JAZZ may be liquidated
 

According to reports in this morning's FINANCIAL POST, members of the Teamsters at JAZZ who have been given an additional few days to vote, have been told by their union that if they reject the new contract, the AC subsidiary will be removed from the restructuring package and turned over to a Bankruptcy Trustee for liquidation. AC would be preapred to emerge from CCAA in September without its regional carrier, according to the strategy. Hardball time...

Oooh... I wonder who's going to call who's bluff... Wow, this sucks.

It would be interesting if Jazz were on the block. Without the teamster factor, perhaps Jazz might have value as a going concern (even without it's major customer).


1d

So Jazz pays for AC's managerial corruption and incompetence. AC alienated it's own own workers, refuses to clean up it's act, and then makes the rank and file pay. If I were Jazz, I wouldn't cry about this. At the rate AC management is going, they'll emerge from bancruptcy protection in September, be back under it in October, and be out of business in December. They're building on a foundation made of Swiss cheese.
So, Parnel, tell us, who are the thugs now?

Here is the fleet as of Apr 04 as taken from the Jazz website

FLEET
Aircraft Type No. in Service Capacity:
BAe 146 5 76 passengers
5 77 passengers
Dash 8-100 48 37 passengers
Dash 8-300 26 50 passengers
Bombardier CRJ 10 50 passengers

Does Jazz lease or own the majority of the aircraft?

hmmm..no Jazz means no AC in many eastern US cities - no? Of course without Jazz there would be no impact on the AC business plan - right? Forge ahead without Jazz and all the creditors involved in the restructuring will be happy - right? Who are these guys kidding?

On a recent Jazz flight a deadheading FA and the FA working the flight were discussing the package they were to vote on since they both had received their hard copies. They mentioned all the "surprises that their union had, up to this point, forgotten to tell them about". Having overheard that and seeing the poor turn out for the vote leave me to wonder if the poor showing and rejection of the package is as much a vote of no-confidence in the union as much as against AC and AC Mgmt.

Would this mean that some of the nasty CRJs would be liquidated at the same time? :cool:

Perhaps if this happened we would see less frequency but bigger planes back on some of the routes such as ATL, EWR, IAH, DFW, etc.

Simon

:rolleyes:

AC has to get its cost structure in line with is competition. And that means paying people akin to what the WS of the world, and very shortly, the UAs and the DLs of the world do. Period. Even if a new "pristine" management team came in and RM and his cronies were gone, the priority would be the same.

Not trying to pick sides,yet a business would look at a small percentage of workers holding up the reorganization.I would be inclined to do the same thing.(I hope my business never gets to that point)
As some point out,AC and Jazz are Connected at hip.Time for surgery?
As Shareholder points out,it is hardball time.Who will blink first???
Shades on :cool:

I was surprised when I originally posted this here
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showt...=336016&page=2
that nobody commented!

Jazz already had a pay scale far closer to WS than AC. AC could just never take advantage of it thanks to their pilots. The biggest bone of contention is a B scale pay grade which will see new hires start at a lower rate. Given that half of the 1,100 FA's are on layoff, I can't see how they'll be doing any hiring soon anyway.

Apparently some of the hardcore Western Teamsters got out to vote the 1st time and wanted to send a message to their union (some message :mad: ).

As usual blame on both sides. The union for being lazy and not getting out the vote, and management for botching the Zip issue, and not talking up potential Jazz growth opportunities in the restructured company.

acysb87, you may be using those shades to look out the big picture windows in VIA1 starting next week if this goes badly :p

It will be the big windows of my Tahoe when I drive to Toronto.
Via is a lost cause from here. :o

Independent operation?
 

I noticed that some regional flights for AC are done by Air Georgian (such as YYZ-HPN) and there are others by other operators. This apparently is not within Jazz. Could AC follow the model as with regional carriers in the US, such as Chatuaqua, that operate services for several carriers under contract with the same level of equipment as Jazz. So, could an alternative model be that the Jazz operation be disbanded and independent operators run the services under contract. It seems like a reasonable model and one that AC is already doing in some areas.