Shameful use of WTC disaster by US Airlines !!!

[crjo]

Am I the only one around here outraged by those reports of thousands of airline employees to be furloughed "due to the terrorist attacks" ?

How dare they ?

Ours is a cyclic business. It is no secret that all major Us Airlines were about to announce HISTORIC losses PRIOR to those attacks.
It only took 2 days for Continental to announce 12000 furloughs ! about a week for Boeing (20000 to 30000 !) and United !!

Somewhere,in some plump office, bonus-assured management lowlifes are simply taking advantage of a tragedy to "get rid" of expensive employees and asking for federal help !

Good Lord !

what a world !!

[wooof]

Look out, inbound Guvnor & 411A alert. :)

[411A]

crjo---
The last few days have not seen ANY execs from US airlines offer to take cuts in their oftentimes bloated salaries, nor have we seen any pilots (especially ALPA & APA) offer salary reductionas as a way to help keep in business, with the notable exception of the pilots at AirTran.
Well guys, who is going to step up to the plate first?
Any takers? ....Thought not.

[Ontheairwaves]

CRJO
i disagree with your opinion
yes the airlines were going to report losses but not to the extent that they have to now after spending almost 1week with any revenue from passengers etc at all and still paying salaries etc.....
Also it is happening in Europe and being blamed on the WTC scenario so don't jump down on the US airlines so quickly.
Aer Lingus is shedding jobs and looking for government backing to survive because they are cutting back on their t/atlantic services and don't have the money.
In fact the London Times reports that the only airlines that will be left standing if this situation goes on without government aid to European airlines is the US airlines.
After all they are the ones who survived the deregulation days and kept some money for a rainy days. European airlines have always got government money of some sort until the EU put a stop to that and now that they have to stand on their own 2 feet they can't.
So don't bad mouth the US carriers for banding together and trying to survive when the European airlines having been doing just that for years gone by.
GET your fact RIGHT......also it may or may not be reported in Europe but other than the airlines other industries went to Washington that same day and met with Congress after the airline CEO's went in......
Get off your soap box and wake up to what's really happening over here... :mad: :mad:

[maxalt]

Ontheairwaves you really are a creepy little guy...brrrrr!

[Brad737]

The US Aviation industry was impacted as no other. No other industry in it's entirety was mandated to stand down on a moments notice. The costs incured are stagering, threatening the very existence of several carriers. If the airlines followed some standard convention for national mourning there may not be very many airlines around to bail out. This business is very "fixed costs" heavy and you don't see the banks telling the airlines that there's no need to send this months lease payment on that Boeing. An inadequate aviation security system and an inadequate intelligence community that costs tons of money failed to prevent an incident that has reduced the flow of customers to a trickle. Insurance companies are notifying airlines that liability premiums may increase 4 or 5 times their previous level. This industry is in peril, immediate peril, and despite our sorrow at the loss of life that the middle-east has impose upon us these issues have to be addressed NOW.

[samson.]

Call me cynical, but I think crjo has a point. If AA/CA/BA/VS announced thousands of job losses at any time, the negative publicity would be huge. But now, there really isn't any negative publicity at all. Any airline that was planning any scaling down (as most of them must have been, given the imminent recession), now is an easy time to do it. They don't even have to be nice and offer voluntary redundancies etc. They can just kick people out and say 'WTC attack, sorry but nothing we can do' etc etc. It is an easy bandwagon to jump on, and I think that unfortunately the airlines won't be the first to do it.

PS: Tony Blair - if you have any more ridiculous pay rises that you would like to give yourself... now's the time.

Sorry to be flippant, but I think there is an element of truth in what I say.

Samson.

[ 19 September 2001: Message edited by: samson. ]

[HOVIS]

Samson:-
Pots and black kettles, stones and glass houses,
For the last few months all we have heard from you overpaid drivers is that you will be demanding a 20% increase in basic pay, so don't give me any cr@p about Tony Blair upping his salary. I for one would not like to be in his shoes today not even for your salary/expenses/profit share/etc!!!!!
:mad:

[Sir Kitt Braker]

You iriots on here suffer from pp disease - Pilot paranoia. You really , really think that airline management get down on their knees, praying for a recession or downturn, just so that they can make pilots redundant. You sad, sad, people if you dont realise that having to lay people off keeps us awake at night, painfully aware of the consequences to all employees and their families.

It is grossly offensive to suggest that we specially relish firing pilots, and in that respect, I have to tell you that you are not special folk and that we would not treat you differently from others when forced to keep the airline running.

What is it with you pilots - just why do you think you are so special?

[whatshouldiuse]

CRJO;

I'm not outraged, I'm very supportive of most major corporations in the U.S to limit or downright ban employee travel.

