Furloughs at FLOP's????

[993_Pilot]

According to www.fracpilots.com, FLOPS has 120 aircraft. I imagine some of those will be going away as well?

My understanding is that they will be parked, not sold.

 

[Photoflight]

sorry to hear about this guys.

Spend some quality time with the family if you can and make the best of it.

Good luck

--Photo

 

[Freedom]

This is No Surprise; and on the Back of Management...

When you treat your Front Line Employees like dirt, the very people having the face to face interaction with your customers on a regular basis, failure is an assured event.

Until Flight Options Management learns to put their Ego aside, and make the Pilots Partners in the Business, like has been done at NetJets, Flight Options will continue to spiral into demise.

As a former Flight Options Pilot, I do not enjoy watching these events unfold. I still have any friends on the property. However, until the likes of Tyler and Ford and Harrison understand that the Pilots of Flight Options have a sense of Pride that will not be destroyed by Management's Terrorists tactics, there will be no peace, and the business will continue to suffer.

What a waste of resources. If just a few Control Freak Managers could simply put their Egos aside, Flight Options might have a chance to make it.

Perhaps Ricci should have dinner and drinks with Santulli; why repeat the mistakes of the past?

Freedom is Not Free

 

[Semore Butts]

Good Luck, Maybe join the Foreign Legion?

My title is sincere, not meant to be a smart ass.

But if any of the Opitions pilots, (Or any furloughed pilots for that matter).

If you are Army Fixed Wing Rated. The Gaurd and USAR are looking for pilots.

Of course let me say right up front it will be "hello Iraq" for a year.

USAR has a unit in Los Alamitos CA. Ft. Knox KY, Ft. Hood Texas, Ft. McCoy Wi, Johnstown PA, Dobbins GA, Ft Bragg N.C..

If your one of theose people that said FTA at some point and got out, it might be something worth looking into.

If your some sh!t bag that got thrown out, need not apply.

Good luck to you all, I know what it's like to lose a job before the holidays.

It was a tough time, and in the end I went to a job that didn't pay worth a crap, but at least I had a job.

I wondered how I had arrived there and if I would ever get a break.

I had my pride, thats all!

I decided I would be the best Netjets F.O. I could, that was summer of 2002.

Good luck to you all.

 

[XTW]

This news is very disturbing to me. I was just talking to a FO pilot this week in TEB. He seemed upbeat about the changes that have happened recently. I sorry to see so many people completely blind-sided by this turn of events.

Good luck to all that are involved and lets hope the New Year brings about a turn of economic times for us all!

X

 

[greygoose]

Doing the math 104 Sic's equates to the same amount of pay of 75 RIF pilots salary. Sort of looks like they are making up for the return of the RIF, and doing it the proper way through seniority.

 

[Freedom]

Here's another thought for you....

Last I heard, Contract talks were getting down to the Dollars and Benefits phase.

If you were HIG (Owners), who bought Options at fire sale prices, and wished to turn the company around to make a large profit on your investment, you'd be thinking about Costs and your competitive position.

You know the Phenom 300 will blow away the rest of the marketplace, but deliveries don't start til late 2009. The economy is in the dumper right now, so what do you do? Work on getting your future Labor Costs on those next gen light jets as low as possible for the first 5 years of operating them. How would you do that?

Hmmmm. Guess we could Lay Off a bunch of the existing Pilots (lowest 22%), so as to put the fear of God into the new bottom 22% for their jobs. Now, when a well below industry standard pay proposal comes out during the vote on a 1st TA for a Contract, that new bottom 22% will be falling all over themselves to vote in favor of it, just for some job protections. The fear will be if they don't vote for it, there might be another round of layoffs.

These hardball tactics are so damn predictable when a company hires Ford and Harrison to represent them.

Really, should anyone be surprised Flight Options Management pulled this type of a move?

Freedom is Not Free

 

[ArtVandalay]

Sorry Freedom but I wouldn't classify this as a "move", as you say. Folks, this is just the beginning in our industry. Expect this to be the bowling ball effect in our industry. This is the beginning of what could be potential stagnation in our market for a long while. The "F" word has been talked about for weeks now at flex with no one even giving any evidence that there will ever be layoffs. This is exactly the condition of the market right now; fear. Our customers are not stupid and, the reduction in flying at all fractionals right now is confirmation that that fear in the marketplace has now translated to our market. We can only hope that next year will be the turnaround--which is being predicted around the end of summer.

