UAL on Deathwatch
 

biz.yahoo.com/fo/030213/2efbb6a9fa2ce2ae96f3f1a3e8cbc3d8_1.html :eek:

And I guess that the OTT well-publicised airport security panics of the past few days by both the American and British governments has probably put the last few nails in United's coffin - not to mention some others too. :(

Well, Good luck to all of them, but without trying to start a huge war here, what goes around comes around...

I say this from the perspective of one who has been through this over 13 yrs ago, and UAL ALPO had no use for us at that time, so there you have it....

Yes, UAL is on a "deathwatch"; but, quite frankly, what did they expect. 3 years ago, it was all about what a great contract they got after a summer "slowdown", WOE 'em program, Max Safety,whatever you call a job action. I read it at the time and couldn't believe management (or what passes for management at UAL) signed it. The next quarter, the losses were piling up.

Down3Green: I take it your ex-EAL like me. It sure would be nice if ALPA would even try to work together among the councils, but NOOOOO!!! The DAL guys couldn't have been more arrogant, it they had tried. It was like GOD, himself, chose them to be airline pilots. Well, you got it right. But, then again, we didn't offer beans to the Braniff guys when we took over the South American routes and we got that back from the Sky Gods from DFW.

You mean God DIDN'T pick them to be airline pilots?!?! They've been lying to us all along...;) TC

The unions at United will moan and groan and posture until about March 15. Then the judge will impose drastically reduced pay rates and work rules. Starfish will be created with a separate seniority list and even lower pay scale.

Still, it may be too late to avoid a shutdown as the Fortune article speculates.

My friends over at UAL were still in denial until quite recently. They assured me that there was no way that the ATSB could deny the loan, that United was just too big to fail. Why, three years ago they were the world's largest, most profitable airline. As always happens, the fingerpointing will continue long after the company is gone.

Tilton has been in the airline business since September, maybe he can pull a rabbit out of a hat, maybe not...

Hey G.F.
Just to set the record straight on the Braniff scope clause:
at the EAL MEC meeting in Chicago, just after the Braniff route purchase was announced Jack B. , J.J.'s caddy from alpa national came to the meeting and recommended that we take some Braniff crews with the routes. This being my first meeting and being quite naive to the political nature of alpa and also having many Braniff friends and neighbors I, with the aid of a few other on the northeast bases MEC's put a motion on the floor to take Braniff crews. Talk about the south will rise again, the tar and feathers were being stirred up in Hotlanta.
Col. Frank B. also made it clear that he didn't want any crews with the routes. After speaking with both alpa DC and members of the Braniff MEC we found that the Braniff Scope clause only mentioned aircraft, not routes. Sort of easy out. Huh?

Folks, just two simple, objective questions here. Aside from United's problems, is it not true that during that infamous summer, United's pilots decided to fly only their planned monthly schedules, and not volunteer to fly extra? I know nothing about their MEC's other decisions, whether considered reasonable or not. But there is evidence that they warned mgmt numerous times about a worsening staff shortage problem, to no avail.

Are your days off yours, or are they are not? Excluding pilots on reserve/standby, whose contracts sometimes allow them to be drafted for extra flying on a day off.

This is just a simple question, and if my airline asked me to fly an extra one-day trip on a certain weekend (or two?) which I had bid around, in order to spend it with a young family member who will be gone to college in a few years, then my decision is not difficult to imagine. Anyone who claims that any days off should be 'fair game' for an employer is either insincere, or should not be involved in business decisions, at least outside of Iraq.

Under-staffing has been the nature of operations for many years at FEDEX and Southwest, in order to reduce the need for extra pilots, which cost more than paying somebody an extra "trip" or one and a half times the normal pay rate as incentive. This extra flying is supposedly the only way that the newer SWA pilots can find any money for their retirement funds.

Bumper stickers in DEN:

FULL PAY TILL THE LAST DAY

No wonder theyr'e in so much trouble. Yes, there have been some incredible blunders by management. But they are up against the wall and it is time for action, not bickering and infighting. I just can't believe how fast the wheels are coming off UAL.

