An old friend of mine who currently works as F/O on the B757/767-fleet has been noticed that he may expect to be downgraded (...) to the A320 accompanied by significant pay cuts. What a waste of resources to train somebody to fly a new airplane when the company is short of money...
At least he still has a job.
Whatever the US Airlines are doing, they did not seem to have the right recipes since 9/11 while most of the others were thriving. This should not lull us into a false sense of superiority though. It's potentially dangerous and contageous and we should be aware of the fact that the well being of the world's biggest economy has quite an impact on our life.
Some wise man once said: 'If the US economy has a cold, Europe may expect to get a pneumonia...'. Not good.