Latest Carnage

Three reports caught my eye this week...

1) Express Jet is officially pulling the plug on their point-to-point services after Labor Day. They also were informed that Delta was pulling the plug on their services out of LAX, so this is a huge hole in their operating plan.

Ironically, all this comes a few weeks after they spurned an offer from SkyWest as not being a fair market valuation. It's not quite on the level of Kerry Skeen's misjudgement when Mesa was trying to buy up Atlantic Coast, but it's pretty darn close on the "Doh!" scale.

2) Midwest Airlines is grounding their MD80 fleet, taking some B717's out of service, and essentially laying of 50% of their employees. To add insult to injury, they've decided to re-baseline their pilot and flight attendant base rates against RJ operators like American Eagle, Skywest, and Republic. As a result, they're asking for pay cuts of between 25% and 40% depending on seniority and workgroup...

Yikes.

It might be more advantageous to be furloughed and collect unemployment, which is based on the pre-separation salary...

Speaking of "Doh!"... Had Airtran won the bidding war for Midwest, it's hard to say whether or not this would have still come to pass. Certainly the MD80 fleet would have been in jeopardy, but there might have been a little more job security for the employees. Then again, Airtran just announced that they're looking to furlough approx. 5% of their existing employees.

3) Rumor has it (but hasn't been confirmed) that Virgin America is considering a restructuring as well, and will become more of a short-haul carrier with less of a focus on the transcon market. Good news for Jetblue and other legacy carriers flying transcons, but I'm not sure it's wise. Great amenties like live TV aren't as important on a one hour flight... Plus, they're competing against Southwest and United in a lot of the remaining short-haul markets.

New toy

My somewha+ trust HP laptop wen+ on The fritz thIs past weeK, So I decided t0 rePLACe i+ W1+h a tab1@t PC. it's no+ as easy as it looks to do +he handwriTing ...

Fortunately, the keyboard was easier to use...

It's an HP as well -- 2710p -- but the form factor is a lot smaller than the other HP notebooks. It's quite similar to the old Toshiba Portege I had at AMR several years ago.

Obviously, the tablet feature is why I selected this -- it works pretty well when you have a tray table leaning down in your lap, and it also functions pretty well for meetings, in that you can run a presentation on the desk, flip the screen around, or use the tablet for drawing out stuff which would otherwise be lost on a whiteboard.

Battery life is advertised for four plus hours, which I'll test out later this week. Other cool features include a built in webcam, a keyboard light that's also built into the lid, and a port replicator that is lunchmeat thin -- to the extent that even attached, it's smaller than the laptop it replaced.

Price tag? Including the port replicator and extra battery, it came to approx $2000. A little more than I planned to pay, but the extra functionality will pay for itself.

Asleep at the switch....

Last month, AA suspended eight mechanics for sleeping on the job. Apparently, the guys from Corporate Security walked into a locker room, and the rest is history.

Three of the mechanics were allowed to retire. The other five have now lost their jobs.

When I worked for AA, it was pretty clear: no sleeping, loafing, or other intentional restriction of output. Getting caught was usually pretty serious, and last months action proves that this is still alive and well.

Now, there are guys in the TWU calling for their members to work to rule:

LGA Mechanic Terminations

Brothers and Sisters:

This week 5 very senior mechanics based at LGA were terminated for sleeping while on duty. These mechanics were professionals and dedicated to American Airlines. They were fired for doing something that was against company regs, but was knowingly allowed by management to continue unabated for many, many years. Essentially, this practice was a benefit to both parties involved. In light of that, I feel that these terminations were unfair and will be vigorously defended in arbitration.

In regards to this and other recent similar cases, we must accept that the Company has changed, and in order to survive, so must we. The company has placed a renewed emphasis on rules and regulations. Some of these changes are welcome, and must be embraced by us. In a recent article of the "Daily Maintenance News Line" Executive VP Bob Reding is quoted as saying "We will not compromise safety at the expense of on-time performance, dependability , or any other operational performance measurement." I urge everyone to consider these words. Our work environment is no longer what it once was. We can no longer be so cavalier about rules and regulations, no matter how cumbersome they may be. I believe that no one can better change this environment that we work in but ourselves. It is up to us to accomplish this. Familiarize yourself with the GPM, especially chapter 13, "SAFETY." Remember, compliance with the GPM and other rules and regulations is a requirement of your job and your license. Use the maintenance manuals and work cards. Do not accept lack of time for not doing a job properly. It is not acceptable. Work safely and protect yourself. Work professional and protect your career. Anything less is unacceptable.

