yogi

From December 22 until the end of February IAD-PEK is Thu-Sun, and PEK-IAD is Fri-Mon. Not terribly shocking given a slowdown in the world economy and the Olympic rush is over.

FWAAA

Fair enough. The AMR operating loss (excluding special items) was $189 million. Slightly larger than UA, but hardly meaningful against $6 billion of revenue.

DELLAS

Fuel Hedge Losses Further Proof of Misdirection of Airline- Board of Directors Campaign Launched

Chicago, Ill., October 21, 2008-- United Airlines’ announced $779 million loss for the third quarter, $519 million attributable to poor fuel hedges, is yet another example of incompetence and lack of fiscal responsibility by its CEO and his executives, according to the pilots of United Airlines.

http://www.glenntilton.com/

mahasamatman

Are these the same pilots who continually cajoled Tilton to start hedging and called him incompetent for not doing it? More idiotic union posturing.

henny

So United is going to open some hamburger stands???

ryan182

No I think it was foreshadowing the new meal enhancement for all the upgraders in domestic C

freshairborne

Do you really believe that United hadn't been hedging fuel for a long time, and Tilton was cajoled into it? Tilton would say "black" if anyone told him "red". He doesn't want advice from nor listen to anything the unions tell him. Only thing worse than someone who thinks they're right is someone who knows they're right.

The "idiotic union posturing" is the only ONLY thing that keeps this airline safe. Not the FAA, NTSB, ATA, or, especially, managers who focus on money over YOUR safety. The unions are responsible for the level of safety that our passengers have. You might find some interesting facts regarding ALPA at alpa.org. It's main purpose is airline safety, and it is the watchdog for all the agencies whom purport to have your safety in the air as their priority.

Have a safe trip

Freshairborne

Ripper3785

While I generally am a proponent of aircrew unions, much of what you say here is ridiculous. Sure, ALPA has gone to bat over safety issues before. And good on them for that. What does berating Tilton regarding fuel hedges have to do with passenger safety? If the union could 'posture' using more logical arguments, they'd be a lot less idiotic. In other words, if you're going to claim management is sacrificing safety for money, use THAT argument(with specific examples) instead of calling Tilton out on hedging expensive fuel that he didn't know would go down in price.

I still believe Glenn's Gotta Go, but GET REAL.

ryan182

Wow someone better go tell all the people flying SkyWest and JetBlue how risky that is!! Gosh never realized how dangerous flying on either of those especially given all the people that surely have died on those non-ALPA, non-union airlines.......ohhhhhh ya er never mind.

It is pure posturing, I love the whole "oil man" garbage, if he or any of the evil people that aren't part of your "brotherhood" could tell the future on oil prices they'd be on a yacht somewhere warm with blue water and with an umbrella in their drink.

The fact is many "smart" people thought oil was going towards the high 100's, the $200 figure was tossed around quite a bit and had Iran or Israel got frisky it might have. Just about every airline got burned on oil futures, even fuel hedge king WN had to write down something like $2B on their hedges.

cepheid

Before the mods jump in, might I recommend that people refrain from arguing about unions, union-related rhetoric, or whether unions are "better" than management? Almost every thread with such discussion usually ends up locked in short order. This thread is about the conference call; union discussion should be done in a thread about unions. I'd rather not see this thread locked...

freshairborne

I think you misunderstood my post. My point is that the unions spend a whole lot more time and effort on their main priority, which is air safety, than on trying to tell Tilton how to buy airplane gas.

Here's one example of money that could be better spent on safety of flight. I fly a small corporate jet as a sideline occasionally. It is 30 years old, and has the original round dial cockpit instruments, but it's owner has paid for it to be equipped with weather detection and avoidance avionics and real-time weather uplink capability that far exceeds the capability of our planes. The thing is tiny and cramped inside the cockpit, but I'd rather be in it than any of United's planes when navigating around nasty weather. United says they want to put some of this stuff in our planes, but they don't do it because it costs too much.

Another one, a big one that all flight crew advocacy groups (how's that for apolitical?) are constantly focused on, is flight crew duty times. It is costly for any company to keep enough pilots and flight attendants on staff to eliminate fatigue issues, but fatigue is a huge issue, and it directly correlates to safety of flight. I recently flew a month where I had a 5 day trip, then one day off, another 5 day trip, two days off, another 5 day trip, one day off, then 3 days of simulator training and checking.

That particular issue is something that is something that is constantly being contested, and it's very one-sided. It's ALPA and other pilot advocacy groups vs. everyone else. I hope everyone else loses that battle, and I don't have to work under those conditions forever.

These by no means the only examples I can think of.

Freshairborne

ALPA and the other pilot unions all share safety related data amongst themselves and all other pilot and flight operations groups, so everyone benefits. Flight safety information isn't something any of us withhold from one another for any reasons, political or otherwise, so fear not, when you fly on Skywest, you are enjoying the air safety knowledge and experience that is a product of all pilot groups.

Freshairborne

woodway

Nobody was predicting oil at $70/bbl back when the hedges were put in place. If oil had gone to $150/bbl (or higher) as many predicted at the time, management would be looking good. They took a shot at hedges and the market went the wrong way. Impossible to predict.

I am not a big fan of the UA management team, mainly because of the caveman way they handle labor relations, but IMHO taking shots at them for fuel hedges is uncalled for.

iluv2fly

What he said. This is your one and only warning.

iluv2fly
Moderator, UA

spin88

eagerly awairing US's numbers tomorrow but UA beat the street, and important for those of us with miles invested in it, looks good to survive for now, not bad overall

The hedges are a real problem, but yes, its a form of gambling, lots of airlines did it, and perhaps need to be competative.

what we need is a policy in the us which (with standby taxes or something) plus contols on speculation keeps the cost of fuel relatively stable so that businesses can properly plan.

The auto industry, airline industry, etc can't survive with fuel doing the type of yo yo movement.

Edit: to answer my own question: US lost $246M, load up .2%, PRASM up 4.6% (lowest of the legacies).

DogHead

UA could have posted much lower losses if over $0.5M wasn't thrown at lobbying activities.
"United Airlines spent $550,000 lobbying during the third quarter on energy issues, passenger rights legislation and more, according to a disclosure form filed this week."
Full story: http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2008/...ap5601765.html