It is time for STRONG Leadership. If I were Tilton, I would gather the union heads in a room, say this ($) is what we need, and let them work it out or the lights go out. Simple.

IMHO there is little doubt that UAL is history in it's current form. There is no way back from the situation they are in. A good proportion of the operation may end up being split into different companies but UAL as we know it today has had it.

Ignition Overide....

You are correct in your comments about the staffing problems during the summer of love......

We have (had) kind of a funny pay situation here up till the furloughs.....

You were paid a guarantee of 75 hours, Reserve or lineholder.

You could fly, in any one month, up to 83 Hard Hours domestic, and 85 Hard Hours domestic. This was waived for carry in's, that portion of a trip that starts near then end of the month and carries into the new month.

(For those who don't know, Hard Hours are what you actually fly, Soft hours are pay that you are given for extensive layovers, where you are forced to stay at a hotel or field layovers. When I was on the 737, some days scedules us only one leg, but we were guaranteed 5 hours credit time. )

Now, credit time was virtually unlimited. If you were like me, fairly senior on the 767, you could either pick up overtime to 85 hours or bid months with carryings that would brink you up to 90 hours hard time. The Soft time in thes months would be well over a 100 hours credit. I had many months like that.

Now the strange part, we are only paid 85 hours a month maxium. Any credit time over that is put into a bank, and later either trip dropped or, in the month of November, cashed completely out.

What happend in the Summer of love, there was peer group pressure not to fly over your line. Most people did not. If you did, your monthly schedule was posted on the walls, along with some disparaging remarks about your lineage...

As an example, in the early 1990's, UAL pilots got to option to trip trade. A union study concluded that trip trading would cost 150 wide body captain jobs, and 300 narrow body captain jobs.

When people ceased flying over what the line builders scheduled, UAL was short 450 pilots.

********

Down in 3 Green, UAL had former Eastern Pilots in the interview process.....If your name was not in the yellow sheet, you can bet you recieved preferential hiring....we picked up a lot of good Eastern Men, good pilots and good people. On the 727, it was not unusual for me to have both a former Eastern pilot in both the right seat and on the panel. United ALPA went out of its way to help the Eastern guys........if they didn't perform work as a permanent replacement.

Thanks, A-V-8R
 

I have been trying to defend the reasoning behind the 'summer of love' to the people on A.net--generally to no avail.

We all know airlines chronically understaff and expect us to pick up the slack. Penny wise and pound foolish. Then managment uses the lackeys in the press to bash us when we don't cover their butts.

Good luck. TC

No time to point fingers now
 

It's very sad that the possible demise of United is causing so much antagonism. Does it really matter at this point who did or said what? It's way beyond that.

All I know is with both Europe and the U.S in a severe economic turndown, that for every United person who is let go if they can't come out of bankruptcy, it will mean an additional 10 jobs lost for every United person who is let go whether this be a caterer / supply / parts / cleaning / fueling professions etc.

Does arguing who was really to blame for the current mess make sense to anybody? I hope not as you are professionals of the highest regard and this squablling needs to stop before UAL and their employees are thrown out of work not to mention the other million plus people who will also be out of work.

Sorry if I'm out of line

I recall the days in EWR where we had to use the UAL parking lot to get to the terminal, and we shared the crew bus with UAL crews.

One fellow glared at me, and said "We'll bury you."

Let's not forget those pilots and other employees at United Express (Atlantic Coast etc.... and Mesa?), who need mainline United to feed them passengers and vice versa.

Many of these folks also have children to feed and shelter-heaven help those who lose group medical insurance.

The govt needs to back off from the very high ticket taxes which are helping to suffocate the airlines. It is reported by our company that 25% of the average AIRLINE ticket price consists of government TAXES, and this does not include all of the taxes for security.

Could it possibly open up some of the (secret) Strategic Fuel Reserves, possibly leading to cheaper fuel in the US?

