now, remember (before you answer) that 777 captains working for the same airlines were making nearly 300,000 a year and needed the simulator to stay current.

So, who was in reality making more money, the 777 captain with the union contract that never had to fly revenue or the guy responsible for the whole enchilada working 7 days a week?

Tell me, what is a CEO worth?

Ok tell me what a CEO is worth, when a union gets voted on the property? What does that say about that CEO? Is he doing his job?

 

[dime line]

April 18, 2005
To Provide the Best Customer Service, Put Customers Second, Says Southwest President Colleen Barrett
by Sandie Taylor
Over the past few years, rising oil prices and increased competition from upstart airlines like JetBlue have taken their toll on most major airlines. Bucking that trend is Southwest Airlines, which is not only profitable but expanding.
Southwest’s success has attracted plenty of attention from industry analysts, with much credit going to CEO Gary Kelly. As CFO of Southwest several years ago, Kelly introduced a fuel-hedging strategy that has buffered the airline from rising oil prices.
But according to Colleen Barrett, Southwest’s president and COO, the airline’s competitive strength is about more than just charging the right fare. To gain loyal customers who will travel Southwest again and again, those basic services must be done Texas-style--with warmth and spirit.
“We like relationships and that feeling of ownership both externally and internally,” said Barrett, who spoke April 13 as part of the MBA Executive Speaker Series. "We try to be the absolute best in terms of customer service delivery.”
And at Southwest, to ensure the best customer service, you have to put the customers second. With the "Southwest Model for Leadership," she said, employees are the company’s No. 1 customer.
Barrett, who set up Southwest’s public relations department, spends about 90 percent of her day dealing with employee issues. Her theory, following Southwest’s iconoclastic founder, Herb Kelleher, is that if she can effectively make employees feel good about what they’re doing on a daily basis, satisfied employees will deliver the same sense of friendliness and care to Southwest passengers.
As the airline continues to offer low fares for short-distance flights, Barrett said, the company will maintain programs that let employees raise children between divorced parents, allowing grandparents to see their grandchildren more often and enabling college students to go home to do their laundry over the weekend.
“We are literally helping people fulfill their dreams each year,” she said. “It’s very personal—it’s not just a business anymore.”
This kind of people-oriented environment makes for a fast day with constant change and challenge, Barrett added.
And trying to integrate the Texas spirit into other parts of the country can be a challenge.
When Southwest arrived in Boston, for example, the company was received with no problems because, Barrett said, “people in that part of the country felt they had been overcharged and underserved by other airlines for too long.”
However, when the company started offering flights in the California region, she remembered having flight attendants in her office upset because the state’s passengers would make fun of their thick accents and big hair.
Barrett wondered if much of the problem had to do with the airline not carrying Californians’ drink of choice.
“In California, they drink wine--they don’t just drink whiskey,” she joked.
Barrett believes that the company’s open door policy with employees makes it easier for Southwest to solve problems—and for her to succeed in her “firefighter” role. Within the company, there are no form replies of any kind. And when an idea is rejected, an explanation is always provided.
As a result, Barrett continued, Southwest doesn't need to conduct surveys or use consultants very often to determine what they are doing wrong or well. The employees will tell them to their face year-round.
“We don’t run things by a rule book,” she concluded. “To me, it’s a way of life—you just use common sense.”
After the employee, Barrett says the company’s second focus is the passenger, with shareholders coming in a distant third. Usually, shareholders rankle at that kind of hierarchy.
However, if the employees are happy, Barrett maintains, this will affect the customer’s decision to fly Southwest again, and the same joy experienced by the employee will then trickle down to the shareholders in terms of dollars and cents.
Notable Soundbites
On flight attendants:
"We don't think you have to wear high heels and nylons to be safe. We'd rather our flight attendants be comfortable, so if we need one to kick the door open in an emergency landing, she's going to be able to do it."

On investor relations:
"We have people who court on our airline. Our open seating isn't all bad. We get thousands of letters inviting us to weddings because they met on one of our flights or were able to visit each other more often because of our low fares."
On work-life balance:
“I don’t understand why an employee should have one personality at work and another outside of work. We do offer you the ability and encourage you to come into the business world as who you are. We hire you for your individuality, and we aren’t going to try to spend six months molding you into corporate culture.”

On Southwest's hiring policy:
"We tend to hire for attitude and train for skills—but don't get nervous, we don't hire pilots who can't fly a plane."
On "the customer is always right":
"We make no bones about telling a customer when they are wrong. We will not tolerate bad treatment of our people."


HEY FLOPS MANAGEMENT (B19 TOO) PLEASE READ THIS.

WHAT IS THE NEW COMPANY MOTTO "WE GIVE YOU MORE".

WHO ARE YOU KIDDING

 

[1po'dpilot]

Ok tell me what a CEO is worth, when a union gets voted on the property? What does that say about that CEO? Is he doing his job?

Don't ask him such tough questions... It could take days for Bob and F & H to custom a reply.

 

[dime line]

http://www.portfolio.com/interactive-features/2007/06/salary_comparison


You’d think that all of the service problems and financial weakness would make airline C.E.O.’s a humble and fiscally circumspect lot. But they’re raking in colossal payouts. Shareholders, employees, and passengers are all expected to offer up tribute money to these self-styled sky gods.

