IStream

http://seattle.bizjournals.com/seatt...html?ana=yfcpc

deelmakur

Two things to consider. These people are likely from the ranks of folks available at terminals, to help when things go wrong, like baggage, cancellations, etc. You don't see them every time you fly, but you will notice their absence. Secondly, 80 doesn't sound like a lot, but if they are all managers, that's a pretty sizeable number, given that Alaska is a relatively small carrier (smallest of the majors, I believe). Lastly, if they are so expendable, how did that clever senior management allow the place to get so fat? They've been cutting everything but the toilet paper for over a year.

ClassCAir

Its about a 5% cut. Roughly in line with ASM's. Not too much fat there.

ANC

The more I think on this, I think a lot of these cuts are part of the reason we are seeing several red eye routes go to days in SEA and ANC. They can cut some night shift management and just put these same flights under some day manager already working. You know....cut a night crew....and make a day crew do the work of 2 crews and try to keep up. Therefore late departures, more lost luggage, more damaged luggage, etc....Fun for all!

jackal

I'm guessing there's no hoping for the ANC BR to stay open later to cover all the red-eyes if they disappear, then...

3Cforme

5% of what? Are you claiming that Alaska has 1600 mid-level managers?

Alaska Air Group Inc. is laying off about 80 mid-level managers this month, a further effort to cut costs in response to rising fuel prices.

sxf24

Most of these cuts are not at the airport. "Corporate" is running increasingly tight, since management actually realizes the folks on the front line are the ones who serve the customers.

AS Flyer

A majority of the folks that are being cut are not front line folks. They've cut 5 people in my department so far, none of which were front line people, rather behind the scenes support for our group. They are just reallocating their work to other folks.

deelmakur

Even more reason to wonder why it was allowed to get that fat.

EIPremier

I don't know anything about the staff layoffs, but I would just hope that AS has seen fit to maintain full staffing in terms of any folks responsible for ensuring that the airline runs reliably and punctually. Certainly, based on the numbers I've seen, operational performance during summer 08 was significantly better than summer 07 (better on-time performance and completion, and about a 50% reduction in mishandled baggage claims). I can only hope they can continue to sustain improvements in this regard.

The airline has "shrunk" a little bit over the past year, particularly in terms of total number of flights operated (down by about 5%), so I would think they'd be able to absorb the impact of some minor staff cutbacks without anything being obvious to customers.

EIPremier

Just to clarify, the ASMs (available seat miles) are still up slightly (July 07 to July 08) due to the increased average stage length (more longer flights, such as the new flights to Hawaii, and the loss of some short flights, like sfo-san, sna-oak). Fewer flights with a greater average distance resulting in a small increase in available seat miles.

July 2008 traffic/operations press release

sxf24

Well, a larger company with a focus on growth requires more people. Duh.

IStream

It's not necessarily fat, but can be considered analogous to having extra planes available...You can do without them until things start to go wrong and then you have to cancel flights because you can't substitute equipment, etc. With personnel cutbacks, I would expect to see the established operations fail badly when things start to go wrong as opposed to service degrading gracefully as stresses mount.

missydarlin

5% of all management

maokh

I find RPM's a completely irrelevant number. Not all miles are created equal.

A 100 mile flight can command several dollars average per mile and be profitable, while a longer, more competitive route may make just a few cents per mile. Why should the airline even be focused on increasing RPM?

You could ultimately add a bunch of loss leader 2500-3000 mile flights, bump up the RPM to great hights, and make the company look like is doing better. er....wait a minute...AS did recently start flying to the east coast...hmmm..

AS cutting jobs looks good on paper and good to investors, but at the cost of firing people lately, you almost might break even. I can think of a dozen different ways to free up $400k a month in operational costs....and getting rid of people wouldn't be one of them...

With every dollar per barrel increase effectively translating to millions/year in fuel costs, firing a couple guys working at airline salaries seems hardly worthwhile.