Help Our UAL Friends

I assume your impassioned cry also extends to Enron employees, and will
extend to the Ford and GM employees if their pension/financial cause a
Chapter 11 filing. I assume you want taxpayer bailouts for all bankruptcy
filings, right, or just for the commercial airlines?

(The same airlines that argue -- correctly --- that they are subsidizing
GA).

In article
outaviation.com,
"Skylune" downed another beer, wet the bed
and scribbled:

I assume your impassioned cry also extends to Enron employees, and will
extend to the Ford and GM employees if their pension/financial cause a
Chapter 11 filing. I assume you want taxpayer bailouts for all bankruptcy
filings, right, or just for the commercial airlines?

(The same airlines that argue -- correctly --- that they are subsidizing
GA).

WRONG! Ga happens to use a system designed to the airlines' specs -- it
was never designed for GA in the first place.

GA does not need Class B/C airspace (nor even a lot of Class D, for that
matter). We don't need 8 ft thick, 10,000 ft long runways; we don't
need baggage handling equipment; we don't need the security arrangements
that airlines require.

Once again, "Skyloser" strikes out!

"Skylune" wrote in message
lkaboutaviation.com...

(The same airlines that argue -- correctly --- that they are subsidizing
GA).


Please explain how airlines subsidize GA.

(The same airlines that argue -- correctly --- that they are subsidizing
GA).


Huh??? If that's true, lets reduce some costs NOW. First, get rid of
class A airspace. We don't need that, just make it class E all the way
up; two controllers for the entire U.S. should cover it. Get rid of
class B and class C airports. Close some and make others class D
(getting rid of a dozen approach controllers each). Next, shorten all
runways to 6,000 feet or less and sell off the extra land. Reduce the
number of parking spots (land cost) of all airports to no more than 100
spaces and sell off land. Gee, we can take most of the cost out and we
won't even feel it!! You can pretty much fire all clearance delivery
and ground controllers as well. We could get along just fine without
them too we don't have enough IFR traffic that we couldn't just use
tower to issue clearances.

-Robert

Robert M. Gary wrote:

Gee, we can take most of the cost out and we
won't even feel it!!

And you haven't even considered maintenance. By the time one of those 8' thick
runways needs resurfacing, we'll probably have anti-gravity systems and won't
need 'em. Hey, some of the old WW II bases are still in good shape after serving
all this time as GA fields.

George Patterson
Give a person a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a person to
use the Internet and he won't bother you for weeks.

Is your proposal to not allow the airline to get out of its pension
obligation and instead just disolve under its financial obligations?
What is the difference to the retired? Either way, the feds have to
take over the pension fund and the retired get less. Letting the
airline go out of business doesn't change anything. Maybe you should
point the finger at the unions that created an unrealistic pension to
begin with and didn't allow changes to the program as discount airlines
ate their shorts.

It seems like your proposal not only kills the pension but also the
investors (most of which are retirement funds). If you work towards a
structured retirement you know that its only as good as the company
itself. No one would have an expectation otherwise. My current
employeer has a structures retirement program and we're fighting to
kill it. Once it goes away the IRS will let us make real contributions
to personal IRAs.

-Robert

("Robert M. Gary" wrote)
[snip]
Maybe you should point the finger at the unions that created an
unrealistic pension to
begin with and didn't allow changes to the program as discount airlines
ate their shorts.


Discount airlines ate their shorts because of bad management decisions not
related to pension costs.

Shall we also talk about "unrealistic" management compensation packages?


Montblack

What bad management decisions? Airline management has about three basic
decisions - planes to fly, routes to fly, and how much to pay their
employees. The legacy carriers are paying about 2 cents per seat per
mile more for labor than the discount airlines. Some of that difference
is pension costs.

"Montblack" wrote in message
...
("Robert M. Gary" wrote)
[snip]
Maybe you should point the finger at the unions that created an
unrealistic pension to
begin with and didn't allow changes to the program as discount
airlines ate their shorts.


Discount airlines ate their shorts because of bad management decisions
not related to pension costs.

Shall we also talk about "unrealistic" management compensation
packages?


Montblack

("sfb" wrote)
What bad management decisions? Airline management has about three basic
decisions - planes to fly, routes to fly, and how much to pay their
employees. The legacy carriers are paying about 2 cents per seat per mile
more for labor than the discount airlines. Some of that difference is
pension costs.


Is this out of 37 cents per seat mile or 5 cents per seat mile? Curious.

Is it 3% more or 28% more?

To the larger point: Management, itself, is one of those "basic" decisions -
what type of management will we be? It snowballs from there...

Pension funds, fuel prices, gate fees, lawsuits, rising interest rates,
health care costs, advertising, weather on the east coast g, changing
travel habits, Internet integration, oil hedge funds, stock prices, logos
....I'd say (a good) management had better be able to juggle them ALL.

Heck, I can juggle just three balls at once.


Montblack

Discount airlines ate their shorts because of bad management decisions not
related to pension costs

I'm not sure what your point is. The airline couldn't compete against
the discouts, the reason makes no difference. If management is good,
employees don't mind enjoying the benefits of that, if management is
bad you have to accept it. Remeber that the purpose of a company IS NOT
to provide employement to people. People work for a company for as long
as it benefits the company. If you don't like that, seek out a
socialist place to lay your head.


BTW: The reason UAL filed bankruptcy was to avoid having to make their
next massive payment to the pension fund. No one would argue that
without the pension/benefits program of an "old school" airline UAL
woudln't be in the situation it is in now.
-Robert