I've seen what's left of the WTC first-hand. Until somebody tells me it's safe to fly in the U.S and I normally do in excess of 50K miles a year, I'm staying right here in New York.

Go look at the rubble if you need a reason why.


Andy Morrell

[aviatter]

whatshouldiuse,

I'm about to offend a great many people here but do you realize what you are saying?

By not flying you have given in to terrorism and showed the terrorists that attacks receive results. You better stay inside and board up your windows as well. I know five or six thousand people have lost their lives here and it is very tragic, but 21 000 Americans die each year in the US as a result of gun shot wounds...I won't even go into car accidents!

As well, there may have been trouble in the industry before all of this happened, but make no mistake, crjo, this is not the fault of airlines. This is a massive, massive failure in national intelligence and security. 20 or so hijackers get on four planes at exactly the same time and the government has no clue? You're right, the US government should keep the aid package and use it to defend themselves against the thousands of lawsuits their people should be filing against them.

I don't mean to disrespect or dishonour any of the victims or those affected, but the FBI, the CIA, and the Secret Service failed miserably and thats the hard truth :mad: :mad:

[whatshouldiuse]

Aviatter;

I'm not giving into terroism. My God, I've seen first hand the horror and evil terrorists can cause.


Until however, the U.S changes the security system, what has changed to stop these people doing it again? The U.S cannot change security overnight, next week or next month. It's logistically impossible.


I commute from upstate New York through Grand Central, Times Square and Penn Station. Sure the police are out with dogs and sure there is a beautiful memorial in the Subway station in Times Square, but do you have any idea of the terror I feel when the train leaves Harlem and 125th street and the train is in a tunnel for the next 4 miles?


If you do, be sure to let me know how I'm giving into terrorists. All I want to do is feel safe...sorry if my response offended anyone.


Andy Morrell

[ 20 September 2001: Message edited by: whatshouldiuse ]

[samson.]

Sir Kitt Braker - I think you are missing crjo's point. The point he is making is that the recession would have caused the loss of many jobs anyway, and the airlines are using the WTC attack as an excuse. He is not saying that the airlines are 'praying for a recession or downturn, just so that they can make pilots redundant', he is saying that the jobs would go anyway and they are using the WTC attack as their reasoning, rather than the recession.

Hovis - I am not a commercial pilot. I used Tony Blair's salary as an example. What I meant is that if there were to be anything controversial that TB wanted to do, now would be the time to do it (in the same way as crjo has implied that the airlines may be doing).

I am not trying to offend anyone. This is a discussion forum. Is it entirely unreasonable to discuss?

Samson.

[SunSeaSandfly]

My poor friend SKB, my heart bleeds for you, having to take time out from surfing the beaches of SKB to worry about your soon to be unemployed workers. :(
Just what industry are you in?
I'm sure it is not aviation, so what's your game?
You're not a failed management wannabe by any chance? :confused:
I just have a feeling I might know you from somewhere, but can't quite place it. Trouble is, you all sound so much alike to me that I can't separate you. :rolleyes:

[ 19 September 2001: Message edited by: SunSeaSandfly ]

[Star of the County Down]

Hey Wooof you're a scream! :cool:

[yellow dust]

Yhe US airlines are after a bailout from the government (=taxpayers). I say they should get it only if they do not sack ANY employees! If they make the numbers redundant that they claim they will, they should not get one penny.

[groundfine]

Aviattor don't worry too much. Anyone is a darn sight safer flying today than they were eight days ago.

[groundfine]

Sorry, my previous post was meant to be directed to whatshouldiuse!

[thermostat]

Sir Kitt Braker. I find your remarks very offensive. You claim to have an ALTP/737 rating yet you ask "..why do you (pilots) think you are so special?" You mean you don't know? Why don't you ask the 8 pilots who were murdered last Tuesday?
Fact; take the pilot out of the aviation equation and what do you have? A "MUSEUM", a "BLACK HOLE".
Hundreds of thousands of people in the aviation and related industries make their money simply because PILOTS FLY AIRPLANES. We don't fly, they don't eat.
Yes, we are very special !!!
The main problem with the pilot profession is that we don't unite. If we did, we wouldn't have to put up with all the crap that's thrown at us on a daily basis.
That's how this pilot feels and I am sure there are others who feel the same way.

[simp]

CRJO, a minor point. Not all US major airlines were leaking $$$. We at Southwest posted a profit last quarter, and despite the tragic events of 9/11, the company is committed to keeping all of us aboard if at all possible. I do agree however, that one unfortunate outcome of a gov't bailout will be that taxpayers dollars will be used to insulate some airline management (not SWA) from the normal results of their incompetence.