Milking The Dead Cow
 

It is said that guru Tilton and his family's "temporary" accommodation at the Four Season's Hotel at downtown Chicago (not near the airport nor near UAL's World Headquarters) are costing the company $18,000 per month...Not to mention Tilton's $950,000 annual salary, plus $3 Million "signing" bonus, plus $4.8 Million compensation for lost pension benefits at his former employer, plus entitlements to "future" bonuses, including 200% of his "base" salary.

...Meanwhile the company still is burning something like $9 Million cash daily. :yuk:

I think you can sum up United's problems very quickly. They are a misfit of the industry, they have developed huge infrastructures and have high wage employees with very low productivity because of narrow job descriptions and unreasonable work rules.

They also never had peaceful labour relations because of the multiple workforces brought together through mergers. It's got to the point now where there is no way to solve these issues in a normal negotiation between two sides.

To all the UAL staff out there.

If you enjoyed your job, loved your company & were proud to wear your uniform, do whatever you can to save your company! If you can survive on a lower wage, take it. If it's the only life you know, accept it. If you don't give a stuff...walk away & let someone else in.

My company died through a number of reasons, but if you are like the Ansett staff, then you'd want to do anything to keep it alive. We flew for 65 years until bean counters took over & we then died a slow & agonising death.

Sure the management will try one over on you, but tell your unions to watch them and keep the dialogue going. Don't let the unions talk your way out of a job.

Good luck to all at UAL.:)

>>They also never had peaceful labour relations because of the multiple workforces brought together through mergers.<<

Perhaps you have UAL confused with another carrier... Delta, US Airways, Northwest and American have had much more merger activity over the past three decades than UAL.

Aibubba, I'm just pointing out one if the reasons for their malaise, it's not the crucial reason and obviously the carriers you mentioned have fare better, but you can't tell me AA's swallowing of TWA has been all sweetness and light!

Labor peace and tranquility had fallen apart many moons ago. It has never been forgotten that in the mid 80's a strike had employed many scabs. Even today, the lingering presence of these low lifers continues to poison the pilot group. It was also the era of the A & B pay scales.

>>Aibubba, I'm just pointing out one if the reasons for their malaise, it's not the crucial reason and obviously the carriers you mentioned have fare better, but you can't tell me AA's swallowing of TWA has been all sweetness and light!<<

Yep, looks like you were thinking of AA instead of UAL...

>>It is said that guru Tilton and his family's "temporary" accommodation at the Four Season's Hotel at downtown Chicago (not near the airport nor near UAL's World Headquarters) are costing the company $18,000 per month...Not to mention Tilton's $950,000 annual salary, plus $3 Million "signing" bonus, plus $4.8 Million compensation for lost pension benefits at his former employer, plus entitlements to "future" bonuses, including 200% of his "base" salary. <<

Looks like the judge has OK'ed Tilton's pay package, let's see what he approves for the pilots on March 15...

___________________________________


Bankruptcy Judge Clears
United CEO's Pay Package

Associated Press

CHICAGO -- A bankruptcy judge allowed United Airlines to go ahead Friday with its multimillion-dollar pay package for Chief Executive Glenn Tilton, despite acknowledging that the timing may send a questionable message to employees.

Judge Eugene Wedoff said rejecting the company's bid for prompt adoption of the compensation package in bankruptcy would have raised questions about the court's confidence in the carrier's restructuring. He said the financial impact on UAL Corp.'s United should be comparatively negligible.

The Association of Flight Attendants contested Mr. Tilton's five-year contract as premature and unfair, given that United employees have taken interim pay cuts and are being asked for longer-term concessions. The flight attendants argued that, instead of stating full confidence in its CEO, United should send a message of shared sacrifice by revising or delaying the plan. To that argument, Judge Wedoff responded: "You may be right." The flight attendants said Mr. Tilton's compensation should be tied to the success of the company's restructuring.

