In re-reading my post I agree that (due to brevity) it came across as callous. My intent was to remind job-seeking pilots that a company's hiring and its financial health are not necessarily connected. UAL has recently emerged from bankruptcy and remains in a financially precarious state. By all accounts its employees are demoralized, their contracts gutted, pay/pension slashed, and its CEO has expressed no cohesive plan for the future. Tilton has publicly stated he is seeking a merger partner (i.e., UAL's continued viability as a stand alone carrier is in doubt).
IMO... if one knowingly seeks employment with UAL, or a carrier in a similar predicament, then one is making a long shot wager with his career. IF the wager doesn't pay off, then it is a little disingenuous to complain about one's "hard luck" in the future.
On the other hand, everyone's life circumstances are different and the risk of a move like this might not be as great for some. The opportunity cost of lost seniority at another healthier carrier is always a player, however.
YMMV,
BBB
BBB, I'm sure that you're just trying to warn fellow pilots of the pitfalls of 'ol lazy U/Yonited/Untied/whatever name they want to use. I don't disagree with most of your statements, but I don't think that United has to be concerned about going out of business any time soon; they're sitting on a LOT of cash which will enable them to survive the economic sh!tstorm coming up in the next few years.
Every dog has it's day. United had it's day in the 90s. I think that things went bad approximately one day after I was hired (18 Jun 00), starting with the 'summer of love.' Will United return to it's former glory? I don't know. It's more dependent on senior management than us line pogues.
Today brown and purple are having their day. Perhaps that will change; perhaps not. The boys at Southwest have had a great run for the last 25 years; perhaps they'll keep the streak alive. I don't know.
In this business, it only takes one bad CEO for things to get worse. Two in a row, and you're lucky if you're not declaring chap 11. Three? Let's hope that you don't go chap 7.
While I'm not a big Tilton fan, I do credit him with keeping United out of chap 7. Yes, he's making money hand over fist. But he was able to get Wall Street to dump money into United at a time when most expected United to be chopped up and sold for parts. Just look back at posts back then and see for yourself. Most predicted that United would be out of business before 2005, including many, many United pilots.
United still has a lot of retirements coming over the next few years and they are currently working pilots to near maximum block hours every month. When the economy contracts (I expect the housing market to kill the US economy), the company can easily drop a ton of block hours without furloughing. And once the economy does start recovering, I believe that United and it's pilots will be in a great position to benefit. So there are some positives about United.
I know that retirements brings up the question about a change to age 65. That window in Congress has closed. Congress has already started to shift attention toward the elections, and any issue that is not front and center with the American public will not be addressed by this session of Congress. The best shot that the pro-change crowd has at this point is the NPRM process, which Blakey promised would be used for this. So far, the FAA has not put out a NPRM. Time's running short on this; Blakey will step down very soon and I doubt that the new administrator is going to push for a change until after s/he's settled in to the job.
The bottom line is that this business is entirely a crapshoot.
