UAL getting 43 New 777's

[St. Nic]

God this board can be funny! UAL is toast! 8 billion more in debt thanks to Tilton and nothing to show for it- except for more red ink, older employees and aging airplanes. WIthout a doubt, UAL is going bk and CAL is positioning itself to pick the good stuff from the carcass. Why else would CAL be so involved with such a hopeless airline?

 

[contrail67]

3000 more pilots? What a joke! You can't be serious. No merger has EVER LEAD TO HIRING IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD! and this one won't either. There will be at least 1200 furloughes. CALALPA has already hinted about reductions at both companies should they merge.

Furloughs and workforce poison, that's what you're gonna get. I'll throw in a fist fight here and there for good measure too. This merger will be like all of it's predecessors, it will create wealthy executives who will all be on a 5 year exit plan, the employees will forever blame one another for their woes and the company will bleed cash and shrink. That's been the formula for decades in this industry. Anyone who thinks otherwise is foolish.

Someone must have pissed in your cereal....a merger can work if thought out...did not see DAL and NWA furlough...either you really are upset about a failed interview or you are just out to blow b/s.....you cannot see the future.

 

[ATRCA]

Someone must have pissed in your cereal....a merger can work if thought out...did not see DAL and NWA furlough...either you really are upset about a failed interview or you are just out to blow b/s.....you cannot see the future.

DAL hasn't furloughed yet, they are losing millions and will continue. You gonna "think the merger out"?? make it all good for us?? Why do want it so bad? Tell us all that? I can promise you that I have never applied to UAL. When I was young, UAL was probably the worlds premier airline. By the time I was in a position to apply to legacies UAL was a complete $hithole thanks to Tilton and crew. Keep your head in the sand if you like but the history of airline mergers is available for your review. Our employee groups will fight with each other for decades, there will be animosity and the place will become simply rotten, the company will shrink and it will only be capable of servicing it's massive debt in BK.

Start asking the CAL crews you run into if they want a merger. Ask them to be honest with you and then get back to me about how well this is gonna play out.

 

[get2flyin]

God this board can be funny! UAL is toast! 8 billion more in debt thanks to Tilton and nothing to show for it- except for more red ink, older employees and aging airplanes. WIthout a doubt, UAL is going bk and CAL is positioning itself to pick the good stuff from the carcass. Why else would CAL be so involved with such a hopeless airline?

Funny, people use to say that about USAirways. Oh, wait...that was different, right?

 

[whymeworry?]

3000 more pilots? What a joke! You can't be serious. No merger has EVER LEAD TO HIRING IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD! and this one won't either. There will be at least 1200 furloughes. CALALPA has already hinted about reductions at both companies should they merge.

Furloughs and workforce poison, that's what you're gonna get. I'll throw in a fist fight here and there for good measure too. This merger will be like all of it's predecessors, it will create wealthy executives who will all be on a 5 year exit plan, the employees will forever blame one another for their woes and the company will bleed cash and shrink. That's been the formula for decades in this industry. Anyone who thinks otherwise is foolish.

You're probably right. But the reason for the need for so many additional pilots demonstrates how severely tightly staffed Continental is as an airline. It has been that way for the past 20 yrs. They rely on the scab-mentality (Me, me, me) which has permeated into the pilot group over the years (but that is changing rather rapidly). By that I mean they rely on pilots to be their staffing-error safety valve. In summer '08 some Captains were falling overthemselves to fly in the right seat at the company's 150% pay offer despite our airline being less than 30 days away from a furlough. I had a few 4-stripers show up as my right-seaters who gave me all the excuses in the world why they were there that day to justify their abhorant behavior (crew-scheduling JM's me, my kid is sick so I needed to trade for this trip, etc). And some of these guys were former COEX pilots. I would have expected more from these guys. CAL mgmt knows there are enough pilots who will pick up any slack in staffing screw-ups so we've always needed more crews. UAL pilots think differently. THAT is how they got that stellar contract in 2000.

But like I said, it is changing around here. A lot of scabs have left and with 1500+ new pilots on property in the last few years the mentality is starting to shift to that of a true unionist-airline once again. But it will still take more time until we get a chance to demonstrate that effectively. I'm not sure the exact number but I think we're down to 300 scabs now... so they're way of thinking is no longer a dominant influence.

 

[whymeworry?]

DAL hasn't furloughed yet, they are losing millions and will continue. You gonna "think the merger out"?? make it all good for us?? Why do want it so bad? Tell us all that? I can promise you that I have never applied to UAL. When I was young, UAL was probably the worlds premier airline. By the time I was in a position to apply to legacies UAL was a complete $hithole thanks to Tilton and crew. Keep your head in the sand if you like but the history of airline mergers is available for your review. Our employee groups will fight with each other for decades, there will be animosity and the place will become simply rotten, the company will shrink and it will only be capable of servicing it's massive debt in BK.

