Twitcher,
Your username has always cracked me up, and there’s a lot of good stuff in your post. I’ve only left the stuff that i perceive to be incorrect, and your excellent recommendation at the end
Originally Posted by
CurtainTwitcher
The US industry is a different environment, where you can simply vote to go on strike and cripple an operator without having to go cap in hand to the industrial relations umpire first. Equally, the operator can turn around and declare bankrupt, go into Chapter 11 and decimate wages and benefits.
No. You cannot strike at the drop of a hat. In fact, the record for negotiating a new contract (EBA) approaches seven years, with no strike allowed. No Contract expires, they become ‘amenable’. The pilot group is then left negotiating for years with the old contract in place. It’s almost impossible to strike. I can think of only two in the last 20 years (happy to be corrected).
Bankruptcy laws changed years ago. They can’t dump the pensions anymore. Only American Airlines failed to sneak one in before the law changed. Guess who kept their pensions ?
Frozen. But they kept their money.
To sum up, the industry has changed fundamentally from a boom and bust cycle, to the current steady rate. Listen to any Investor call after quarterly earnings - the large funds lose their mind if they hear growth above 5%. Of course the next SARS, or recession would affect the industry. But it’s not self immoliating anymore.
This has now stopped, and in fact the US fighter pilot numbers are 25% below required strength
They continue to arrive in flocks. You can’t throw a beercan without hitting one in a new hire class. 50% of new hires are military and thousands have been hired in the last few years.
I am reminded of the such characters of
Frank Lorenzo when I view both the current & former CEO. It is almost as if these two have read the history of the industry in the US as written by Thomas Petziner in
Hard Landing (essential reading). In many ways, the former was much more in the mould of the swashbuckling pirate raiders of the US deregulation era than the current one.
Well said. One of the few individuals that have been banned from operating an airline or within the airline industry. Hard Landing is essential reading.
Cheers