United said the original $11.4 million pay and benefits package for Mr. Tilton -- the terms of which were lowered somewhat this week -- was "eminently reasonable" and even below market average for a company its size. Mr. Tilton got a $3 million signing bonus last September as part of a package that also included an annual salary of $950,000, $4.5 million in pension benefits, 1.15 million stock options in parent UAL, and relocation expenses.

The chairman and CEO volunteered early in United's 10-week-old bankruptcy reorganization to take an 11% pay cut, which would lower this salary to $845,500 if adopted. United didn't immediately disclose the terms of the revised package.

A spokeswoman for the flight attendants' union, Sara Nelson Dela Cruz, said the group remains fully committed to United's success "regardless of whether we agree with the judge's decision." She said the judge will have an opportunity to "balance" his decision on CEO compensation with that of employee wages when renegotiated contracts come before the court.

Judge Wedoff also sided with the company Friday in extending the ban on further sales of employee-owned stock in the airline. After hearing arguments from both United and the independent trustee for its employee stock ownership plan, State Street Bank & Trust Co., he said he would issue a new injunction blocking the sale.

United will lose what could amount to a billion-dollar tax writeoff if employee ownership falls below the 20% level it's at now.

State Street argued that employees' 12 million remaining shares could be worthless if not allowed to be sold soon. Its attorneys called United's plan for a low-cost carrier at the heart of its restructuring strategy "more an exercise in hope than in reality."

But Judge Wedoff said the tax benefit could have "very substantial significance" as an element of United's restructuring. He said employees can benefit more from a revived United than from cashing in their remaining shares, which at current value are worth about $13 million -- an average of about $170 for each of 75,000 participants, based on the company's figures.

Updated February 21, 2003 9:19 p.m. EST

A recent family experience illustrated to me some of UAL's secondary problems. Adult daughter got prices for 6 month trip, YVR to BKK. Equally price for UAL and EVA. She decided to go with EVA, whom she had never heard of.
Reasons,
1 "Why would I go thru the aggravation of paranoid US security and INS at the connecting airport?
2 US airline is more likely to attract terrorism and
3 Will they be in business for my return trip?"

Sad really!

Mr. Tilton's Income
 

Mr. Tilton is costing UAL something like $15k to $25k a day, it you count all the perks against this one year. That is a small fraction of the $9 million they lose each day. Most of us would be happy with that kind of pay, BUT ....

UAL was unable to attract a person with good airline experience for that kind of money - given that the company is likely to fail leaving a black mark on their resume. How many people will take a job that is very likely to hurt their future employment possibilites?

OneWorld22---
 

You are correct in your statement about TWA/AA being less than sweet; far from it actually. In UA's case, the last real merger they had was with Capital Airways in 1960. Over the years, they've acquired various assets and routes, such as PA routes to the far east in '85 and LHR-USA routes in '91, but no real mergers.

As far as AA/TWA, AA has furloughed 42% of TWA's pilots (up to 8 years seniority), and 50% of TWA's F/As (up to 25 years seniority). AA has only furloughed 3% of their own F/As and 4% of their own pilots, an obvious disparity. AA Pilots & F/As with only 1 or 2 years of service stay, while many TWA workers with 9,15,25 years get laid-off. Not exactly 'sweet and kindly' treatment by any means, is it?

OTOH, considering the state TWA was in, the folks that were there are lucky to have jobs at all...the ones that remain that is...:rolleyes:
The folks on the outside, will REMAIN on the outside for a very long time.

"The state TWA was in"?

You mean the 'state' AA, UA and US are in RIGHT NOW? AA will be the next victim to join other bankrupt US carriers, so what then?

Nobody has a sense of entitlement here, 411A, and nobody knows how their career will turn out until they hit age 60.

AA's current stock rice, $2.90 per share, amounts to a market cap that is LESS than the $750 million AA paid for TWA. Nothing gives AA the right to furlough only TWA people and not junior, new-hire AA people.

