United Airlines on Wednesday asked a federal judge to stop four pilots and their union from abusing sick time and refusing to fly extra hours, saying illegal job actions have caused hundreds of cancellations.
The injunction request accuses the Air Line Pilots Association of encouraging a sick-out, which is not allowed under the Railway Labor Act, the labor law governing airlines. It also said pilots were refusing to pick up extra flying.
A Posher Domestic First Class
United Sells Space
And Comfy Beds
On ‘p.s.’ Flights
July 29, 2008; Page D3
Take a Boeing 757, remove 40% of the seats and give customers lots more room, better food and flat beds. Does that sound like a typical recipe at a U.S. airline these days?
Hardly, but that’s exactly what UAL Corp.'s United Airlines did with two of its busiest, most-important routes, and last year they were the best routes financially for the airline in the country.
In late 2004, United launched an experiment converting all its flights between New York and Los Angeles and New York and San Francisco into a premium service it calls United p.s. With p.s. flights, half of the entire cabin is devoted to first- and business-class seats, and the space offered to passengers is close to what you get on premium international offerings. (P.s. has the only domestic lie-flat bed in first class.)
Some of the things airline pilots unions have been doing are so comical, and accomplish nothing except to show their apparent bitterness toward management.
I bet if you go to what ever airport you happen to be close to and find an employee from any airline and just ask them if they are happy with how things are at their airline? With the exception of WN you’d probably hear a “No!”. The airline high archy do not care what it takes, as long as long as they get paid. Yes airline Captains make a ton of money, and sometimes even I wish some of them should shut the hell up and be happy, but then if you take their pay and compare it to the CEO, CFO…it is still chump change.
Front line airline workers are always the ones asked to take it on the chin when times get tough. EVERY airline caters to their pilots union:
If the airlines didn’t have these guys happy they wouldn’t be able to screw the rest they need to screw. The pilots need to hurry up and fly the pissed off people away from the pissed off gate agent who didn’t upgrade their seat, the bag handler who may not have loaded their bag, so the pissed of passanger can get to their point “B” and find out their bag is still sitting where they got on, and “It might be in sometime this evening and we’ll get it to you sometime in the a.m.”. Yes I’ve even heard that one.
This labor vs. high brass is as simple as the story of the brain the heart and the asshole. For the purpose of this story, the “Brain” will be the CFO’s… the “Heart” the stock holders and “The assholes” the front line labor.
Once upon a time the brain, heart and asshole were talking and the brain said “I am the MOST important part of the body”. The heart and the asshole laughed, the brain went on “I provide the thoughts to enable both of you to do what you do”. The heart said “Well if I did not supply the blood neither of you would be able to operate”. Before either could say anything the asshole chimed in “Well I assure you both I am the MOST important part of the body!” The heart and brain LAUGHED!!! “You” they both said “You are crazy!!” So the asshole shut down, before you know it toxins built up in the body and killed the brain and the heart. The moral of the story “Don’t underestimate the asshole”.
Could UA wind up in the history books next to EA? Who knows.
P.S. I am a non-union worker, I just don’t like taking it on the chin when the high brass continue to get all their bennies uninterupted.
Once upon a time airline executives not only had aviation backgrounds but actually had a vision for the industry. Now, the idiots in charge can’t see beyond 5:00 this afternoon.
Past great airline presidents like Pat Patterson (United), Robert Six (Continental), Juan Trippe (Pan Am - the real one, not the fake one), Paul and Tom Braniff (Braniff, the real one, not two fakes that followed), and Eddie Rickenbacker (Eastern) are all rolling over in their graves because of the state of the industry.
Amen to that. Not to mention the fact that it has been a trend over the past few years that airlines “Recycle” their CEO’s to one another, after all what failed at another airline is bound to work somewhere.
I agree. I think companies always are best managed by their founders. Point is, many CEO’s and management today are not as good as many of the great CEO’s before. Many of these guys have no pride in their airline and are more interested in their bonus.
And many of these guys are just bean counters. As far as they are concerned, an oil company is the same as a grocery chain is the same as an airline. In other words, a business is a business and give me my bonus. It doesn’t matter if I drive the company under, just give it to me.
Please forgive my ignorance, but what does BOB stand for? To me it sounds like Bend Over B!%$^&*
As someone on the a.net response said, I feel for the f/a’s they will get to hear the pax express their displeasure in shelling out yet more money they had not planned on to take the family on vacation.
Good times!!!
That memo says "Offering Two-Class Service on North America Three-Class Airplanes "
United flies their 3 class 767’s and 777’s on some ORD-LAX, ORD-IAD, and ORD-SFO segments. Those are their “north america three class airplanes”
What it means is if you are seated in C class on that aircraft that you will now get the Y class food options rather than the F class options you used to get.
This would not affect Transatlantic or Transpacific flights. People on a.net need to learn to read.
I know they will be getting the Y food free of charge. But this almost defeats the purpose of biz. I know I wouldn’t want to see my nice meal replaced with Y frozen food/snack boxes.
Downgrading Y to stay competitive is not something I would be concerned with. But downgrading C is a no-no.
I think a niche may be enhancing economy plus giving it its own seperate curtain and free Y food. I don’t think downgrading biz class is the way to go. Now, I don’t know how UA first compares to others biz class, but if it isn’t competitive price wise, they may lose customers by virture of decreased service.
