career that "isn't what it used to be"

queenlives

queenlives

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as if 9/11 wasn't enough:

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/united-lays-off-950-pilots/story.aspx?guid={CEB77E95-D6A5-4E4F-A1E4-AA09D775FD35}&tool=1&dist=bigcharts&

a lifelong friend of mine (pilot for us air) has seen his retirement funds hammered and their stock used for wallpaper. good thing they've got well paid leadership to help them through their troubles.

glad i wasn't smart enough to become an ATP / carrier driver.

LCC US Airways Group Inc (NYSE) Delayed quote data 6/23/2008 4:04 PM
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First of all you never put more than 5-10% of you retirement in an individual stock. Second of all, if you are in the industry and witnissing the fallout you should have been selling years ago. Thirdly, most people with decent paying jobs who are not familiar with investing should have a financial advisor just like he/she has a CPA, doctor, etc. to refer to.

Best of luck to your friend but I can't think of anything else nice to say about that poor situation. Poor financial decisions are often very costly.
 
I play the stock market with play money.

Much as a I do when I'm in Vegas.....

Otherwise, you may get burned hard...and there is NO sure thing/bet.

Well, usually... :)
 
But we still get all the free peanuts we can eat. Which is a good thing because I get hungry during our regular three hour taxis at JFK to the runway. Last week we were number 68 for take off (and this was a beautiful day with no weather in the NE area). :eek: BTW: The US Air in front us sat there for 2 hrs with both engines running pissing away fuel while we were shut down as we weren't moving for awhile. And when we do, single engine taxi is the norm.

30 years too late for this job. Think I am going to quit and sell Crack.

Airline failures by Jan (my predictions) if oil doesn't dip below $100 by Sept.
1. Frontier
2. Spirit
3. DHL Cargo (ASTAR & Airborne Exp - Deutsch Post owns DHL & is going to sub the flying in the US to UPS and fire all the DHL employees)
3. Midwest
4. US Air (LCC)
5. Aliegant
6. Mesa Air Group
7. Jet Blue
8. Virgina America
9. United

The winner.... Southwest. Fuel hedged and ready to grab market share as the legacy carriers reduce capacity and/or liquidate.
 
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Can I quit my day job and help you? :biggrin:
 
sahtt said:
First of all you never put more than 5-10% of you retirement in an individual stock. Second of all, if you are in the industry and witnissing the fallout you should have been selling years ago. Thirdly, most people with decent paying jobs who are not familiar with investing should have a financial advisor just like he/she has a CPA, doctor, etc. to refer to.

Best of luck to your friend but I can't think of anything else nice to say about that poor situation. Poor financial decisions are often very costly.
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subject line was directed to fact that being an airline pilot isn't what it used to be, with the article (link included) talking about pilots being laid off (again) due to rising costs, etc. (fedex / ups all lowering result expectations)

my comment about their retirement funds was referring to us air's filing bankruptcy and in the process (iirc) their retirement funds were impacted.

and (as an aside) to airline pilot's problems, across the board, their stocks have all gone down significantly.

i'll say it again: being an atp isn't what it used to be.
 
CL65 Captain said:
And when we do, single engine taxi is the norm. The winner.... Southwest. Fuel hedged and ready to grab market share as the legacy carriers reduce capacity and/or liquidate.
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any reason the us air pilots idle both engines rather than shut down? "getting back" at management? (needless to say, that's just stupid :(

as for swa fuel hedging, my wife and i were discussing that over dinner last night and i mentioned that i've never read who the individual was in swa that actually proposed and pushed that through. (as opposed to the person who authorized it.)
 
I dreamed of becoming an ATP when I was a kid.

Soloed at 16
License at 17
Instrument at 18

Around this time my Dad's friends were making $250k+ flying 8 days a month as senior pilots for the big airlines.

However, in talking to my instructors (and others) I realized it was often a LONG road to get there. Meaning I could be 35 and making $30k a year flying regional planes.

I changed my outlook, got an engineering degree, went into sales, and never looked back.

