People Express Blows!

[pilotyip]

AAL did it.

Ummm....Do you even know about the history of People Express? The airline was started by Don Burr, who did work Lorenzo under Texas Air, but disagreed with Lorenzo's work ethics and vision, so Burr went out to start a new airline. People Express helped revive the Newark airport and was a highly successful and "fun" place to work. Its down fall was its rapid expansion and the purchase of the original Frontier Airlines. To much debt over took People Express, and Burr, against his own judgment, sold the airline to Lorenzo. People Express was then blended into Continental Airlines, making it a larger airline. I do agree though that Lorenzo was a terrible airline head and only cared about himself and his addiction to greed.

Its downfall was AAL and Crandall who booked no shows on key flights to reduce load factors to nothings. They did this by taking advantage of not having to buy your ticket until you got to the airplane. Source "Hard Landing" BTW The pilots hired the first year, got a hugh bonus, close to 100K, which the nid 80's was the price of a very nice house. Plus they got to jump over to SWA with their 73 type ratings. source saw fellow reserve P-3 pilot do it.

 

[The Prussian]

Its downfall was AAL and Crandall who booked no shows on key flights to reduce load factors to nothings. They did this by taking advantage of not having to buy your ticket until you got to the airplane. Source "Hard Landing" BTW The pilots hired the first year, got a hugh bonus, close to 100K, which the nid 80's was the price of a very nice house. Plus they got to jump over to SWA with their 73 type ratings. source saw fellow reserve P-3 pilot do it.

Hmmm...I'd check your source again....if you can find him.

I'd also check your pockets....you might a been took....

 

[michael707767]

just wait until the pilots there finally grow a set and vote in ALPA..

Show me a pilot group that votes ALPA out, and I will show you a pilot group who has grown a set.

 

[labbats]

Show me a pilot group that votes ALPA out, and I will show you a pilot group who has grown a set.

What, you don't like mustaches?

 

[HA25]

I am very familiar with the People story. It was a stock market explosion. People's made millions, grew at triple digit percentage expansion its first few years. Problem is none of it was real. It It started in late 1981 and was toast by 1986. Five years of hype. And the only thing that kept is going for five years was the hype of the hype.

The working conditions were hideous. The pilots paid for their own coffee they got from the FA's. The FA's ripped off the company every chance they got, pocketing the cash only purchases. Everything was Alla carte. The passengers paid on the plane for the seat, seat belt extender, the cokes they drank, everything. If Don Burr could have rigged a Boeing lavatory lock to accept quarters the toilets would have been pay to go.

I remember another airline which used the People Express model. It was called SKYBUS! You must be a big fan of Skybus if you liked Peoples.

Peoples, SKYBUS, and todays CAL management are cut from same cloth in every way.

I will say this, the similarity between what Diffendorfer (The CEO who stole Skybus from it's founder John Weikle in a boardroom coup) tried to do with SX and People Express is striking... we all knew it when he came on board and began to "change everything" .. but he underestimated how desperate many of us were to find a stable job, and he also made the mistake of allowing his HR to hire a lot of old crusty dogs who in some cases spent full careers at DAL, USAir, etc.. and in other cases furloughed guys who at least spent some time at a major and got a taste of how a pilot contract works.. He wanted the pilots to "go the extra mile" in the hopes our stocks will balloon like those of Ryanair or Southwest... some of them did, but 95% of them helped form a resounding vote count to bring the IBT on property, and with in 1 week of that vote, they announced that "we're out of money and need to shut down"... magically the Investors saw his business plan was hi-jacked by the pilots and panic spread.

Oddly, had the original founder been retained in the position of CEO, pilots would have been earning substantially more and moral higher, and that 95% vote count might never have happened.. But once again, when a CAL lackey steals the helm from the visionary airline builder with the backing of the likes of Morgan Stanley and Fidelity on the board of directors, what else can you expect?