This is, I believe, a direct result of some well known and very poor decisions made by individuals charged to run the place as well as a willful desire not to listen to individuals who work here and want to make things better. There hasn't been a lack of good proposals and suggestions put forth; these tend to run into a brick wall as decisions makers view incorporating them (or being wrong) as being a weakness when exactly the opposite is true. You don't want a waffler at the helm but you DO want someone who at least can use CRM rather than doggedly running into a hill. Someone who is 'never wrong' is the last person I'd want running anything of importance.
The labor costs (and making peace with the TUs) pale into comparison with the penny wise and pound foolish decisions to try to skimp to cut corners as well as devalue the brand--trying to put the airline into a regional/low cost carrier environment without first coming up with a cost structure to support it. Volume up and revenue down in a market where others are making significant profits ?!!!?? As I've said the corporate graveyard is littered with the bodies of those who devalued a once-premium brand (have you ever seen your Mac or iPhone heavily discounted ? Disney continues to charge what I consider outrageous prices for stuff yet their parks remain packed with lines to get in). People will pay for a premium product; they will not pay for something masquerading as a premium product. There needs to be substance behind the polish and paint. And if you're going to try to expand yourself out of a slump you better have the operators and support team to go with the shiny new jet orders.
The hedge debacle has been beat to death; needs to be fixed and move on. Investors will excuse a one-time aw ****e but won't excuse a train of constant aw ****es. Bad past decisions should not drive future good decisions--they are a painful lesson which needs to be learned from, not done again, and move on. Accountability is important as is assurance that things like this won't happen anymore.
First priority goes to the people who work at the place--customers love happy workers who go the extra mile and this always pays dividends. Successful companies view employees as an investment; not as fuel or coal.
But I don't think anyone has been succesful in propagating suggestions that might help. These are ignored or covered up (how much real action has been done as a result of the multitude of surveys showing some things that need REAL improvement ? -- it seems we do a survey for survey's sake and to say we've done a survey so all is well). How many good ideas have been ignored ? How many good and dedicated folks have been beat down and demoralized into apathy (and apathy is the worst emotion one can have toward anything--at least even if you're angry you still give a d@mn). Folks who matter need to start listening.
But I don't think that's gonna happen.
So what's OUR part in this ?
When things go south there are essentially two ways forward--fix the problem or fix the blame. One works; one doesn't. The 'fix the problem' group is usually the group that listens to others (especially those they don't agree with) and as a result doesn't get into many really bad scrapes in the first place. The fix the blame group usually bounces around from one crisis to the next while things trend downhill. One guess as to which direction WE might head.
The key here is not to accept unwarranted blame. Labor costs (including the small costs of doing things to make things better and keep people happy and grateful) are a fart in a hurricane compared to the costs of what has just happened. Yet it is likely to be used as an excuse to attempt to further cut and make things even worse--exacerbating the downward spiral. Don't buy into the paradigm and stand your ground.