Think more about the RLA. Think about the ATSB turning down UAL on two loans. Almost as though they were trying to wreck your pension.
Sorry, not a conspiracy theorist. The ATSB turned down our loan because they thought we could get outside financing and didn't need the government to back the loan. Seems that they were right.
Afterall, the PBGC is enjoying all that money now. How about when they had the audacity to report EARNINGS on that money?! Wasn't even their money, they barely loaned any of it! How about Tilton accounting mileage plus as a liability when you had a pension, now it's worth what? $4 billion!!
The whole milage plus is thing is widely misunderstood, as well as its value while an airline is in bankruptcy vs. its value when an airline is solvent. Long story short, an airline's milage program is pretty much not worth anything if it is tied to a bankrupt airline on the verge of liquidation. It's worth a lot (Air Canada proved it) when your airline is solvent and making money. So whatever it is worth now has nothing to do with what it was worth when we were in bankruptcy protection.
If you can somehow attribute your losses to a guy flying an M80 from McAllen, TX to Vegas, you're not only doing exactly what mgt wants you to do, your doing more damage than any LCC ever did.
No, I'm blaming OUR losses (UAL's and the rest of the legacies) on the 1000's of guys who flew for airlines like Airtran, Frontier, JetBlue, etc., for less than 1/2 the total compensation a guy at UA made, for example. It's impossible to compete with an airline with wages that are that far below industry norm.
And I'm not even sure "blame" is the proper word now that I think about it. I guess we live in a free country and pilots can work for any wage they want. But I don't blame Paul W., Tilton, whoever for the reason why we all make JetBlue wages.