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TRANNY Beats the Street!

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volasl...excellent post, and food for thought...

...and,...it kinda adds some perspective to WN's Q1 loss...
 
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That is exactly why pilots don't run big company's. Not furloughing can lead to a bankrupt company as well. AAI was bleeding money in 2008 and they had to do something fast. If fuel would have stayed at $140 a barrel there would be no AAI today. Sometimes you have to tighten the buckle to try and make it to the next upturn in an industry. When AAI furloughed many analysts were still calling for $200 a barrel oil. You are forced to make decisions when running a company. Near term and long term decisions. Last summer when AAI furloughed nobody was calling for $40 a barrel oil just 6 months later. At that time there was no end in sight. Just be glad everyone is back and it looks like AAI has made it through. I'm sure those furloughed guys are glad they had a company to come back to. If AAI hadn't made a lot of the decisions they did, we would all be on the street. Remember the $150 million AAI managment raised? He11, if they didn't do that AAI would be done. I think its more short sided to look back now and bash managment for the decisions they made. AAI furloughed pilots, but they got them back just as quick. A company that has long term goals but can also adjust quickly to current market conditions is a company that should stay around for a long time....... BTW.... Wheres my raise? Make sure everyone looks at AAI and SWA proposed pay rates. ALA 5th year FO $102 an hour. AAI 5th year FO $72...... SHOW ME THE MONEY!!!!!!!
 
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I think it's great that AirTran made a profit. It would have been nice had we done the same. I hope the trend continues for you.

You have to have a secret decoder ring to figure out our financials, these days.
 
My point is the short term mentality of most managment groups in the airlines. Even though i dont work for Southwest they were losing over a million a day after Sept 11 and still didnt furlough. I wish United or any other group had that mentality.

No corp needs to regularly lose money but i think there needs to be a longer term goal.

Shaping Southwest's Organizational Culture Contd...

Thriving Under Pressure

Post-September11, 2001, when most airlines in the US went in for massive layoffs, Southwest avoided laying off any employee (Refer Exhibit VII.) Even before the September 11 crisis hit, Kelleher had explained his philosophy regarding layoffs in an interview to Fortune magazine. He said, "Nothing kills your company's culture like layoffs. Nobody has ever been furloughed [at Southwest], and that is unprecedented in the airline industry. It's been a huge strength of ours. It's certainly helped us negotiate our union contracts. One of the union leaders….came in to negotiate one time, and he said, "We know we don't need to talk with you about job security." We could have furloughed at various times and been more profitable, but I always thought that was shortsighted.
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You want to show your people that you value them and you're not going to hurt them just to get a little more money in the short term. Not furloughing people breeds loyalty. It breeds a sense of security. It breeds a sense of trust. So in bad times you take care of them, and in good times they're thinking, perhaps, "We've never lost our jobs. That's a pretty good reason to stick around."...


SWA has a unique culture in the industry. I have friends there and they enjoy their job and job security. It think it's great what SWA did after 9/11 but the truth about that is a company can only afford to do that for a certain period of time. At some point it they would have to align the labor costs.

Some management is better than others and you have to be well in front of the pack to do what SWA did then. Times are leaner now and hopefully they will be able to make it through this downturn without furloughing. I think they will be fine.

The good thing about furloughs is that it isn't personal. The bad thing about furloughs is that it isn't personal.

Regardless, management has the responsibility of being profitable and labor cost is just another cost like electricity or advertising. If furloughs are curtailed it will be less from a 'goodwill' effort and more from a higher cost to train point of view.

That's the case at any job.
 
Management will be putting letters out by the end of the day saying "it is important that we keep cost in line. I ask all employees to think to themselves if there pay is really that low. If we want to continue these profits I ask all employees to please take pay cuts and I will be the first. Starting today I will work for $1.00 with 35,000,000 in options for the year. Thank you and please fail your medical if your pass 5 yr pay."

sincerely

Sh!tty CEO
 
I'm disappointed. I saw Tranny in the title and thought the thread was about something else....OH Well..congrats on the earnings..
 

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