So, Freedom, if you want to think that your management has the foresight and time to waste on thinking about your future payscales right now, I am anxious to see if that is the case. The fact that you believe that the Phenom is still coming to Options is a stretch and I'm not sure what "marketplace" there is for such an aircraft in the next 5 years anyway. Good luck.

 

[Diesel]

My title is sincere, not meant to be a smart ass.

But if any of the Opitions pilots, (Or any furloughed pilots for that matter).

If you are Army Fixed Wing Rated. The Gaurd and USAR are looking for pilots.

Of course let me say right up front it will be "hello Iraq" for a year.

USAR has a unit in Los Alamitos CA. Ft. Knox KY, Ft. Hood Texas, Ft. McCoy Wi, Johnstown PA, Dobbins GA, Ft Bragg N.C..

If your one of theose people that said FTA at some point and got out, it might be something worth looking into.

If your some sh!t bag that got thrown out, need not apply.

Good luck to you all, I know what it's like to lose a job before the holidays.

It was a tough time, and in the end I went to a job that didn't pay worth a crap, but at least I had a job.

I wondered how I had arrived there and if I would ever get a break.

I had my pride, thats all!

I decided I would be the best Netjets F.O. I could, that was summer of 2002.

Good luck to you all.

What's up with the sorry it sucks but go join the military? What type of retard advice is that. Hmmm guys just lost their jobs and their lives are thrown into whack and you say, "hey join the military you'll be gone during the most stressful time of your life"

WTF.

I am now dumber from reading that post.

 

[johnsonrod]

Sorry Freedom but I wouldn't classify this as a "move", as you say. Folks, this is just the beginning in our industry. Expect this to be the bowling ball effect in our industry. This is the beginning of what could be potential stagnation in our market for a long while. The "F" word has been talked about for weeks now at flex with no one even giving any evidence that there will ever be layoffs. This is exactly the condition of the market right now; fear. Our customers are not stupid and, the reduction in flying at all fractionals right now is confirmation that that fear in the marketplace has now translated to our market. We can only hope that next year will be the turnaround--which is being predicted around the end of summer.

So, Freedom, if you want to think that your management has the foresight and time to waste on thinking about your future payscales right now, I am anxious to see if that is the case. The fact that you believe that the Phenom is still coming to Options is a stretch and I'm not sure what "marketplace" there is for such an aircraft in the next 5 years anyway. Good luck.

I would think that an aircraft like the Phenom 300 would do "relatively" well in a depressed economy in which larger cabin-class aircraft would be viewed as too expensive or excessive - right? There are more people who can afford cheaper transportation than super-expensive transportation (the market size is bigger). At least the Phenom 300 might be more cost effective for short-to-medium haul flights vs. larger aircraft if the payloads are similar. FLOPS's current Beechjet fleet is old, inefficient (relative to competing airplanes) and probably does not garner as much respect as competing products - I wouldn't be surprised if interest in that fleet started to fall.

I think Avantair's P180 would probably do great as many semi-wealthy people or corporate operators downsize their current owned aircraft and look for something cheaper (while still retaining the benefits and efficiency of private aircraft). The wealthiest people will always want to fly bigger airplanes regardless of the economy.

 

[AftCG182]

92 Beechjet SIC's + 12 Hawker SIC's for those who care about the breakdown.

538 Pilots
-102 (or 22%) furloughed in inverse seniority
---------
436 Remaining

The only good news is that they will get 6 weeks of pay, PTO payout, medical through January, and they retain "recall" rights for 7 years.

btw, I doubt there was 20 to 30 Management axed, but there probably were 20 to 30 Staff axed. I don't don't know if they have recall rights

I'm really sorry to be reading this, guys. It's actually made me feel good to bump into FLOPs folks at the FBO's lately... seems like there has been a definite improvement in your spirits with the recent changes. This announcement could not have come at a worse time of the year... I wish the best for you and your families.

 

[CALRepublic]

The most important thing the company and union can do now is pass the contract. If they don't, morale and productivity will sink back to 2006-2007 levels. Nobody wants that.

That would be good for the furloughed guys as well, kind of telling them "hang in there, they'll be a good job waiting for you when you get recalled".

