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NWA Pilots Worried

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I thought the new bankruptcy laws only affect individuals, not corporations.
 
The new Bankruptcy Law affect both companies and individuals. It has a time period to how long a company can stay in bankruptcy and also give creditors a little bit more leverage.
 
Pilottodd2 said:
You have to understand. NWA filing bankruptcy in no way insinuates that NWA is 'weak' or 'out of money'. It is simply another tool management uses to complete their agenda. In this case, to bust the unions before they start showing profits. (And believe me, the profits are just around the corner.)

I know you are tryin to be funny but...seriously......
 
NWA has the same problem as DAL........payments that must be made to underfunded pension plans. Second up is fuel costs, third is Labor costs.

If pension legislation isn't passed this summer, NWA and DAL will be in CH 11 before you can say "Trick or Treat". Period.

The negotiations with the other unions could accelerate the senario for NWA; (DAL got $1.1B from the pilots, then pi$$ed it away....who knows what they're thinking....)

320AV8R
 
Pilottodd2 said:
You have to understand. NWA filing bankruptcy in no way insinuates that NWA is 'weak' or 'out of money'. It is simply another tool management uses to complete their agenda. In this case, to bust the unions before they start showing profits. (And believe me, the profits are just around the corner.)

Yah, that must be it.....let's pay hundreds of millions in legal fees so we can bust down the union. Have you been paying attention to what UAL has paid in legal fees since December of 2002? I guess AA had it all wrong staying out of Chapter 11.
 
:cool: Well when they go into chptr 11, they get a better deal on their plane leases and probably even their headquarters as well. Maybe I'm way off here, but I would bet that UA has saved a TON of cash on just the lease payments alone. I agree that it is just a tool by mgmnt to get the employees pay down, but it is just getting CRAZY out here! Good Luck ALL!
 
Jetjockey said:
Yah, that must be it.....let's pay hundreds of millions in legal fees so we can bust down the union. Have you been paying attention to what UAL has paid in legal fees since December of 2002?

Apparently you haven't.

UAL has paid a sum total of less than 300 Million Dollars in legal fees in the 2 and 1/2 plus years they have been in bankruptcy. They have reduced the cost of their union contracts by over 2 Billion a year for at least 5 years. That is a very conservative 10 Billion Plus Dollars of union negotiated money removed. That does not include the money saved by bribing the government to destroy the pension plan.

Would you spend 300 million to save 10 Billion?

murk

Try a book called "Confessions of a Union Buster" by Levitt or "Grounded" by Bernstein if you want to get the real story on what some companies will spend to bust the union.
 
I don't mean this as flame-bait, but in all honesty, why wouldn't NWA take their shot at Chpt 11? If they can't get what they need with pension reform in the Congress or labor concessions thru Section 6 negotiations with their unions, what do they have to lose with bankruptcy? Management at UAL and US Air (in my admittedly uneducated opinion) have gotten pretty much everything they've wanted from the bankrupty judges. Cut your labor costs by 40%? Sure thing. Do away with your pensions? No problem. Change work rules as much as you want to benefit management? Done.

The more I read about this industry, the less of a negative I see for these companies to take the Chpt 11 route. Granted you will incur huge costs in the short run with legal fees and the loss of passengers who don't want to book a ticket with a bankrupt carrier. But if you basically have your house in order, which it seems that NWA does, but all you need is to do is dump your pensions, slash labor costs and change work rules to benefit you, why wouldn't you take the Chpt 11 route? You lose control of your company to the creditors and judges, but those guys have just as much interest in keeping the company afloat as management does. Will a judge or board or creditors really say "No, NWA, you can't dump your pensions. That's unfair to your employees, and by the way so is cutting their pay by 40%. We won't let you do that." Not a chance. If you're NWA management, wouldn't you feel like you could emerge from Chpt 11 in 6-12 months a lean, mean fighting machine after all the good deals a judge will give you in the bankruptcy process?

I don't claim to be a bankruptcy lawyer or financial wizard, so maybe I have no idea what the he11 I'm talking about. But as a dude who's been furloughed for over three years who reads the financial news and checks the posts here regularly, I just can't see why a company who's posting multi-million dollar losses each quarter wouldn't do everything they can to find a way into Chapter 11. Especially before the laws change this fall. Honestly, someone who's smarter than me tell me that I have a completely overly simplistic view of things and I'm a jacka$$. I've been called a jacka$$ plenty of times in my life, but I'd never welcome it as much as now.

Best of luck to all of us in this f-upt industry that we've chosen as a profession.

K.C.
 
Makes it sound like profit is a naughty word
 
Jetjockey said:
I wonder if/when NWA files chapter 11, if another carrier will come into MSP, and DTW and overlap thier profitable routes like NWA did to Midwest in MKE, and ATA in IND. I find it ironic that an airline busy trying to kill off weaker airlines has become weak itself. Just a casual observation.


Another carrier has come to MSP. It is Midwest. 5 times a day. Full every leg. Looking at expanding out of that market in the near future.
 

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