SWA, Airline of the year

[Flopgut]

Thanks for the reply. Too bad they didn't take the early out. Hope you guys can turn it around. My personal opinion is that a new, strong CEO would help.

Thank you Red. You might be right.

 

[BILL LUMBERG]

It goes way deeper, and there's a lot of blame to go around. We have the CEO we have because he was willing to say yes to the merger. (Right after a fairly solid CEO had said no) I don't think a CEO can fix this. The sUAL employee group is so deeply demoralized and institutionalized it's likely beyond recovery. This is true especially of the senior FA group, who will almost every leg make some extraordinary effort to humiliate customers. They were offered an early out, but not many of the worst offenders took it. They'd rather ruin the place, and they might succeed.

That's the most immediate of our many problems imo. But there's a lot more and they're all big.

Flop, there you go talking like Smisek at the Annual meeting. Cute soundbite but blaming the UAL people, that excuse is old and tired. Not everything is the legacy UNited peoples fault. You had a work group that was beaten and starved from being a champion boxer to a stick figure, then you guys merge and the CAL management came in over their head. They can't manage something so large, so its plain easy to just blame an employee group for management failures. We merged the NWA side who were probably the most militant in the industry without trouble here at Delta, so why the issue there.

That stick figure wants to eat now and can you blame them? I would stand up to this weak management team also and demand more instead of being a CAL legacy and rolling over and playing dead.

Just my opinion but I do agree that a new CEO is needed.

 

[Flopgut]

Let me ask you Bill: Are you aware the early out for these older, senior FAs was $100k? A hundred large buys a lot if cat food my friend. Also this is something both pilot groups feel the same about for the most part. You knew that?

NWA had had a merger with Republic. Your airline merged in Western. This is a first for UAL, so it's not going real smooth. Factor that in and your thesis is wrong.

Additionally, don't get fooled by the UAL pilot talking point that these are all "CAL" people running this place now. These weren't the CAL shot callers, these are a bunch of Bobs that could have been from either side really. Mgt here now are primarily the types who said "yes" when Larry K declined.

 

[BILL LUMBERG]

Sorry Flop....I usually side with you in lurker mode but what does a Flight Attendant making 100k buyout have anything to do with CAL people mucking up the merger?

Try again.....

 

[Flopgut]

Ok, one more try. You have to be ready to receive a good CEO. That's why a good one had to step out of the way and another step in. sUAL has not been ready for solid mgt, and offering the senior FAs a more than fair deal to retire would have been a step in the right direction. The pilots have moved in the right direction.

I can tell that you're not fully considering how key it is that this is merger 1 for sUAL. That is huge, especially when you consider they were accustom to putting their fellow alpa pilots on the street after taking their airplanes. (Other work groups got no better) These guys wiped their butts with merger policy; Just correcting them back to center was at least as big a undertaking as any DAL had with NWA. Not defending mgt, I just understood that when Kellner bailed this was more than likely our best hopes for company trajectory. Pilots have done a pretty good job of getting where we needed and wanted to be. Other work groups? We have to wait and see. They can shut it down just as sure as anybody else can