It is totally appropriate. Airline execs and large shareholders used huge amounts of cash to prop up shareholder value and their own compensation. We employee groups complained constantly about the damage we felt that this was doing to our cash position as an airline. SWA did less and their cash position is now formidable. They will be well into 2022 before they burn through it all. AMR is in pretty bad shape. UAL: not great, not dire…yet. Part of me thinks that maybe to whole house of cards should be allowed to fall. The earth would certainly benefit. But the livelyhoods of a billion people depend on the travel industry. Amazon would be more than happy to take over hotels, restaurants and airlines. They are crouched more than ready to pounce. A world recreated in their image will be an ugly one I think. And that more than anything has me hoping that there is a less devastating path for us.
I wish I had a better understanding of stock buybacks, responsibility to investors, responsibility to employees, and what exactly one does with profits and cash on hand. I’m sure it is insanely complex - and as the saying goes - if everyone is unhappy, it is probably the right thing to be doing.
Part of me thinks - well, it is probably a good thing the airlines didn’t reinvest a large portion of their money in building even more capacity and route structures…because then that would mean even more planes and employees to idle at this point. I’ve never quite understood the “expand or die” mentality of most businesses. Why not do what you do where you find the predictable profitability, and stick to that? 9/11, COVID, Financial Crisis…these things perhaps aren’t blips on the “predictable” radar…or maybe they should be.
I guess what I’m saying is that I’m not really sure what was and is responsible or not when it comes to managing an airline or any business. I’m sure the truth is somewhere between the justifications from all sides.
The side effect of this fleet reorganization is really fascinating - as well as the employee base reorganization. My wife is on the phone all day long with management and pilots who are waffling between taking the VPLOA (Voluntary Permanent Leave of Absence) - some of the offers seem VERY compelling. LOL…my wife, being non-union middle management, would love to see an attractive VPLOA come her way but it will never happen. The offers they have made thus far have not been good (for us) at all. The pilots are definitely getting some good offers. I’m not sure how the mechanics, flight attendants, and field crew service types are getting along…
I’m waiting for the reconstituted US Air to emerge from the ashes…! 
(Or even better…Piedmont! LOL…)
Dad flew for Piedmont!* He was in the top15 on the seniority list when he retired at age 56. I certainly don’t expect any shoulders to cry on here. That’s why I tend to avoid these discussions with people outside the wheelhouse unless the topic is more mundane like the Max crashes. We pilots were given a gift from the gods to be able to fly magnificent machines to incredible places. It already seems like a dream. But what the gods give they can take away.
*But Piedmont wasn’t a real business as we think of them today. No US passenger airline prior to deregulation was. They were pseudo-public entities whose fiefdoms were protected by law. Piedmont was great because the government built a tidy wall for it to play in. When people pine for the good-ole-days of beautiful stewardesses, ties and blazers, a perfect martini and a fresh pack of Camels, they are longing for a time when the free market was anything but.
It is interesting because we are still seeing some of that today. I saw that Alaska Airlines is now running some routes that Ravn Alaska used to do (they went bankrupt). There is a real need and dilemma on what to do with some of those very isolated Alaskan communities. Giving Alaska Airlines money to do the job with 737s that Ravn could perhaps do cheaper by giving them money seems weird. I don’t know all the specifics though…I’m sure it is more complicated than my simple mind is capable of figuring out.
When owning an airline meant status. For wealthy people as well as governments.
Still some of them around.
The rest have had a really tough time adjusting to a free market…
“Hard Landings” was a great book about that period. Those were interesting times. A generation from now people will look back upon the early jet age the way kids in the 60’s imagined the wild west: as a period that seemed much grander than it really was but that also represented a piece of lost Americana.
(Or maybe I am placing too much importance on millions of tons of noisy, smelly metal. It’s just stuff. Probably the world really did have way too much of it and a correction in some form was needed.)
“Confessions from Captain X”, or something like that was good, and from roughly that era. I loaned it out to a triple-7 driver friend of mine - can’t recall the exact title (he’s had it a long time)
Alaska is the best example ever! It is filled with people who pride themselves on self-sufficiency while decrying government intrusion. But without taxpayer supported aviation a sizable portion of the people who live in that state outside of Anchorage and Fairbanks would be able to do so. The market is too unstable to support much of the flying that is done there.
Juan Brown has some interesting commentary on the state of Delta and the airline industry in general. I assumed that they were making money hand over fist the way that flights are were always packed, but needing to have a 78% load factor just to break even does not leave much margin for a collapsing economy. Anyway, having experienced the effects of deregulation on the industry first hand, followed by a bitter battle between management and employees, my heart goes out to you guys. Here’s hoping that you have enough seniority to hang on.
How do articles like this one keep making it through to publication? I guess it has been going on since 1950. And WHO keeps giving these companies money??
“Launched in 2017, the company was founded by executives from the aerospace industry, including Rimanelli and John Paul Yorro, as well as Dr. Anita Sengupta, an actual rocket scientist who worked on the Mars Rover projects and held senior positions at Boeing and NASA, before joining ASX.”
Farewell to the Mad Dogs of Delta…the final MD88 and MD90 flights happened today…
“At our peak, Delta operated a fleet of 185 ‘Mad Dog’ jets that flew roughly 900 daily flights…"
Do kids dream of flying airliners after reading magazines filled with pictures and stories of A321s and 787s? I guess a few do. But way back when, you’d have to be diagnosed as soulless not to see the appeal of real jets like the 727, MD-80 and 747 Classic. Those planes were engineered to appeal to pilots first, accountants second.
I had similar feelings about the Falcon9/Dragon launch a few days ago. The Gemini and Apollo capsules were filled with dials, switches and maneuvering controls. You didn’t need to understand any of it to know that it was cool. The images of rows and rows of guarded switches said to young people, “We need a brain like yours! Maybe someday!” The Dragon is not cool no matter how comfortable the new chairs are. It’s a marvel of modern engineering to be sure. Only, it needs an astronaut like a fish needs a bicycle.
I’m sure there’s alternative (and cheaper) ways to support the aircraft whilst changing the tyres. 
I had a similar initial reaction, but later, when Doug Hurley explained that they did a couple of hand flown maneuvers before docking, was relieved to learn that they still could fly the spacecraft should the need arise. They had windows too. 
First attempt.
Last attempt…
That’s infuriating to watch…I’m not familiar with the type or how you’d normally land it in such extreme conditions, but it appears to me that the dihedral of the wing and relatively long gear would allow for a bit of left wing down, right rudder in that instance. I swear watching the rudder inputs it looks like that pilot was just along for the ride. (??) On the second approach he thought he was being smart and lining up on the upwind side of the runway, but I think really you’d want to start on the downwind side and angle across toward the upwind side, taking a bit of the crosswind component out. I dunno…that all looked bad to me from an untrained (on that equipment) eye. Whaddya think @smokinhole (besides - uh…should have gone to the alternate…)
Gonna be some paperwork for taking out some lights probably…doh!
The aileron is being held the wrong way, almost as if car driving reflexes prevailed…
But unless they had a fuel emergency or fire onboard, that approach should’ve been abandoned long before the flare.
…but…but…but…my car is parked at Birmingham… 