767 300 ER hit the nail on the head. I've wondered how the AA Pilot Merger Committee justified (other than doing an excellent job protecting the original AA pilots' jobs) such a staple of seniority lists (despite protecting some senior TWA pilots), except by using these two rationalizations;

1) TWA might not have survived more than a short while.

2) Almost blaming TWA's problems on the TWA pilots, who had for years, reduced their own salaries by 40%, in order to repair crippling cash-flow damage which was inflicted on the operation by former owner Icahn and his attorneys-all of whom had no scruples or business integrity, whatsoever. But when did Ubermenschen ever take pity on the Untermenschen: "Arbeit Macht Frei".

Using the AA Merger Committee's (who somehow also deserved to have the views of Owner-Ubermenschen, as they gazed down to their fellow pilots....) logic before 9/11, they are (or were) entitled to a self-righteous, unashamed attitude because they previously WERE a relatively healthy airline. Ironically, TWA's Merger Committee, partly due to strong impatience and pressure on the part of Icahn for quick merger results, did a somewhat similar thing to Ozark Airlines in the 90s, which consisted of DC-9s.

B767300ER,

The AA crews I talked with at LHR were absolutely stunned when AA management announced the buyout of the 3X BK'ed TWA. All they wanted to know was why. It made absolutely no sense at all. Now in hindsight, it may be the final straw that breaks AA's back.

I think I can trace the inception UAL's problem back to 1994 when they failed to grant me an interview when I had 2,000 hours heavyjet PIC, and another 500 instructor hours. They hired a female colleague I had tried to train with 600 hours who never would learn to fly. I went elsewhere. They lost my contribution (thank God), and I suspect this type of logic led to other missteps company-wide.

Ignition Override: Thanks for your comments. One error, though, and it is a very popular misconception: Ozark pilots, numbering 500+ or so flying only DC-9/MD80s, were NOT stapled. They were ALL given their DATE-OF-HIRE, for pay and bidding purposes. They were also restricted from bidding B-747/767/L1011 as Captain for a short while, for obvious reasons, and then allowed to bid 16% of the Captain bids until the last OZ pilot could hold Wide-Body Captain. This TWA/OZ merger did NOT result in the overwhelming furlough of more than half of the OZ pilots, nor the loss of any seats/bids/routes or domiciles they brought to the marraige. AA has taken EVERYTHING TWA brought for themselves, and furloughed 65% of TWA's employees. Not in any way, shape or form comparable to TWA/OZ.

About AA pilots being amazed at purchasing TWA, if it was'nt for that buyout, over 2000 of AA's pilots would have been laid-off; right now, only 386 out of 11,200 have been. They should count their lucky stars AA bought TWA, or thousands of their employees would be on the street.

Oh trust me B767300ER we to a man would have rather seen TWA die a natural death and take our chances with lady luck vs. having this TWA albatross around our neck.

It doesn’t take a Harvard MBA to know it is better to have money in the bank then have another anchor on a sinking ship. Under the current conditions I’ll take more cash, less planes, one less hub, and one less airline to share the sky with.

>>They hired a female colleague I had tried to train with 600 hours who never would learn to fly. I went elsewhere. They lost my contribution (thank God), and I suspect this type of logic led to other missteps company-wide.<<

Well, in fairness to UAL, they were under a court ordered EEOC settlement for many years that required "affimative action" since the pilot force lacked "diversity". As practiced in the U.S., diversity implies people other than straight European males of non-hispanic origin. Every major airline has a diversity comittee of some form and has an obligatory statement of a commitment to diversity and preference for diverse suppliers, for example:

http://www.ual.com/page/article/0,,1365,00.html

http://www.ual.com/page/middlepage/0,1454,50126,00.html

http://www.aacareers.com/diversity.htm

http://www.nwa.com/corpinfo/profi/supplier.shtml/

UAL had a double quota system, if five percent of their applicants were female, they had to hire ten percent until the overall pilot force was five percent. After a decade or so the requirements were met and the court order was lifted.