Sincerely,

John Iuliano
Pete Corabi
Angel Colon
Mark Hnat
Dan Knasick
Joe Urso
Angelo Ragucci

IF they manage to pull it off, it could get ugly. And, before all is said and done, I could see more people getting fired for crossing even an inch over the line of working to rule and "intentionally restricting output" as AA puts it in their rules and regulations.

Friday the 13th

The cuts have already started at United... This week, at least two Vice Presidents, several directors, and dozens of managers & analysts received their pink slips... This being a Friday, I'd expect to hear of more. And no, it won't all be over today. Some departments at UAL won't know until the 23rd.

From what friends at UAL are saying, some departments are being left totally in the dark, and others are getting full top-bottom communication... To those at UAL, I wish you well. Being let go en masse is never good. Being one of those left behind can be just as difficult.

Pass Me The Remote...

Time to do some channel surfing... life in the airline industry has become just too damn depressing.

Battlestar Galactica is just a few episodes away from what should be the finale, and it's been full of twists and turns... Whodathunk that Cylons and Humans would be fighting side by side?... Can't wait for the end.

E.R. closed the books on their 14th season, and it was quite the cliff-hanger of a finale. Almost on the same level as the Sopranos finale... Who was in the ambulence? Was Abby clear of the blast? We might not know for sure until the fall, but I certainly didn't expect them to be killing off cast members...

The Office... where do I start? We managed to watch all of the previous seasons' episodes, and it's now one of my favorites, if for no reason other than the fact that I can relate with just about every character in the show. Except Dwight.

Ice Road Truckers finally showed up this past week. Turned out they did find another road up on the Arctic Circle, driving up the frozen McKenzie River and across the Arctic Ocean. They've only aired one episode so far, but I don't know that it's going to have the traction the first season did.

Other stuff finding its way on the Seasons Pass... Jesse discovered "Law and Order" which has to be one of the best shows ever created. What's a little funny is that TBS has all the reruns, and twice this week I found episodes several seasons apart which were more or less the same plot with different characters. Guess that's gonna happen, and even E.R. has fallen into that trap... but when you've been on the air for 15 years, I guess they've earned the right to retreads once in a while...

And for family programming? Malcolm In The Middle. Downright funny... a little risque perhaps but most of the jokes fly right over the kids' heads...

Island Air Gets Smart...

OK, I have to admit, when I saw on the DOT docket that Island Air was bidding for EAS routes using Dash-8's, I was a little perplexed.

How on Earth did they figure they'd be able to make money flying a 30+ seater in markets where Mesa, undoubtedly one of the lower cost outfits around, was unable to make it work with 19 seaters?

Well, today, Island Air came to their senses and announced that they were declining the contract, and sticking to their core business of flying inter-island routes in Hawaii. Now, if you'd told me that they were branching into SJU or the Caribbean, perhaps that would have made a little more sense. But flying the corn routes in Nebraska?

One by one, the carriers flying EAS service have been walking away from it. In Big Sky and Air Midwest's case, they had to cease operations to rid themselves of the albatros known as Federally subsidized air service.

Getting into the EAS arena would have probably caused them to bleed even heavier than they probably already are being caught between Go! and Hawaiian...

EAS's time has come and gone, and it's time for Congress to let it go for good.

Another Shutdown?

Another casualty in the Cargo arena...

Last week it was ABX and Astar. This week, we heard that Tradewinds just furloughed 70% of its total staff, and is shutting down their B747 operations. I've heard immediate shutdown, and I've heard June 30th. Regardless, it's a considerable impact to an airline their size. No word yet on their A300 North American operation.

Tradewinds (headquartered in GSO) has been a niche player in cargo for almost 40 years, previously flying DC-8's and L1011's, and now operating a thirsty fleet of five 747-200F's and six A300-B4's. Domestically, they were flying out of Aguadilla, PR to IND, BDL, GSO and DFW. They also had some MIA-SJU service. Internationally, they were doing ACMI flying for between Shanghai and BOS/JFK, and Almaty, Kazakhstan to Warsaw via Luxemburg and Dubai.

Total damage? 80 pilots furloughed, with 35 remaining employed to fly the A300 operation. Teamsters were certified as their bargaining agent back in March, but it doesn't appear they had a contract just yet. This isn't going to help things much.

Granted, they're a small player, but they've been around a very, very long time in airline years.

[updated 6/8 with furlough numbers]