[Paterbrat]

You might CRJO be in a minority,if it had escaped your attention all flying in the US ceased for days. Icalculable sums of money were lost by the airlines. They may have been heading for a down turn CRJO but nothing like a total stoppage for that length of time.
Get your head out from between your legs, survey the damage worldwide to all sorts of other sectors, realise how iterdependent everything is these days, wake up to the fact that the group who perpetrated this atrocity have hit you personaly very hard in your pocket along with millions of others. Get angry with the nihilistic fanatics who would happily rub you out without a flicker of hesitation if you got in their way. Get mad at the enemy and support some action to rid the world of them, it is a far more justifiable anger.

[ 20 September 2001: Message edited by: Paterbrat ]

[Jackonicko]

The enforced stoppage was bound to have a major impact on airline profits, sure (though I also think it went on too long, and was used as a token of "what government was doing to protect us", rather than being an entirely proportionate response to security concerns, which could have been addressed much more quickly).

In the case of those carriers who were already in trouble, I can see that the WTC disaster might also prove to be the 'final straw'.

But job losses of the size posted by Boeing, (and AA, BA and UA) seem huge, unless we really believe that September 11 will result in a truly Seismic shift in long-term airline passenger/consumer behaviour. To my eyes, that looks unlikely, and I'd be inclined to believe that people will have returned to pre-WTC patterns of airline use within 12-18 months.

I'd be especially surprised if the WTC disaster alone led to any meaningful change in the long term demand for airplanes, and I must say that I find the appearance of Boeing's massive job cutting programme particularly cynical and distasteful.

One cannot help but wonder whether there isn't an element of companies using the WTC outrage as a convenient excuse for taking these measures, and to insulate themselves from criticism or even interrogation over why they are taking these actions.

If you can throw thousands out of work and blame it on Bin Laden (or anyone else with a 'Magic Beard') I'm afraid that the unscrupulous will do exactly that.

[Bluebaron]

forgive me but didn't i say all this last week?

incidently the uk goverment is not offering any financial aid to british carriers due to EU regulations...... I seem to remember Air France getting some serious cash afew years back. :cool:

[bobtoldmetodoit]

thermostat you are just SO full of garbage

takes more than pilots to run an airline - without engineering etc you are unemployed, without cabin crew legislation will not let you fly, without people to check passengers in there is no profit to be made

why do SOME pilots think they are the only people of any importance in the aviation industry ?

big egos - no brains !

[ 20 September 2001: Message edited by: bobtoldmetodoit ]

[Sir Kitt Braker]

thermotwat - you give yourself away - many more people lost their lives, not just the pilots. All people are born with equal rights and equal value.

I suppose there had to be one exception...

[GlueBall]

I don't believe that U.S. taxpayers will take kindly to the proposed $5 Billion cash bailout of U.S. carriers. Indirectly they would be subsidizing many bloated pilots' salaries; outrageous compensations, bonuses, and "golden parachutes," of many incompetent airline executives.
Any wholsale cash grant would be a fraud upon ordinary citizen taxpayers! :(

[Paterbrat]

Jackonicko, I found it slight odd that you, who's signature is the unscrupulous should be so indignant at others being 'unscrupulous'?
Are you not also being a little flippant about a very serious gentleman with a 'magic beard' whose declared intention it has been to kill create mayhem and disaster. I thought he had actualy done quite a lot of that just recently, and yes lot's of solid evidence that does link him.
Be useful now , you have an inquiring mind, did a good ferret job on Concord,so uncover this bastard, get to work on him and do us all a favour by showing us what good investigative journalism can achieve, and of course, get the facts right!

[pdashley]

Thermodork...sorry stat, I think you've just proved SKBs point, do you ever stop to think how many other airline employees are involved in getting passengers from A to B. It doesn't all happen by divine intervention to keep you in a job. If engineers didn't engineer, or fuelers fuel or loaders load or check-in agents check people in, then you wouldn't be needed either as there'd be no-one to fly. Utimately if the plane makers didn't make planes then you wouldn't have a job either, so if we all owe thanks to anone it's them. I suggest the next time you're swanning around an airport somewhere get your head out of your ass and look around to see how many other people in your companies uniform are around......DOING THEIR JOBS SO YOU CAN DO YOURS!!!!!!!

[Catans]

Aviatter

Amen to that, my thoughts excactly

[Dockjock]

Liability insurance premiums to increase by 4 or 5 times?! Those thieving bastards Can we really say that the WTC is a result of the risk increasing 4-5 times? No. Just another cash grab by the insurance oligopoly in this world.

And they claim that haven't the money to pay the claims! Ha! Why even HAVE insurance if you can't get paid on a claim. If premiums increase by 4-5 times, its now time for airlines to self-insure. This has to stop.

