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[Paphitis]

This was only just last month.

AIRLINES
American warns 13,000 employees of furloughs as airlines prepare to lose federal aid next month

PUBLISHED WED, FEB 3 20215:13 PM ESTUPDATED THU, FEB 4 202112:47 PM EST
Leslie Josephs

American and United together cut more than 30,000 jobs last fall after the first round of payroll support expired.
American had braced employees for possible furloughs last week.
The latest round of payroll support expires March 31 and labor unions are seeking more government aid.

American Airlines sends warn notices to 13,000 workers
American Airlines on Wednesday said it will send furlough notices this week to about 13,000 employees as a second round of federal payroll aid is set to expire next month and travel demand remains in tatters.

“The vaccine is not being distributed as quickly as any of us believed, and new restrictions on international travel that require customers to have a negative COVID-19 test have dampened demand,” American’s CEO Doug Parker and President Robert Isom wrote in a note to staff.

Rival United Airlines last Friday sent similar furlough warnings to 14,000 staff members.

The latest $15 billion Congress approved for U.S. carriers late last year required airlines to recall the employees they furloughed in the fall and maintain payroll through March 31.

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/02/03/america ... s-low.html

Yes but who are the workers?

Are they pilots or ground handling?

Because it sounds pretty odd they would send these warnings to all their pilots or engineers unless they faced bankruptcy.

QANTAS did the same thing. Thousands of staff dismissed and all their ticketing, check in staff and ground handling outsourced to Swiss Port and others.

It’s a cost saving measure.

UA has 12000 pilots and sending all of them warning letters is like declaring war on pretty much putting an end to their business. If even a quarter of them say “fuck this, I’m out” then UA are in deep shit!

Hundreds of billions of dollars worth of planes that just won’t fly and costing millions or billions in maintenance and no revenue.

No, they were not all pilots for sure. They were employees across the board, which they will be all needed if the airlines ever are close to returning back to pre pandemic days. Now that the airlines have received the funds from the government by deadline March 31, 2021, it is happy days for the airlines and it’s employees again and not because of the economy and the demand from the flying public.

Well I’ve never heard of anyone get one of those letters. And if they did, it is probably because management wanted to get rid of some personalities or some boat rockers. That I have seen even where I work. If you rock the boat abd management have the perfect opportunity to sack them, they will and do in an instant.

The email I got early last year from HR was as nice as pie Kikapu. They didn’t want to burn any bridges that’s fir sure abd clearly said they want to take things from where they were left off once the situation stabilises.

Wish you the best and hope that it all works out for you.

Thanks. I’m in a state of shock. I’m actually so tired as well and should go to bed as I’m up very early in the morning with the sparrows but I don’t think sleep right now.

The whole saga had been an emotional roller coaster ride from April last year. From the Hughes of highs to down right shock horror, and despair and everything in between.

I’ve literally seen nothing like this before.

Covid stuffed a lot of things up that’s for sure.

I also put in a lot of time and effort into this. QANTAS guy reckons I should go but leave the fam behind for 6 months till they further stabilise their Covid crisis a bit more. I dunno...

It’s a hard life aviation Kikapu. Very hard. I know guys who have wrecked home life’s and divorces left right and centre. I don’t know how I survived through 16 years of marriage tbh...as hard is it is for us, it’s even harder on spouses and families. Dam hard...

I agree with the Qantas guy, especially if your position at your present place of work is on shaky grounds, so you are not losing too much by moving, and to add to that, if you are placed with regional routes with the majors in the US, you will be working off your ass with very little time for family life, so it may well be best to delay their move until you are comfortable with your move first.

I’m not in shaky ground however I was read the riot act last week as they are angry I turned down a training role and they are aware of what’s going on in the back ground as someone spilled the beans.

They want me to sign a 2 year contract with them with me undergoing checker approvals.

But the contract comes with a 30k bond. So if I leave them, I pay them out 30k... to alleviate their training costs and to lock me in. They too are in a state where they are bolstering the check and training department as they forecast a massive back log of recurrence training.

Problem they have is 30k isn’t really a huge consideration. It’s a nuisance at most but won’t stop me if the US contract is the same as last year and not butchered or given a haircut.

It pisses me off when a trusted person rats you out.

Yes, it is important to know what your US benefit and salary package will be before making any moves. The problem is, you won’t know for sure how long you will be on the regional route since the package changes by being on the major routes.

Yeh. It’s politics. And everyone is trying to outdo each other.

Yes of course. Package is important. I’ve got a feeling many things will change. Don’t know what yet.

Also got a feeling it will take 12 months to get into mainline.

And if there is another Covid flare up, potentially it’s back to square 1. Big gamble here...

At the moment though, it appears the yanks are getting on top of Covid. From where they were they have come a long way in a very short space of time. Let’s hope they keep that up.

[Paphitis]

No further information today but I was contacted by another guy who is in the same boat as me. He has his VISA ready as well. There are 4 of us in total out of a batch of 16 who have visas. He got the email as well.

So it must be that at least the 4 visa holders have been contacted.

The other 12 were dismissed early last year unless they changed their minds...

Roller coaster.

[Paphitis]

I have my doubts but a friend of mine said they wouldn’t be making bold decisions like this without some consultation with their consultants - like KPMG and Price Waterhouse.

It appears they are getting ready for post Covid and they can’t afford not to start now.

[Paphitis]

Still waiting to hear back about what is going on.

The email I received, was quite brief. More of an enquiry to see where I’m at and what my headspace and interest level is because of the Covid impact on the industry.