Are you shocked by the Portfolio.com multimedia feature that shows U.S. chief executives making 465 times more than the average worker in 2005? That’s child’s play in the airline business.

United Airlines chairman, president, and C.E.O. Glenn Tilton earns 1,000 times what a United flight attendant at the top of the scale takes home. Tilton’s total compensation package for 2006 was estimated at $39 million. After United flight attendants made several rounds of concessions during the company’s bankruptcy, they now earn an average salary of about $31,000. New hires make about half that, which means Tilton earns 2,000 times what newbies do.

Tilton made his millions through the bankruptcy process, in a way the New York Times’ Gretchen Morgenson called “insanity squared.” When he arrived at United, the nation’s second-largest carrier, late in the summer of 2002, the former oil executive suggested that bankruptcy wasn’t inevitable. But the company had filed for Chapter 11 protection before Christmas. During the course of the longest (38 months) and most expensive (at least $325 million in fees) bankruptcy filing in airline history, Tilton wiped out shareholder equity, slashed employees’ pay and dumped their pensions, shrunk the airline’s route network and market share, and left a string of unpaid bills at airports around the world.


When United finally staggered out of bankruptcy, in February 2006, Tilton was the company’s largest individual shareholder and the fourth-largest overall, trailing only two investment firms and the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation. Tilton’s stock award—sanctioned by a compliant bankruptcy court judge and an equally tame creditors committee—so infuriated business wit Ben Stein that he compared Tilton to Orson Welles’ amoral, drug-dealing villain Harry Lime in The Third Man.

Doug Steenland, the president and chief executive officer of Northwest Airlines, hasn’t done quite as well as Tilton. In May, when Northwest came out of bankruptcy, Steenland received a package of restricted shares and options worth only $26.6 million. After several rounds of concessions made during bankruptcy, a Northwest flight attendant with 15 years on the job now earns about $36,000 annually. Steenland’s package is 739 times larger.

But Steenland is at least as clueless as Tilton about appearances. In June, Northwest’s first full month out of bankruptcy, management miscalculations about staffing and mechanical issues forced the airline to cancel thousands of flights. During the height of the crisis, in the last week of the month, Northwest was scrubbing as much as 15 percent of its schedule each day, and Steenland made no public appearances and issued no apologies to travelers. But according to a June 30 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, he did take possession of 159,000 more stock options.

Need more examples? Over at the nation’s largest carrier, American Airlines, chairman, president, and C.E.O. Gerard Arpey got his job when the previous boss was forced to resign after a secret executive-bonus plan was made public.

Arpey has shunned the secrecy but not the executive perks, which have skyrocketed even as service has declined. For many months this year, the once rock-solid airline was at or near the bottom of the Transportation Department’s ratings list for on-time performance, baggage-handling efficiency, and schedule reliability. Plagued by storms at its Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport hub, American had a dreadful June: Just 57.9 percent of its flights nationwide were on time, and its baggage-handling efficiency was far below the industry average.

Yet, in part for improving the airline’s share price, Arpey was given a stock bonus in April of $6.6 million. (Four other top executives snagged bonuses worth a combined $12 million, and all five dumped their shares within days of getting the grants.) Just two weeks ago, Arpey received another basket of gifts: 95,000 performance-based shares, 78,000 deferred shares, and 75,000 stock-appreciation rights.

Arpey faces difficult negotiations this year with several of the airline’s unions, all of whose members have made billions of dollars’ worth of salary, benefit, and work-rule concessions to keep American out of bankruptcy. When union representatives pressed Arpey about the executives’ pay, at American’s annual meeting in May, Arpey said management and labor might have to “agree to disagree” about the suite life.

“This is an issue on which we may have a hard time finding common ground,” he said.
HEY B19, READ THE BLUE PRINT ABOVE
The Fine Print
When Delta Air Lines emerged from bankruptcy earlier this year, C.E.O. Gerald Grinstein made news by declining to jump on the bonus bandwagon. But Delta’s story is more complicated. Grinstein, the former C.E.O. of Burlington Northern Railroad, made a fortune 20 years ago when he orchestrated the merger of his Western Airlines with Delta. And the septuagenarian Grinstein only returned to Delta management to repair the damage done by two previous chief executives. In 2004, he replaced Leo Mullin, whose greed in the months after 9/11 was exceeded only by his callousness. (On the first weekend after the attacks, with bodies still buried in the rubble of ground zero, he demanded a federally funded bailout, arguing that the “airline industry cannot be the first casualty of this war.”) Mullin had replaced Ron Allen, who resigned in 1997 but who continued to draw millions in Delta payouts until mid-2005.

 

[dime line]

..........

 

[fischman]

And I want to make this clear to you because you refuse to read the posts and continue to use a union twist:

The fractional industry did not begin with it's current cost structure until February of 2005.

Thus, anything before then didn't exist.

Thus, any profits that were made did not take into account the additional cost of being regulated;

Thus, unions are basing the generation of profits on a cost structure that is only two years old;

Thus, it became a "new" industry in February of 2005;

Thus the industry is NEW and UNPROVEN in the current regulatory environment.

Because you type it does not make it so. :nuts:

91K did not make SUCH a drastic change that it redefined the industry. Did it create changes? Sure. Is it worthy of a "new" industry? No!!!

This is a simple yes or no question. Did NetJets exist before 2005? PLEASE. PLEASE. PLEASE. Keep it simple. Yes or no.