757FO

We go back to the sim for recurrent training.

Repooc17

Respectfully disagree.

With skeleton schedules running, every airline is suffering. Mileage accrual has little to do with what's happening now.

And not just in the airlines industry, I work for non-travel related global company with offices in more than 20 countries, and yet we have had salary reductions for almost every employee due to declining revenue, as well as large numbers of staff reductions.

All of this goes beyond the MileagePlus program. These are tough time for most, including UA and its workforce.

halls120

these are indeed tough times for all airlines, but when the mileage plus SVP sends us an email telling us UA would be refunding redeposit charges for cancelled award flights, and here we are almost eight weeks later and there is no refund, that doesn’t engender goodwill.

Repooc17

Personally I have had miles from award tickets redeposited instantly, and taxes/fees back on my credit card within 2-3 days, including all UA reservations. If you are getting pigeon-holed on award itineraries, I would agree that is totally customer unfriendly.

That point I had made to the other poster - travel is basically non-existent at this point, so to pin UA's financial difficulty on its FF program is unfair. We can make a better evaluation on the other side of recovery.

At any rate, these separation/reduction news are never anything you want to hear. Best of luck to everyone!

WineCountryUA

Isn't this thread about what is happening to employees, aren't there other threads for UA customer issues?

757FO

For my fleet (757/767) DEN, LAX, SFO will no longer be a base. The 75 most likely won't ever fly again, and only a subset of 767's will remain. Pretty much everything is a big question mark at the moment as to what comes this September/October (furlough or displacement) but I should be on the right side of seniority to have a somewhat soft landing. My heart goes out to my fellow crew-members who unfortunately wont.

It's amazing how quickly things can change... 120 days ago there was a pilot shortage, and we were spinning up a bunch of new hire classes. Now, 30% of our pilots will most likely be gone by end of year or sooner.... My fiance at AA is in the same boat, and also flies the 757/767, which is completely gone.

nycmarcus

In my opinion, wildly overpaid United executives are overdue to take a voluntary separation.
Their behavior is chronically ethically horrifying--including the latest maneuver to take a fortune from taxpayers and then try to stiff the employees despite conditions which forbade that until September.
If overprivileged execs don't want to quietly leave in shame at no cost (saving United and its shareholders a huge amount of cash), then there is an expression:
Lock 'em up.

WineCountryUA

You may have missed the senior folks are taking a 25-50% pay cut today and UA has announced a 30% reduction in the management ranks for October.

EWR764

Technically, no, but that's been discussed at length. Whether the conduct falls within the "spirit" of the Act is up for debate, but intention doesn't have the same legal effect as the express language.

Still, details don't really seem to matter when it comes to bashing United and its management for their handling of an unprecedented, completely exogenous situation.

uastarflyer

And just on sheer dollars this is window dressing. Even if you eliminate the top 100 paid folks at the company (all VPs and board) it’s still a horrible forecast.

But of course they should impact the leadership too.

John Aldeborgh

Pensions are not very common these days and becoming increasingly less common. They were designed for lifetime employees, which is also increasingly less common. People today need to develop the discipline to save for retirement, 401K's are only one option for how to save. I know this is an unpopular reality but it's unlikely pensions are coming back and relying on only on social security or doing nothing isn't really a good plan.

UAL757222

I feel for the UA employees who lost their pensions in 2005. But it’s a very real possibility they would’ve lost them anyway had they not been dumped to the PBGC as UA was not going to get approval for their plan of reorganization from the BK judge.

username

So, if a pilot lost his or her job with an airline, can't find a flying job for a long time and loses the certification, does it put the person at a disadvantage competing with others who are current?

If the airlines can have their pick when things pick up, they would put those who are current, right? Or, it does not matter since the pilots have to go through the training for the new airline anyway?

greenpau

The VSPs will have deal sweeteners when fully announced, and will be built off the back of what was available last month - all based on years of service on a sliding scale, including X months of continuing no-cost health coverage, X years of continuing non-revenue travel benefits at current boarding seniority for you and family, etc. In an involuntary situation in the fall, those won’t be extended or not be as generous - you’ll face expensive COBRA premiums for healthcare, and travel benefits will end except if within a few years of retirement.

What happens with FA base closures will be interesting. CLE and the new satellite bases are more certain candidates for closure. Logic would say all international bases (LHR/FRA/NRT/HKG) would go with reduced schedules, but there are economic reasons to keep them (cheaper US layovers), as well as tough severance labor laws (Germany/Japan) that make them harder to execute. I can’t see any FAs hired in the last few years post-merger making it through, regardless of base - and with them having lower comp levels than Senior FAs, the cut may be deeper to hit the number they are looking for, while increasing average flying hours for those that remain. My friends with 20 years of seniority are expecting to go back on Reserve, mostly Domestic.

Velocity of all this crazy/sad and understandably shocking to employees.

krispykrme

Come on here.

Not many companies can survive without any income for entire quarter. This is apple that makes close to 50% margin

Look at US airline industry- I know the left would like to claim billions of loan is a give away.

Look at the numbers
US airlines made $4.6B on operating revenue of $51.3B and operating expense of $44.9B.

How long can UA survive on $5B in payrol grant and loan and potentially another $4.5B loan. These ain’t free money.

This is barely enough to last 1.5 quarter (5 months) at current revenue rate. UA has already suffered or project to suffer 3.5 month by end of June.

Stop just looking at number as one number only without looking into whole picture.