[411A]

Still waiting for the ALPA pilots at DAL, UAL, etc to offer salary reductions to their companies and likewise for senior management to do the same. At least piddly little AirTran has pilots with the balls to help out. ALPA (and APA) still have their collective snoots in the air. Nothing new.

[Ignition Override]

411A: Greetings to the sunny Southwest. I'm scratching my head. Easy now, who knows what is being discussed in very closed-door meetings? Were you there, in each airline's secret conference? Not many of us were, and I hope that some pay cuts will happen soon. When did all discussions need to be instantly transmitted to the line employees or the media? ALPA/APA are easy scapegoats-but no preaching to the choir can hide the overall picture. Nobody ever claimed that the MECs are perfect. Far from it. On the other hand, upstreaming vital operating cash from airlines into holding companies, selling off important assets (computer res systems, aircraft, overseas routes) while stealing retirement funds and over-expansion of other airlines have doomed many airlines, no matter how low the pilot salaries or how big the pay cuts: and so ALPA did this, not upper mgmt? It's news to us in the US industry. Even America West years ago was in big trouble, was it not, despite pay/benefits which were very sub-industry, with retirement consisting of employee dollars and company stock at a huge loss of value?

It is very easy for any of us to throw mud at a group until the information is released. Many of us are for pay cuts, however there will be no direct connection between that and preventing some furloughs, if possible to link, unless the contract language is agreed to and signed.

Some of you guys/gals on Pprune seem to never acknowledge the fact that many ALPA pilot groups gave up various chunks of salary in the past to help their companies survive, whether their mgmts knew how or cared to save their companies. Yes, many ALPA MECs, from 15% up to 40% (for years at TWA), as is well-known. Not mentioning this does not change the reality-it's on the record. Is it true that Midway's owner recently refused a financial aid package, either before or after they declared Chapter 11?

Few companies in our business can be trusted to do anything without very explicit contract language.

[ 22 September 2001: Message edited by: Ignition Override ]

[ 22 September 2001: Message edited by: Ignition Override ]

[crjo]

Wow !!
Never thought that thread would get so many answers...
I guess I put my finger on a sensitive spot.

Now, please allow me a few responses :

411A, true, not many Pilots have come forward with offers of pay cuts to help out. We have tried that in my company (AF) Our salaries have now been frozen for more than 7 years,(that represents more than a 25 % pay cut in France) while "productivity" has increased by 50 %(ie the ammount of work we do). Many had volountered for a pay-stock exchange and have seen the stock stumble more than 70 % in less than a year (but that is a risk we were willing to take). After these gestures, it seemed the time had come for a little payback. Well, it didn't happen ! when the company announces record profits, (as it has done for the past 3 years) we didn't get anything back...(and it wasn't for lack of asking!!) so much for volunteering "temporary" pay cuts.
I do agree however, that the airlines need to be helped by federal funds in this time of crisis, but in that case they should not get rid of any employee !

Sir Kitt Braker, I think you missed my point entirely ! I don't think we are "special" people. I do think that we have a training that not everyone can achieve if one wants to do the job in a PROFESSIONAL way. The discipline required by the job echoes even in our private lives.But so it goes, and the majority of us don't mind that downfall because we do a job we LOVE (and that is our malediction !...). Never would I think it easy for you guys to furlough thousands of employees, but I do think that some people jumped on the occasion of the WTC disaster.

Whatshouliuse, my heart bled for all americans when I heard and saw what happened. I will not get into a testimony here of how this tragedy affected me, it is not the place nor time. Seeing the rubbles does not take anything away from my opinion on how some airlines are managed...

Paterbratt, my head is nowhere near between my legs -I envy your elasticity- but again, you missed my point...

Samson, thanks for the support...it IS a discussion forum.

[Paterbrat]

I would dearly like to be able to do what I accused you of, however the point simply was that your indignation appeared to be a little misdirected and somewhat innapropriate. As you yourself have noted your thread has produced a somewhat more lively reaction than you might have anticipated. I personaly felt and said, somewat more rudely than I perhaps should of, was that a large majority seem to have greatly underestimated the damage caused to not only our particular industry but to vast sectors of many industries and areas of global commerce. The world financial situation was in a wobble before the atrocity, the possibility of a real tumble frighteningly closer after it.
Massive and very immediate financial hemmoraging in the airlines demanded very drastic and immediate steps to prevent total insolvency and collapse. Hence perhaps the layoffs and government cash infusions you were so 'outraged' about. I appologise for the manner in which I put this initialy, I too was 'outraged' at the time that not more people were directing their outrage at the true target for that very appropriate response.

Jeeze my spelling is c..p

[ 23 September 2001: Message edited by: Paterbrat ]

[ 23 September 2001: Message edited by: Paterbrat ]