Originally Posted by
EWR764
The company did not afford the payroll support to the pilots, though. The government did. So why should pilots offer a concession to the company in the form of a below market contract? Taxpayers aren’t at the table, the company is, and both parties (pilots and management) benefit from the aid.
So the airlines get bailed out, but hey, it's tax payer money, not mgmt. Got it.
You're trying to squeeze as much money as you can, weeks/months before an impending recession (some would argue we've already started one). Seems pretty basic economics that higher operating costs, higher fuel, and lower demand/capacity (Q3 onwards) means United could easily be back in the red within 12 months. So given your logic, you'll be willing to take a comparable pay cut as soon as that happens?
Originally Posted by
HNLbasedFlyer
Interesting read - seems the profit miss is largely attributed to fuel, labor (they used the word overstaffed relative to capacity), and mainline flying UAX routes with poor utilization. They seemed pretty happy with themselves operationally (and I think they should) - and they are not happy at all with Boeing. I took it as biz travel revenue at 80% from 2019 which seems high to me - and the messes at LHR are hurting things from a biz travel perspective. Obviously Asia is still a big concern.
It's an earnings call - they're not going to say we're crap at managing an airline. They put spin on anything they can to point at how well they think the airline is managed to hopefully boost the investment appetite to drive up the stock price. Every company does this. The airline industry as a whole has made a right hash of the recovery - forward thinking doesn't seem to exist.
That said, I think the 80% number is believable... and the statement about Asia not yet rebounding (believable because they're actually legally required to tell the truth!). Based upon my (highly unscientific) travel of the past 12 months - no real concerns with travel to Europe at the moment (conveniently ignoring Mr. Putin's world dominance ambitions). Yet Asia lags 6-12 months behind in opening things up...I've done one Asia trip in the past 12 months, whereas in 2019 I did 5 transpacs. On the flip side I've done more Europe trips than in 2019... The company I work for has probably 2-3 thousand ppl flying domestically every week. The bubble is the summer leisure travel which by definition will drop off after August.
Operationally they should NOT feel happy with themselves... embarrassed would seem more appropriate.