Enough of the United Doom-Sayers
 

I don't know about you all but I've had enough of the doom-sayers, I see more posts about "the end" on forums than I do in Melbourne City at night from the hardcore religious folk. Undoubtedly, things look bad. Pay cuts, pension reduction, yes, these ARE bad things. But to say that those two things are the sole reason that UA will fall is a little unreasonable.

Look at the changes and updates they've made. The 744 N196UA was repainted at the end of last year. I would imagine that the cost to repaint an entire aircraft (let alone a 747) wouldn't be cheap. Sure, it looked a little tired, but of ALL the things the airline could spend money on, why would it pay to have a plane done up so that it can be sold/repossessed within a year?

Next, look at p.s., Premium Service. According to the UA website, that was launched in October 2004. Why would you reconfigure enough aircraft to service 26 flights a day (6 each way between LAX-JFK, 7 each way between SFO-JFK: Star Alliance Electronic Timetable: April 23,2005) if you were expecting to go down the tubes, again, within a year?

Next to the Wi-Fi rumours, which Fly, a member of this very forum believes to be a very real possibility, with expected completion date of 2006. 2006! That's certainly not the end of June deadline some doom-sayers are predicting! Whether or not the wi-fi thing is fact isn't the point, the fact that there's even talk of it shows to a certain degree that the airline is planning on sticking around.

Finally, there is mention of a target date for coming out of Chapter 11. In the article, Judge approves end of United pension plans, it is reported that United is looking for a fall deadline to coming out of Chapter 11 bankruptcy. In my experience, companies just don't pull dates out of a hat, they wouldn't say that if they didn't think there was a decent/moderate chance of them actually doing so. What could they gain by lying anyway? Fall isn't that far away, four months isn't a long time to turn around a company as large as UA, so there must be something going on in the mix.

In conclusion, I don't think United are going to fall, at least, not any time soon. I mean, they're repainting, refitting, restructuring, it doesn't really sound like they're lying back and letting their world just fall apart. I plan on flying with UA at the end of the year, and I'm extremely looking forward to the whole experience. Every company has rough times, and these have been pretty damn rough, but I do remain a little optimistic that they're going to pull through. It's just frustrating that when you go to a forum about UA it's all "UA's going to crash, this is the end", way to scare off potential customers! I myself was almost going to call up my travel agent and ask to start looking at alternatives for my trip until I sat down and really thought about what's going on. Telling people who are thinking of flying UA that the end is nigh is going to steer them away from the airline, and this will ultimately be the end of United.

Look at the profiles. A lot of them are AAnoying AA flyers :).

I used to be pretty pessimistic, but especially with this pension transfer to the PBGC, things are starting to look pretty good. Way back before the ch. 11 filing, I held on to my MP miles, although I thought a lot about moving them to Hilton Honors. I'm glad I held on to them.

I totally agree with you.

I have enough miles to be concerned about losing them, and future flights ticketed. I am not looking to change anything in the short term. And I remember the end of AN!

Hehehe, that's probably it, magician ;)

But to me, American doesn't seem that great, I'm more excited about jumping on a JetBlue plane than an AA one. I guess I can't see all the hype from 13,000 kilometres away :p

oy-
Or rather than look at profiles, perhaps some just assess the reality of it all.
There are others of use who dont faWN over an airline. We see it as a means of COnveyance and pick whoever can get US where we need to be quickly. Some of us wish that we could up and fly to CXN just to accumulate miles or stAAtus. In the end some folks here are getting mushy and defensive over a marketing program and some abstract brand ideal......

The end of AN :( I keep a plastic model AN 743 and 767 (not sure which model) on my chest of drawers.

That was exactly my point. :)

I felt much the same earlier this year when I started this thread - http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=394760. :)

um...excuse me? When UA filed for Chapter 11 - they said they would be coming out of bankruptcy in 6 months, which would have been the summer of 2002. Then I heard fall, etc. Looks like they have been pulling dates out of a hat since they filed!

As far as what do they have to gain by lying? Maybe keeping customers? I don't think I would call it lying. I would call it wishful thinking out loud on their part.

Is a business plan in place or been accepeted by the court yet? I don't think so.

