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Well-known member
- Joined
- Dec 21, 2001
- Posts
- 6,137
I was at Wednesday afternoon's meeting in the Awesome Service room. Jehtplane may have been at another meeting. However, our meeting went something like this:
Rampers asked about travel benefits. Mr. Atkin said he does not know, but he doubts they will be as good as Delta employees' benefits. For the next 90 days he believes that they will remain the same as they are now, but he is no expert on non-rev travel. Rampers then asked the same question one, or two, more times. The question was repeated later in the same meeting. I got the impression that the reason why anyone works the gate or ramp, as opposed to the opportunities at Wendy's is that free travel is a better perk than free french fries. Also, week old fries don't sell as well on EBay.
Pilots asked questions about transferring assets, aircraft orders and the future of the Salt Lake City base. Mr. Atkin's answers closely followed what he said earlier in his conference call with investors the day after the acquisition. No changes in the immediate future but a merger, or a non network LCC might be in the distant future depending on what else happens in the industry (which I took to mean if UAL or DAL goes away). This statement was no different than what Mr. Atkin had said before. It seems his current "vision" is to improve our service to Delta, as they assign us flying and to try our best to compete for all of Delta's business we can get.
The point was made several times that SkyWest was not going to play a whipsaw game with employee groups. Airplane allotment decisions would most hinge on where they made the most operational sense based on the customer's needs.
Other pilots did raise questions regarding the pace of negotiations and candidly I thought there was consensus with Jerry Atkin - that there was no reason why non economic issues should have been drug out for three years. Jerry Atkin had no idea of the "Employee Engagement Survey" results. One pilot knew that only 8% of the Flight Ops (Pilots, IP's, Managers) respondents said that they trusted management. Jerry Atkin seemed surprised that there was a 92% negative response to the survey.
The other embarrassing question dealt with the ongoing issue with ASAP reporting. ASA management wants to tie this in with other contractual negotiations when it is a mutually beneficial safety program. I got the feeling that Jerry Atkin is a straight shooter and he does not support trying to make pilots negotiate for something that benefits everyone equally. Jerry made a couple of jokes about how pilots never ask simple, short, questions - but I did not get the feeling that Jerry Atkin is too disturbed by the contract negotiation.
Jerry Atkin further said that he wanted management to be close to the employees and the customer (Delta) and he thought that could be better accomplished by the team in Atlanta than from SLC.
Overall I thought the tone was positive. Jerry Atkin is focused on performance and wants to see pay tied to performance. He would like performance bonuses which could add $250 or so a quarter to everyones' pay and other stock option type incentives for the line employees. This was a breath of fresh air to me because it might get employees working together instead of playing the blame game. For too long flight crews are blamed for every ill this company has. If money was tied to performance perhaps there would be some peer pressure to do a good job throughout the operation.
I hope our local representatives consider Jerry Atkin's ideas and not immediately dismiss performance incentives. Our airline now is compensated for our flying, but the real profit comes from hitting our performance targets and exceeding them. There is nothing wrong with seeking mutually beneficial solutions to our negotiating quagmire.
Mr. Atkin will certainly be a tough negotiator when it comes to economic issues. Just look at the deal he did with Delta, getting gate space in Atlanta and holding back nearly half the money to ensure Delta behaves in bankruptcy. I think Mr. Atkin is very intelligent and tends to look at numbers rather than getting caught up in the anti pilot hatred that oozes from every cubicle in the G.O. Mr. Atkin knows ALPA represents the ASA pilots, he knows he has to deal with it. It might not be what he wants, but he is a pragmatic negotiator and will do what makes sense for the bottom line. After all, by most accounts, SkyWest is well run.
Oh and the rampers then asked about travel benefits again.
Just my recall, others might have been at other meetings.
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Rampers asked about travel benefits. Mr. Atkin said he does not know, but he doubts they will be as good as Delta employees' benefits. For the next 90 days he believes that they will remain the same as they are now, but he is no expert on non-rev travel. Rampers then asked the same question one, or two, more times. The question was repeated later in the same meeting. I got the impression that the reason why anyone works the gate or ramp, as opposed to the opportunities at Wendy's is that free travel is a better perk than free french fries. Also, week old fries don't sell as well on EBay.
Pilots asked questions about transferring assets, aircraft orders and the future of the Salt Lake City base. Mr. Atkin's answers closely followed what he said earlier in his conference call with investors the day after the acquisition. No changes in the immediate future but a merger, or a non network LCC might be in the distant future depending on what else happens in the industry (which I took to mean if UAL or DAL goes away). This statement was no different than what Mr. Atkin had said before. It seems his current "vision" is to improve our service to Delta, as they assign us flying and to try our best to compete for all of Delta's business we can get.
The point was made several times that SkyWest was not going to play a whipsaw game with employee groups. Airplane allotment decisions would most hinge on where they made the most operational sense based on the customer's needs.
Other pilots did raise questions regarding the pace of negotiations and candidly I thought there was consensus with Jerry Atkin - that there was no reason why non economic issues should have been drug out for three years. Jerry Atkin had no idea of the "Employee Engagement Survey" results. One pilot knew that only 8% of the Flight Ops (Pilots, IP's, Managers) respondents said that they trusted management. Jerry Atkin seemed surprised that there was a 92% negative response to the survey.
The other embarrassing question dealt with the ongoing issue with ASAP reporting. ASA management wants to tie this in with other contractual negotiations when it is a mutually beneficial safety program. I got the feeling that Jerry Atkin is a straight shooter and he does not support trying to make pilots negotiate for something that benefits everyone equally. Jerry made a couple of jokes about how pilots never ask simple, short, questions - but I did not get the feeling that Jerry Atkin is too disturbed by the contract negotiation.
Jerry Atkin further said that he wanted management to be close to the employees and the customer (Delta) and he thought that could be better accomplished by the team in Atlanta than from SLC.
Overall I thought the tone was positive. Jerry Atkin is focused on performance and wants to see pay tied to performance. He would like performance bonuses which could add $250 or so a quarter to everyones' pay and other stock option type incentives for the line employees. This was a breath of fresh air to me because it might get employees working together instead of playing the blame game. For too long flight crews are blamed for every ill this company has. If money was tied to performance perhaps there would be some peer pressure to do a good job throughout the operation.
I hope our local representatives consider Jerry Atkin's ideas and not immediately dismiss performance incentives. Our airline now is compensated for our flying, but the real profit comes from hitting our performance targets and exceeding them. There is nothing wrong with seeking mutually beneficial solutions to our negotiating quagmire.
Mr. Atkin will certainly be a tough negotiator when it comes to economic issues. Just look at the deal he did with Delta, getting gate space in Atlanta and holding back nearly half the money to ensure Delta behaves in bankruptcy. I think Mr. Atkin is very intelligent and tends to look at numbers rather than getting caught up in the anti pilot hatred that oozes from every cubicle in the G.O. Mr. Atkin knows ALPA represents the ASA pilots, he knows he has to deal with it. It might not be what he wants, but he is a pragmatic negotiator and will do what makes sense for the bottom line. After all, by most accounts, SkyWest is well run.
Oh and the rampers then asked about travel benefits again.
Just my recall, others might have been at other meetings.
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