How to Earn Respect as an Airline Pilot

[Rez O. Lewshun]

Yip-

Did you cut and paste this? This is the same mantra of yours over and over...

Shameless support for management.

You never really justified outrageous Exec compensation... just Stockholm Syndrome rhetoric on how managements job is so difficult... despite the compensation and benefits that will last them a life time..

Yes, this is a pilot board... what do you say about us on the management board?

 

[PCL_128]

He always cuts and pastes his old posts. He has about half a dozen posts that he keeps copying and pasting over and over again. The sad thing is that he never bothers to fix the spelling and grammar in the posts that he's had saved for years.

 

[Bjammin]

Let's focus guys.

The military has been doing business much longer then the airlines and i'm sure our uniforms are military like because someone thought we should look as professional as guys in military dress uniforms.

Now i'm sure some prviate in the Army coming back from being in the dessert for a year, making much less they just about any pilot, has many reasons to bitch and moan about his job. He probably has many problems with management and work rules, but somehow these guys always have pride in themselves and the way they look.

Let's take a lesson from some guys that should be an inspiration to all of us and look the part to people that have hired us to get them from A to B and are depending on us to do it safely and PROFESSIONALLY.

 

[pilotyip]

Typical FI response

Yip-

Did you cut and paste this? This is the same mantra of yours over and over...

Shameless support for management.

You never really justified outrageous Exec compensation... just Stockholm Syndrome rhetoric on how managements job is so difficult... despite the compensation and benefits that will last them a life time..

Yes, this is a pilot board... what do you say about us on the management board?

I ask you for answers what other way is there to save airline jobs when a company is no longer liquid. What to I get, an attack on the messenger. As posted above where is the pride and professionalism? I work in a bottom feeder I am extremely proud of what we have done to make this a better place to work. This benefits both the employee and the company that is the big picture

BTW where is the mangement board?

 

[Rez O. Lewshun]

I ask you for answers what other way is there to save airline jobs when a company is no longer liquid.

and I asked you to justify exec compensation during and after BK all while employee pay was slashed.

Well?

What to I get, an attack on the messenger. As posted above where is the pride and professionalism? I work in a bottom feeder I am extremely proud of what we have done to make this a better place to work. This benefits both the employee and the company that is the big picture

then should not the employees share the profits?

BTW where is the mangement board?

www.pilotyip.com/lookinthemirror

 

[pilotyip]

Wrong button

[/color]
then should not the employees share the profits? /quote]
oops! wrong button, lets try this again

 

[pilotyip]

Of cousre they should be shared

[/color]



then should not the employees share the profits?

Of course they should, that is a good business practice. No argument there, but not all profits go to the employees, there has to be retention of earnings for liquidity, reward of the investors for taking risk and investing in the company, this allows a company to grow and further benefit the employees. If you have lots of extra profits, share with everyone. When you do not have lots of profits, to give it away to anyone is a bad business practice. Back to the beginning, I cannot justify CEO compensation, I only attempted to put in light of today's CEO compensation market. Then I ask you what would be the other solution in this CEO compensation market. Would a cheap CEO like me save a company in BK? Where would the expertise come from to save a company that was no longer liquid and could no longer attract capital? You failed to answer that question. There is big picture of what is takes to survive in the US and worldwide market place. As bad as it may be, it could be worse. BTW If things work out for you, you may finish your career in the cockpit.

 

[Rez O. Lewshun]

Of course they should, that is a good business practice. No argument there, but not all profits go to the employees, there has to be retention of earnings for liquidity, reward of the investors for taking risk and investing in the company, this allows a company to grow and further benefit the employees.

So does investing in employees. I think at this point we are debating numbers and percentages... how much should go to the employees...

If you have lots of extra profits, share with everyone. When you do not have lots of profits, to give it away to anyone is a bad business practice.

I don't consider employee "anyone".

Back to the beginning, I cannot justify CEO compensation, I only attempted to put in light of today's CEO compensation market.

Neither can SWA execs. Can you explain the SWA effect?

Then I ask you what would be the other solution in this CEO compensation market. Where would the expertise come from to save a company that was no longer liquid and could no longer attract capital, you failed to answer that question.

Agreed. I din't answer that. My analogy is how do you safely fly through a T-Storm? Answer.. you don't.