Unless one of the union work groups strike soon, it will take a while for UA to fall down the tubes. It took Eastern, Pan AM, and TWA, a very long time to fold.

Keep an eye on long mechanicals, or crew delays, etc on your flights. I have heard Chaos is starting already and most people haven't even realized it yet.

Note: This is not a personal attack, just Unions tend to get me fired up :P

Chaos just doesn't make any sense. Do they realise that if they do that they're going to bring about the collapse of their organisation that they're allegedly trying to improve? And isn't the word going around that if they do walk out on their jobs then don't come back?

It's better for a business to run at a loss in the short run with a plan to pick up in the long run, than to just cease operating. Same goes for employees, it's better to have a job with crap pay than it is to have no jobs. What do they think they'll do when they have no jobs?

And it's not like striking is going to make management change their decisions anyway. You strike to influence impending decisions, not to whinge about ones already made. Take for example the University students protesting the HECS increases last year. They lobbied and protested and did all they could to stop the Government from deregulating fees, the Government did it anyway, and no more was heard about it. Why? Sure, they're still not happy with the outcome but there's nothing that can be done about it.

Then, get into the minds of the UA workers. You've got those who say "I'm loyal to UA, so I'm going to strike to make it better". If you're loyal to UA, it's unfortunate but you're just going to have to put up with it until your business comes out of bankruptcy. You've then got those people who think "It's just a job", well, you strike and the odds are against you of keeping that job. Then there are those who reckon they could just as easily get a job with someone else, then get the hell out and go and take that job! What United needs is a loyal workforce who's going to stand by them thick and thin, and I know it's easy to say as it's not my pay or my retirement that's being cut, I do acknowledge how unbelievably awful that must be, but... it's just necessary. Would you rather UA just stopped trying? Then you're out of a job and a future anyway! This way, you still have a job and a retirement fund, but it's just less. Isn't less better than none?

Want to know why unions are threatening to strike?

http://www.unitedafa.org/res/chaos/prez_20050509.asp

Hey, I get that upper management sounds like a total bunch of <creative obscenity, let your imagination run wild>, I think I read on a forum that Tilton is the highest paid CEO of all America-based airlines! A failing ("ING", i said failING, not failed) airline has the highest paid CEO really doesn't make much sense.

But seriously, striking, though technically the only "legal" action they can take themselves isn't going to do anything! Who's going to win that battle though? Strike, you get fired. Everyone strikes, company goes down, management go down, you go down. No matter if it's one or all, the strikers and in a large enough scale, those who don't participate, are going to end up in a lose-lose situation.

They're going to lose out anyway, but my point from before is isn't it better to lose some than all, isn't less better than none?

The news of the courts agreement has been the lead story on the BBC World Service Business Section this morning. This is hardly going to encourage people to fly United.
I do not know how many of you remember the 'Summer of Discontent' when the UA pilots did a 'sick-out' because they did not think that the UA Management was acting properly in their pay talks. It was CHAOS! Flights cancelled at 10 minutes notice and cost UA a lot of passengers and revenue.
If the Flight Attendants go ahead with this action it will be even more serious in impact and I have to say may well kill United.
Unless UA have other properly trained flight attendants waiting in the wings this action will mean days of disruption, loss revenue, bad PR etc. That really cannot help their case very much. Either legally or in the eyes of customers.
I am a loyal UA person (UGS, 1K, 1M), but how can I take a risk by flying them now?

I fly UA only on personal trips now as I still would like to make 1K for 2006. My company has discouraged UA flights for a while now so I follow whatever the travel department says it's best and I am rarely on UA when flying full-fare on my company's dime. Willfully ignoring the risks is doing yourslef a disservice. While it's nice to see them repainting aircrafts, planning on WiFi etc., those cosmetic stuff could wait. If they don't deal head-on with the pressing labor relation problems, Tilton may as well install the WiFi equipments in his basement as there will be no flying planes to put them on. No matter if you support the union or not, the truth is bad labor relation brings bad publicity. The press likes to sensationalize these sorts of things, and I am especially concerned that some in politics (Democrats mostly) are already sniffing around to score points on the pension issues.