There is Hope For You Lot Yet....
I saw this post from Mr. Ignition Override" on the "Rumors and News" thread "the demise of the Professional Pilot"
I thought it might be germane to some of your discussions...
Ignition Override
Over 500 posts.
US hub-and-spoke airlines, requiring passengers and crews (sometimes hanging around over two hours) to change planes most of the time, were NEVER designed for high employee productivity. High business fares were apparently the foundation for these wasteful operations. After a 10 or 12-hour duty day with short, intense legs flown requiring three or even four rushed changes of aircraft, we feel very productive and tired, but sometimes have logged only about 6 hours of 'block time'. Frustrating, even IF we had more than five hours of sleep in a hotel.
But upper management wants the public to believe that it is the unions' fault that these inefficient operations were created and are, after decades, the heart and soul of daily business, except at Southwest Airlines.
Southwest's 737 pilots are the highest-paid 737 aviators in the US! Southwest has been HEAVILY UNIONIZED for MANY YEARS.
Don't think so? Just check the history over there.... Higher employee costs have not prevented Southwest's brilliant success. They seem to have almost no hub-and-spoke operations. Productivity and high staff/employee morale seem to be the key elements, concepts which are totally lost on typically indifferent, ungifted airline managements in the US. Some airlines attempt to create the superficial facade of a caring management. Who are they really fooling? Most of these so-called "leaders" have no true background in actual airline operations, and little interest in real aviation, as Howard Hughes, Bob Six, Juan Trippe (?) and Eddie Rickenbacker had long ago. At least Continental Airlines has a leader (Bethune) who earned his pilot ratings and has ferried B-757s from the factory. And American Trans Air was created by a pilot, Mr. Mickelson. Even a beginning as a ramp worker or gate agent (at UPS most have worked their way up from loading packages) would create more insight than what most of today's airline CEOs will ever acquire.