Same with these CEO's. These clowns take companies where they should never go and practice "manuevers" that are reckless business wise..

There is big picture of what is takes to survive in the US and worldwide market place. As bad as it may be, it could be worse. BTW If things work out for you, you may finish your career in the cockpit.

It can always be worse... and if I am lucky... sure..

 

[Rez O. Lewshun]

YIP: your beloved CEO's

"Bums on seats" was how Captain Eddie Rickenbacker of Eastern Airlines liked to describe the airline business.
​

First Europe, and then the globe, will be linked by flight, and nations so knit together that they will grow to be next-door neighbors. . . . What railways have done for nations, airways will do for the world.

— Claude Grahame-White, 1914.​

A commercial aircraft is a vehicle capable of supporting itself aerodynamically and economically at the same time.​

— William B. Stout, designer of the Ford Tri-Motor.​

I was engaged in what I believe to be the most thrilling industry in the world—aviation. My heart still leaps when I see a tiny two-seater plane soaring gracefully through the sky. Our great airlines awe me. Yet I know they were not produced in a day or a decade.

— William A. "Pat" Patterson, CEO United Airlines.​

Once you get hooked on the airline business, it's worse than dope.​

— Ed Acker, while Chairman of Air Florida​

These days no one can make money on the goddamn airline business. The economics represent sheer hell.

— C. R. Smith, President of American Airlines.​

A recession is when you have to tighten your belt; depression is when you have no belt to tighten. When you've lost your trousers - you're in the airline business.

— Sir Adam Thomson​

You cannot get one nickel for commercial flying.

— Inglis M. Uppercu, founder of the first American airline to last more than a couple of months, Aeromarine West Indies Airways, 1923.​

If the Wright brother were alive today Wilbur would have to fire Orville to reduce costs.

— Herb Kelleher, Southwest Airlines, 'USA Today,' 8 June 1994.​

People who invest in aviation are the biggest suckers in the world.

— David G. Neeleman, after raising a record $128 million to start New Air (the then working name for what became JetBlue Airways), quoted in 'Business Week,' 3 May 1999.​

Since 1978 the record pretty well shows that no start-up airline . . . has really been successful, so the odds of JetBlue having long-term success are remote. I'm not going to say it can't happen because stranger things have happened, but I personally believe P.T. Barnum was, in that respect, correct.

— Gordon Bethune, CEO Continental Airlines, regards the 70% rise in JetBlue's stock price in the days after its IPO. Continental's annual shareholder meeting, 17 April 2002.​

As of 1992, in fact—though the picture would have improved since then—the money that had been made since the dawn of aviation by all of this country's airline companies was zero. Absolutely zero.​

— Warren Buffett, billionaire investor, interview 1999.​

I don't think JetBlue has a better chance of being profitable than 100 other predecessors with new airplanes, new employees, low fares, all touchy-feely ... all of them are losers. Most of these guys are smoking ragweed.

— Gordon Bethune, CEO Continental Airlines, 'Time' magazine, June 2002.​

Every other start-up wants to be another United or Delta or American. We just want to get rich.​

— Robert Priddy, ValuJet CEO, 1996.​

I'm flying high and couldn't be more confident about the future.

— Freddy Laker, Laker Airways, 3 days before the collapse of Laker Airways, 3 February 1982.​

This is a nasty, rotten business.​

— Robert L. Crandall, CEO & President of American Airlines.​

They don't realize that while you're sitting here talking, someone is ********************ing you. Changing a fare, changing a flight, moving something. There's no autopilot, and that's why I've seen a lot of guys come and go.

— Gordon Bethune, CEO Continental Airlines, regards his peers at other airlines, 'Fortune' magazine 18 October 2004.​

The airline business is crazy. I've not been enamored with the industry in general. You can't depend on anybody and anything. It's dog-eat-dog and one thing or another from one minute to the next. What I understand about it, I don't like what I see.

— Robert Brooks, Hooters Air owner, 'The Sun News,' 21 March 2006.​

Most executives don't have the stomach for this stuff.​

— Robert W. Baker, American Airlines.​

Today, the situation is exacerbated with costs exceeding revenues at four times the pre-September 11 rate. Today, we are literally hemorrhaging money. Clearly this bleeding has to be stopped - and soon - or United will perish sometime next year.