Diversity is still a somewhat novel concept in Europe but like a lot of things that start in the U.S. (e.g. alcohol testing, locked cockpit doors) it is starting to come ashore.

Looking at it as an outsider
 

Whilst not able to respond directly to this forum, I feel that I may also be able to add some alternative input.

Having been employed as a Corporate travel agent for over 30 years - that must be approaching a record! - I am amazed at the lack of expertise shown by UAL's reservations staff in Europe. Calls from the UK are put through to a call centre in Ireland, and taken by staff who appear only able to answer a question that the computer is programmed to serve. As happens with so many companies, they go for a 'call centre enviroment' where staff with no deep knowledge of the product are employed in order to take as many calls as quickly as a windows driven system will process.

Ask any questions with regards to fares and other intricate matters and you will be asked to hold, for more than a few minutes, and then fed an answer to your question. The answer has obviously come from a 3rd party, because if you then query the response you are again placed on hold yet again and the whole process is repeated. At no time are you able to speak to anybody with experience.

The end result of this is that traffic is being directed away from UAL to those airlines who are able to give a proper and accurate answer within a short timescale. To take 45 minutes to arrange a ticket on departure for a 5-sector itinerary is an embarressment to UAL and a definate turn-off for any agent.

I hope for the sake of everybody that UAL do survive, but I also hope that they will be fully supported by experienced staff in all departments. This will go a long way to rebuild confidence in the product.

Thank you for allowing me to have my rant and I now, as a 'professional on the ground', hand back over to the 'professionals in the air'.

Scottie Dog

767-300errrrr:

what utter hogwash, and you know it....
the reports I've seen by financial institutions unrelated to this fiasco indicate that all the purchase of TWA did for AA was to saddle it with an extra 2 billion in debt, and require an immediate 1 billion goodwill write-off. Not remotely like the Ozark situation, as you say....

PS. Why did AA have over 500 TWA applicants on file prior to the purchase, if TWA was doing so splendidly; why were those applicants happy to start at the bottom of the seniority list if they'd been called for interview? Hmmmmm....

You must think the European readers of this were born yesterday.:mad:

B767300ER: Pardon my faulty memory about the Ozark merger. I had forgotten the basic situation about the use of date-of-hire etc. My "good friend" who was with TWA (who acknowledged the rough deal for so many Ozark pilots) retired there about eight years ago.

Without the 9/11 catastrophe, could AA have digested TWA?

Although I should have admitted this, I can somewhat understand the AA Merger Committee's view, i.e., that any fairly secure future jobs for TWA pilots with a major airline could be considered very fortunate. But in my opinion, it would have still made me a bit uncomfortable to have used that as the main rationale for certain arbitration scenarios, were I to have had any input.
:O


acb4u: out of respect for the United employees, it would be nice if the title of this topic could be more tactful than the crude phrase "deathwatch", as if it were the very old Frankish king Charlemagne in the Dark Ages.

Affirmative action not only hurt the pilot's group but all departments of UAL. To ignore the best qualifed and productive applicant and be forced to hire second rate and lower just because of political correctness is going to cost big time.

The end of the gravy train...
 

Notice that the American Airlines pilots' union (APA) has rejected a report indicating that AA will file for bankruptcy in May...and Northwest has told their ALPA pilots that wages and benefits/pensions could well be rolled back to 1996 levels.

Would expect many are still in a severe state of denial, but will have to face the music at some point...there is a sea change taking place in the airline industry in the USA, make no mistake.

Tough times ahead for many...management certainly included.

More drivel from a alleged US expert.

There was no "report" 411A. The paper somehow came across a private email from the local DFW rep sent to the members of his base. These were the thoughts of this rep only. He doesn't know any more than what is publicly known already, which I'll agree isn't good to say the least.


Most of my fellow AA pilots are not in any state of denial 411A. Any group this large will still have a vocal few though, which is not suprising since some always are, like in your case where you think FO's like flying with you.