Start asking the CAL crews you run into if they want a merger. Ask them to be honest with you and then get back to me about how well this is gonna play out.

UAL is hardly a s-hole. They're pay-rates suck and their balance sheet is eff'd up but they still have pheonomenal work rules in comparison to CAL and other carriers. Plus, who's balance sheet isn't toast these days. We're all swimming in a pool of filth in this industry (save for SWA, FDX and UPS). Its just that some are about to drown in it and some are merely treading water.

 

[whymeworry?]

God this board can be funny! UAL is toast! 8 billion more in debt thanks to Tilton and nothing to show for it- except for more red ink, older employees and aging airplanes. WIthout a doubt, UAL is going bk and CAL is positioning itself to pick the good stuff from the carcass. Why else would CAL be so involved with such a hopeless airline?[/QUOTE]

Because CAL had no choice. DAL would've dominated every decision in Skyteam and CAL would've likely been out of business in 5 yrs (or severly shrunk) as a result. This was explained in great detail by our execs and union reps. Corporate customers is where the money is and they want clout when it comes to mileage loyalty. So CAL had a choice between gambling with Skyteam, signing up with OneWorld (American would've have chopped up CAL if that happened and there was too much overlap) or joining Star. I'm not particularly impressed with Star Alliance either but it's not like we had any other options.

RA started this consolidation phase... we're all along for the ride. Glad he got his $13.2 million. Funny how his shareholders got the shaft though. Caveat emptor when it comes to airline investing though, right?

 

[whymeworry?]

Well I am all for keeping United's work rules but I don't want CAL's current pay rates OR UAL's current pay rates. It would not surprise me at all if there is a "merger" contract already written....in some drawer somewhere.

I don't want UAL's rates either but CALs is much better from where I sit. In fact CALs is even better than The General's beloved Delta.

I'll be losing my left seat position soon (result of so many reduction bids) so I'm getting reacquainted with right seat pay-rates once again. I was surprised when I compared our pay-rates to UAL and DAL the other day. Just go to airlinepilotcentral.com. But I suppose it depends on where you sit. For me, it won't be as much of a pay reduction as I initially thought.

No contract is worked out yet... not on the union side anyway. The two NCs don't even communicate. It will take 3-6 mos for a deal to get worked out by both NCs and approved by both MECs before a "merger contract" is developed.

 

[Fly2AK]

It is funny how so many people are certain they know the fate of UAL, CAL, US Airways, DAL, ect.......No one really knows but I feel those that are certain UAL is toast are actually the ones hopeful they are. While on US airways property I heards for a couple years how the US Air group had maybe months to live yet here it is several years later and they are still here, my friends are still there and still earning a paycheck. All the doom and gloom managed to do is stress the hell out of my family. We can all speculate, but all those who think they know what is going to happen, I would like to know why they haven't made millions from the stock market if they are so business savy with all this insight. Time will tell the fate of all the US carriers, none of the carriers are in great shape and the carriers that traditionally were in great shape have had to take notice of the current economics of the airline industry.

 

[St. Nic]

Funny, people use to say that about USAirways. Oh, wait...that was different, right?

Way different, pal. Glad you recognized it!

 

[UAL-GSO]

No one really knows but I feel those that are certain UAL is toast are actually the ones hopeful they are.

Bingo!

It's ok - Karma's a bitch

 

[densoo]

But like I said, it is changing around here. A lot of scabs have left and with 1500+ new pilots on property in the last few years the mentality is starting to shift to that of a true unionist-airline once again. But it will still take more time until we get a chance to demonstrate that effectively. I'm not sure the exact number but I think we're down to 300 scabs now... so they're way of thinking is no longer a dominant influence.

Only 300 now, but there were over 2000 at one time. They held the senior positions and had an enormous influence on the next generation of pilots. The captain who VJM right seat with you was former COEX. Not a scab, but learned from them to take care of yourself and throw everyone else under the bus. He learned this from sitting right seat for years. This is the group that has the potential to jeopardize a decent contract (again). Remember the FO this fall who was infuriated that some of the lines across the Atlantic went from DH to IRO? He was hired in the 90s, but was competely out for himself--and proud of it. THAT is the problem. Proud of it. No shame about their selfishness. How dare you touch his 110 hours a month with all the DH he was getting. The bottom third (1500) are the ones who get it as they came from regionals that had better work rules than CAL. They know what is possible and they're pissed off in a good way due to C-scale, no medical, furlough. The top third will never get it. They continually discover new ways to steal from their peers (this year: divorcing to get their lump sum then remarrying same person--stealing from the retirement fund of their fellow pilots). The middle third is the battle ground.