Atlas/Polar could have merged.
Regarding this issue, the Polar/Atlas merger, what it really sad for me is that this could have been a really great company. If the management had wanted it to be.
In my experience, pilots are pilots, all trying to do the same thing. Have a stable job, have a decent retirement, get paid correctly and on time, have the company consider the employees and NOT treat them like a number, maximize profit without having the profit motive overshadow the fact that companies are about people and families, having qualified people run their airline instead of some bean counter who was running a railroad company last week, an airline this week and who
watches the stock price and wants to bale to some other shaky airline, file Chapter 11 bankruptcy at the first sign of trouble only to screw the employees and leave with some outrageous settlement. Isn’t that what has happened at Delta, American, United and others? It seems so typical of corporate America these days, screw the employees! A change in government maybe?
I have flown for a few non-scheds. Some of the crews are a problem, always looking to screw the company, most however are excellent and only want all that I described above. Sadly, in America particularly, there is a corporate sentiment to screw the employee. In this computer era I have been chasing my paycheck for 20 years and watch it get smaller and less stable each year! Most pilots in the US have been screwed out of their retirements and accepted pay concessions only to see the management leave their companies with HUGE bonuses and settlement packages. If any of the employees who accepted the pay cuts, to help the company, would have refused, it would have been perceived buy the management that they “were not a team player”! I say let the CEO’s leave and don’t let the door hit them in the ass!
Has ALPA managed to defend this degradation in pilot benefits? NO! Like all unions they are essentially useless! They are like insurance companies, more interested in collecting premiums that they are in paying out settlements. You could also equate them to churches who want to screw you out of your money while promising a salvation that they can't deliver! Trust in me, trust in me…………………! All tax exempt of course!
The Polar/Atlas arrangement could have been resolved ages ago had the "management" have had some vision! I truly don't even know what the "management" wants for this company. You never hear from Flynn. One has to ask, is he a visionary or is he just seeing things? Is he actually in charge or is someone else pulling his strings! Instead of honing this company into a cohesive team the management chose to play one side against the other resulting in animosity only rivaled by the Muslims and Jews. So much is predicated on rumor and hearsay. Did the Polar/Atlas management do anything to stop it? NO! they poured fuel on the fire! Now they want a merger! What we need is a new management. Clean house! Totally!
Not that the pilots are not without fault. In any merger everyone wants a windfall…………right! But what is right? What is fair?
Service in the US has really gone downhill. I flew on a US airline the other day and it smelled like a urinal! The flight attendants didn’t care. “They are not getting anything more from me!” was their response. I am not sure what the answer is. Work for overseas carriers and leave America’s aluminum urinals to the bean counters, the lawyers and $20,000/year illegal pilots! Reregulate the US airlines maybe?
At Polar/Atlas, the scheduling department will commercial me to my base because I am on reserve only to commercial me back again because they could not foresee that things would change. It all too often appears that the right hand doesn’t know what the left hand is doing. Sadly this has been the case at every US airline I ever flew for! Penny wise and dollar foolish it seems.
I hear that Richard Branson operates differently. I also see that BA CEO Willie Walsh, said he felt it would be "inappropriate" to take a bonus this year ($1.37 Million) considering the difficulties the airline encountered when it moved its operations into the new Terminal 5 at London's Heathrow airport. He said the rest of the staff would be paid a bonus as the group reached its operating margin target of 10% for the year. Ever hear of a US CEO doing that? A bonus of only $1.37M. Wow those BA chaps come cheap eh?
What a concept! Responsibility! The buck stopped with him! Let’s hope its catching…………..