— James Goodwin, chairman and CEO of United's parent company UAL. The unions of the (at the time) employee owned company forced his replacement. 17 October, 2001​

I didn't take this job to preside over a bankruptcy. I refuse to accept that United Airlines is collateral damage from Sept. 11.

— Jack Creighton, new chairman and CEO of UAL Corporation, 28 October 2001. UAL entered bankruptcy on 9 December 2002.​

More than any other sphere of activity, aerospace is a test of strength between states, in which each participant deploys his technical and political forces.​

— French Government report, 1977​

It is obvious we are fighting for the Air France Group. . . . But in actual fact, we are also fighting for France.​

— Christian Blanc, Chairman Air France, 1996.​

The game we are playing her is closest to the old game of 'Christians and lions.'​

— Robert L. Crandall, CEO & President of American Airlines.​

The airline business is fast-paced, high risk, and highly leveraged. It puts a premium on things I like to do. I think I communicate well. And I am very good at detail. I love detail.​

— Robert L. Crandall, CEO & President of American Airlines.​

I think it's dumb as hell, for Christ's sake all right, to sit here and pound the ******************** out of each other and neither one of us making a ********************ing dime.
Well —
I mean, goddamn! What the ******************** is the point of it?
Nobody asked American to serve Harlingen. Nobody asked American to serve Kansas City. . . . If you're going to overlay every route of American's on top of every route that Braniff has, I can't just sit here and allow you to bury us without giving you our best effort.
Oh sure, but Eastern and Delta do the same thing in Atlanta and have for years.
Do you have a suggestion for me?
Yes, I have a suggestion for you. Raise your goddamn fares twenty percent. I'll raise mine the next morning. You'll make more money and I will too.
Robert, we can't talk about pricing.
Oh, bull********************, Howard. We can talk about any goddamn thing we want to talk about.​

— Robert L. Crandall and Howard Putnam, from United States v. American Airlines Inc. and Robert L. Crandall, U.S. District Court, CA383-0325D.​

Freddie Laker
May be at peace with his Maker.
But he is persona non grata
With IATA.​

— HRH Duke of Edinburgh​

People Express is clearly the archetypical deregulation success story and the most spectacular of my babies. It is the case that makes me the proudest.​

— Alfred Kahn, Professor of Political Economy, Cornell University, 'Time,' 13 Jan 1986.​

We have to make you think it's an important seat - because you're in it.​

— Donald Burr, founder of People Express.​

I decided there must be room for another airline when I spent two days trying to get through to People Express.​

— Richard Branson, founder of Virgin Atlantic.​

In the '80's my gut feeling was that airlines were crap. I hated spending time on planes. I thought we could create the kind of airline I'd like. So we got a secondhand 747 and gave it a go.

— Richard Branson, founder of Virgin Atlantic. Interview in 'Men's Journal,' May 2006​

 

[Rez O. Lewshun]

If Richard Branson had worn a pair of steel-rimmed glasses, a double-breasted suit and shaved off his beard, I would have taken him seriously. As it was I couldn't . . .​

— Lord King, Chairman British Airways.​

The trouble with predators is that they don't know who's the prey - until he's dead.​

— Sir Freddie Laker​

I really don't know one plane from the other. To me they are just marginal costs with wings.​

— Alfred Kahn, 1977.​

There always has been a mystique and a romance about aviation, but in terms of the principles involved of satisfying your customer there's no difference between selling airlines seats and chocolate bars.​

— Mike 'Mars Bars' Batt, British Airways' Head of Brands (Marketing) and Director of North American Routes.​

Air transport is just a glorified bus operation.

— Michael O'Leary, Ryanair's chief executive, quoted in BusinessWeek Online, 12 September 2002.​

The thing I miss about Air Force One is they don't lose my luggage.

— President George Bush Sr.​

I have to say that flying on Air Force One sort of spoils you for coach on a regular airline.

— President Ronald Reagan​

In my own view, it was not merely uncomfortable, it was intolerable. It might perhaps have been endurable for a two-hour flight but an eight-hour flight is a totally different matter.