 

[glasspilot]

I think Avantair's P180 would probably do great as many semi-wealthy people or corporate operators downsize their current owned aircraft and look for something cheaper (while still retaining the benefits and efficiency of private aircraft). The wealthiest people will always want to fly bigger airplanes regardless of the economy.

From what I hear, that is exactly what is happening. 80% of our new owners are coming from the competition.

I knew a guy who owned a pizza shop in Chicago. I'd ask him if he ever wanted to get into fine dining. He said, "no". Having a pizza shop was perfect. When times were good, people who would otherwise never go out to eat now had the money to go out and they'd eat pizza. When times were tough people who used to go out for steak would scale back and now eat pizza. So no matter where the economy was he had a client base.

That's the way I see Avantair. Good times equals us getting new owners off the street. Bad times equals us getting new owners off the competition.

Sorry to hijack the thread.

 

[jetwash]

Sorry Freedom but I wouldn't classify this as a "move", as you say. Folks, this is just the beginning in our industry. Expect this to be the bowling ball effect in our industry. This is the beginning of what could be potential stagnation in our market for a long while. The "F" word has been talked about for weeks now at flex with no one even giving any evidence that there will ever be layoffs. This is exactly the condition of the market right now; fear. Our customers are not stupid and, the reduction in flying at all fractionals right now is confirmation that that fear in the marketplace has now translated to our market. We can only hope that next year will be the turnaround--which is being predicted around the end of summer.

.

Flops might have been the first but, I am sure we won't be the last to furlough. I bet the customers of the other frax took a financial hit just like the Flops customers did and will reduce their amount of flying.

 

[waka]

B19 will blame furlough on the union in 5,4,3,2.........

 

[bchjetdrvr]

I can't even begin to imagine how furloughed FLOPS pilots must feel, you worked under a crappy contract for so long, now this.

Huh? What contract? There's no contract at Flops currently and never has been.

 

[Semore Butts]

Gotta love the message board Deisel

Diesel said;

What's up with the sorry it sucks but go join the military?

Diesel,

I was just pointing out an option for some people that may be looking for away to make a living while they are furloughed?

What type of retard advice is that.

Well I don't know? Why don't we see what you have to offer?

Hmmm guys just lost their jobs and their lives are thrown into whack and you say, "hey join the military you'll be gone during the most stressful time of your life"

Again, I don't know, what do you have to offer?

Wouldn't that take some stress outof there life having a years worth of employment?

WTF.

I am now dumber from reading that post.


Sorry man, I was sincerely trying to let some former military pilots know there may be an opportunity available for them.

I have posted the same information during the good times as well.

Maybe my writing skills aren't that good. It's often hard to communicate in type.

 

[MasterOfYaw]

What's up with the sorry it sucks but go join the military? What type of retard advice is that. Hmmm guys just lost their jobs and their lives are thrown into whack and you say, "hey join the military you'll be gone during the most stressful time of your life"

WTF.

I am now dumber from reading that post.

Diesel,
Joining the reserves during a furlough has a long tradition among former military guys. This recession may be a long one. If the past is any guide, furloughs may be long and some companies won’t come out the other side. Some guys may be independently wealthy or have few obligations and be able to flip burgers for a year or two, and then possibly start over for pennies. For those able and used to accepting the risks and the sacrifices, serving their country again in the military is a viable option. During the early and mid 90’s “pilot depression,” guys were jumping at any available reserve or guard position, particularly those which involved activation and a full time paycheck. I don’t consider any of them “retards.” Semore pointing out these opportunities is no different than someone pointing out that XYZ corp or ANACathEvaJAL are hiring. Every job has its benefits and sacrifices. Military flying generally has more of both.

 

[gunfyter]

For those who can, I think military is a better deal than most flying jobs.... I would take the military over most jobs.

Now if you can get into the top 10% seniority of a company like NJA and make Captain when you are still in your 20's....

 

[Sparse]

I posted this back in Spetember. I wonder if the fallout is begining.


Everything the Airline's do lately is good news to Fractionals. But bad for the pilots.:nuts:

In light of evrything going on on Wall Street, I think we need to ask ourselves who we are hauling around on our aircraft. Many of the 40-50 ish age clients in and out of HPN and TEB are involved on WS. Just google them. With bonuses going down or away, how many are going to be able to continue with the luxurys. I really don't know, but my gut feeling is not good. I hope this is just paranoria.