It seems though, that the airlines in the US have indeed commenced a recruitment drive on top of their mobilization efforts however this seems to be concentrated on their subsidiaries where the big 4 are shedding to to reduce costs in the interim.

So the big 4 are allocating their routes and services to their subsidiaries that they own.

The big 4 have however commenced their campaign to retrain all furloughed pilots. At least those left standing that is as the churn rate in the last 12 months was a massive 8%. That is going to have a massive impact on them. Probably why they are doing this. To arrest the resignation rate.

They are starting to contact furloughed Australians and Canadians as well but only from these 2 countries. No one else. Just Australian and Canadians at this stage.

And I guess they are also contacting all Australians and Canadians with their visas already in hand. It saves on a lot of bureaucracy because it’s a bit of a process getting a visa and also costly.

I anticipate a lot of to and fro for the next 3 to 6 months.

But what is apparent is the confidence in the US Aviation sector and business in general is coming back with a vengeance. Economy is on the cusp of the biggest boom since post WW2.

I guess it’s true what economists always say. After a massive disaster or collapse cones the boom with the Phoenix rising from the ashes.

It’s true what Kikapu says. The Americans seem to be the very first to move atm at least to this extent. It’s like they think America is unique and they seem to think they can make their own rules and get away with it. I suppose if you have a market as big as their’s it takes a lot of planning to ramp their massive infrastructure up. It’s not an overnight process. It will take many months, probably a year especially on the kink of scale economics they operate.

But it seems that as far as America is concerned, they are more or less saying “coronavirus? What Coronavirus”?

So in effect this is very good news for the planet.

America stops for no one and waits for nothing. They are pushing the thrust levers to the wall as we speak.

As a people, they are just extremely forward thinking and always looking down the track.

Their Covid vaccination programs seem to be leading the world as well and they have vaccinated a big portion of their population which could explain the dramatic drop of Covid cases there in the last 4 weeks. That could be an indication of the overall effectiveness of the vaccines. Let’s hope so and hope there is no relapse.

[Paphitis]

America is such a country of one extreme to the next.

They are the source of the first bit of good news the world has had for the last 15 months.

Way to go.

Thing is, the world will have no choice but to follow. Thank you USA and Godspeed towards the new Ithaca.

A few months ago all we had was bad news after more bad news. Now they are giving all of us hope and confidence.

I’m sure there are detractors here who will want them to fail, but if they do fail, the world fails.

It is true what they say. If America sneezes, the world catches a cold.

[Paphitis]

On the flip side of the coin, there are still 36000 Aussies stranded in US. Australia does bring them back slowly but on its terms and only to the extent where it’s health services can cope. The modus operandi seems to be not to put the rest of the population at risk whether you have citizenship or not. Before Covid hit, there were more than 1 million Aussies in America. And more than 1 million in London alone.

So careful decisions need to be made.

Imagine being stranded in a foreign country for over a year. Some have families back home.

The sword can cut both ways.

But I’m always a glass half full kind of guy which means I’m also prone to big falls if things don’t work out. But I will never change from being a half glass full kind of person as life is too short for negativity.

[Kikapu]

TSA checkpoint travel numbers (current year(s) versus prior year/same weekday)

https://www.tsa.gov/coronavirus/passenger-throughput

[Paphitis]

Ok official update has come through.

There is a campaign to ramp up their flying operations to full capacity within 12 months.

The big 4 are shedding to their subsidiaries and regionals to offset costs Big 4 will not start recruiting for at least 6 months or until they are able to get most of their existing pilots current.

Their subs however are recruiting.

They are hoping to farm us off to one of their sub carriers as an interim measure. But it will not happen over night. We are told to work on a 6 month time frame.

So bit of a mixed bag there.

But the good news is, they haven’t forgotten about us. And they are making every effort to honour their end of the bargain tans our contracts.

[Paphitis]

TSA checkpoint travel numbers (current year(s) versus prior year/same weekday)

https://www.tsa.gov/coronavirus/passenger-throughput

Actually Kikapu, they don’t look like a particularly bad set of numbers in comparison to the rest of the world.

We are probably at around 35% capacity in Australia whereas the yanks don’t look like they are below 60% capacity at the worst point. Still a reduction and a significant one at that, but in comparison not as bad as elsewhere.

But it also appears they are not worried about past tense. They are looking to be back to normal within 6 months. And in 12 months, the assumption is that Covid is controlled through vaccinations and travel restrictions are no longer required.

The timeframes are a nuisance for me because I’ve been presented with a new contract at my work and because they know I’m a naughty boy, they have put a bond in that contract fir $30,000.

So basically, if I leave them before end of contract, I pay them $30,000 AUD.

They have sacked 2 captains in the last 2 weeks.

I have informed the Americans about this new arrangement or contract with my employer.

Such contracts are technically illegal according to The Australian Federation of Air Pilots. Not uncommon but illegal nonetheless. My neck is being saved at least for now as I’m the only guy on their books with a Grade 1 and CASA Testing approvals. The other 2 guys they have is a consultant who is semi retired and the other is also on the way out too.

Precedence has also been set within the legal system where such contracts were defeated in court after they left.

So interesting times ahead with a few headwinds methinks.

I’m waiting to hear about what they think about this dilemma. I do know it can be defeated after you leave with a good lawyer but need to ask whether it’s worthwhile causing that trouble for them or just cough up and be on better terms.

[Londonrake]

Police bodycam video of the George Floyd arrest obtained and released by a newspaper today. There are fuller versions on YT.

Graphic:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESGXmWh ... 1616348998

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