— Judge Gareth Edwards QC, regards JMC's 29-inch seat pitch. The judge upheld a compensation award made to Brian Horan after he suffered deep-vein thrombosis (DVT) on his journey Manchester, England, to the Canadian ski resort of Calgary. Chester County Court, 17 April 2002.​

You ********************ing academic eggheads! You don't know ********************. You can't deregulate this industry. You're going to wreck it. You don't know a goddamn thing!​

— Robert L. Crandall, CEO American Airlines, addressing a Senate lawyer prior to airline deregulation, 1977.​

Deregulation will be the greatest thing to happen to the airlines since the jet engine.​

— Richard Ferris, CEO United Airlines, 1976.​

United has little to fear from numerous small competitors. We should be able to compete effectively by advertising our size, dependability, and experience, and by matching or beating their promotional tactics. . . . In a free environment, we would be able to flex our marketing muscles a bit and should not fear the treat of being nibbled to death by little operators.​

— Richard Ferris, CEO United Airlines, 1976.​

Total deregulation would allow anybody to fly any route, a situation that is unlikely ever to occur.​

— New York Times Magazine, May 9, 1976.​

No one expects Braniff to go broke. No major U.S. carrier ever has.​

— The Wall Street Journal, 30 July 1980.​

America, the land of the free, is turning itself into the land of the free ride. [U.S. airlines] are operating in protected markets. They are hoovering up public funds and they still can't make a profit.​

— Rod Eddington, CEO British Airways, regards competing against so many bankrupt U.S. airlines, 23 September 2005.​

If we went into the funeral business, people would stop dying.​

— Martin R. Shugrue, Vice-chairman Pan Am.​

If anybody ever flied to the Moon, the very next day Trippe will ask the Civil Aeronautics Board to authorize regular service.​

— James M. Landis​

Pan Am can go to hell.​

— Alfred E. Kahn, Chairman of the Civil Aeronautics Board.​

This is one hell of a good deal for United Airlines.​

— Richard Ferris, Chairman United Airlines, after buying Pan Am's Far East route network.​

It's a great day for TWA.​

— William Compton, President Trans World Airlines Inc., on the day that U.S. District Judge Sue L. Robinson approved American Airlines' $200 million emergency financing plan, and cleared the way for the sale of America's longest-flying airline, 27 January, 2001.​

If forced to travel on an airplane, try and get in the cabin with the Captain, so you can keep an eye on him and nudge him if he falls asleep or point out any mountains looming up ahead ...​

— Mike Harding, 'The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac.'​

There is not much to say about most airplane journeys. Anything remarkable must be disastrous, so you define a good flight by negatives: you didn't get hijacked, you didn't crash, you didn't throw up, you weren't late, you weren't nauseated by the food. So you're grateful.​

— Paul Theroux, 'The Old Patagonian Express,' 1979.​

I don't mind flying. I always pass out before the plane leaves the ground.​

— Naomi Campbell, supermodel, 2000.​

I feel about airplanes the way I feel about diets. It seems they are wonderful things for other people to go on.

— Jean Kerr, 'The Snake Has All the Lines,' 1958.​

Twenty-five per cent of the passengers of almost any aircraft show white knuckles on take-off.​

— Colin Marshall, CEO British Airways.​

Ladies and gentleman, this is your captain speaking. We have a small problem. All four engines have stopped. We are doing our damnedest to get them going again. I trust you are not in too much distress.​

— Captain Eric Moody, British Airways, passenger PA after flying through volcanic ash in a B-747.​

The British Islands are small islands and our people numerically a little people. Their only claim to world importance depends upon their courage and enterprise, and a people who will not stand up to the necessity of air service planned on a world scale, and taking over thousands of aeroplanes and thousands of men from the onset of peace, has no business to pretend anything more than a second rate position in the world. We cannot be both Imperial and mean.​

— H. G. Wells, minority report of the committee to study "the development and regulation after the war of aviation for civil and commercial purposes from a domestic, an imperial and an international stand-point," 1917.​

It may be questioned whether civil aviation in England is to be regarded as one of those industries which is unable to stand on its own two feet, and is yet so essential to the national welfare that it must be kept alive at all costs.​

— Major-General Sir Frederick Sykes, first Director of British Civil Aviation, 1919.​

It was the first airplane . . . that could make money just by hauling passengers.​

— C. R. Smith, president of American Airlines, regarding the DC-3. The DC-3 specifications were shaped by AA.​

. . . It wasn't until the jet engine came into being and that engine was coupled with special airplane designs — such as the swept wing — that airplanes finally achieved a high enough work capability, efficiency and comfort level to allow air transportation to really take off.​