I enjoy flying, but glad I didn't do it as a career.
 
queenlives said:
any reason the us air pilots idle both engines rather than shut down? "getting back" at management? (needless to say, that's just stupid :(

as for swa fuel hedging, my wife and i were discussing that over dinner last night and i mentioned that i've never read who the individual was in swa that actually proposed and pushed that through. (as opposed to the person who authorized it.)
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Don't forget that the only reason SWA was able to hedge fuel was because they had cash available to dump into the contracts. None of the other airlines had the bucks to do it even if they wanted to. If you look at the SWA books, without the hedges they would have lost money too. What I can't figure out is why the ticket prices haven't doubled? Maybe they should sell ticket futures so that they can inflate prices with ticket speculation? Kinda like a Hannah Montana concert...
 
I believe that Gary Kelly, then CFO and now CEO was the man at SWA that was responsible for the fuel hedges. Skyguy might know better.

Delta had fuel hedges, but the CFO, Michele Burns, sold them to raise $80,000,000 to fund bk proof retirements for the top 36 management employees. CEO, CFO, COO, President, head of legal, head of marketing, all left within 6 months. the CEO (Leo Mullen) left with $25,000,000 cash after taxes, had 7yrs with the company, credited himself with 28years of service, gave guaranteed first class travel benefits to all the 36managers for life.
 
CL65 Captain said:
Delta had fuel hedges, but the CFO, Michele Burns, sold them to raise $80,000,000 to fund bk proof retirements for the top 36 management employees. CEO, CFO, COO, President, head of legal, head of marketing, all left within 6 months. the CEO (Leo Mullen) left with $25,000,000 cash after taxes, had 7yrs with the company, credited himself with 28years of service, gave guaranteed first class travel benefits to all the 36managers for life.
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you know, i've still got enough white trash in me that if i'd put in a lifetime of work for a company and got reamed while "management" got packages like that, we'd probably have a come to jesus meeting.
 
United announced that they are furloughing 1450 pilots (after Medical Leave & Govt Leave the numbers should be around 950. That takes it back to a date of hire in early 1999. I have a lot of friends that left to go over there .... guess they will be sleeping on my couch. :cool:
 
CL65 Captain said:
I believe that Gary Kelly, then CFO and now CEO was the man at SWA that was responsible for the fuel hedges. Skyguy might know better.

Delta had fuel hedges, but the CFO, Michele Burns, sold them to raise $80,000,000 to fund bk proof retirements for the top 36 management employees. CEO, CFO, COO, President, head of legal, head of marketing, all left within 6 months. the CEO (Leo Mullen) left with $25,000,000 cash after taxes, had 7yrs with the company, credited himself with 28years of service, gave guaranteed first class travel benefits to all the 36managers for life.
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Boy, it might be difficult to talk me out of taking them (CEO,CFO, etc.) out back and beating the supreme shiX out of them. I mean if they got the golden parachute retirement, let them take full advntage of their medical plan to include dental.
 
NWA did a similar thing when they went into bankruptcy. "In order to retain top management" (like they had been doing so well UP TO that point!) they gave HUGE salaries and equity stakes in the company. The top 50 execs took millions from the company and ended up with like a 15% ownership after they came out. All while making the unions take 40% cuts.

Seems like a fair deal to me.
 
Cairo94507 said:
Boy, it might be difficult to talk me out of taking them (CEO,CFO, etc.) out back and beating the supreme shiX out of them. I mean if they got the golden parachute retirement, let them take full advntage of their medical plan to include dental.
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I'll give you a 10% commission on any of their dental work if you send them to my office after you beat the $hit out of them.

It really does suck that the airline CEO's have pulled a Gordon Gecko on the employees. I couldn't imagine being invested in a company andhaving my retirement plan sucked out from beneath me. :frown:
 
osugrad97 said:
I dreamed of becoming an ATP when I was a kid.

Soloed at 16
License at 17
Instrument at 18
Click to expand...

My wifes cousin did basically the same thing and has been flying for the air force up until Nov. when he crashed a plane in Iraq. He will never fly again because he messed up his back REALLY bad. He can walk fine but does have lasting damage. The part I can't get is how much money the AF invested in him and now won't even let him fly cargo or anything. :frown: He is extremely down in the dumps over it. I have seen pics of the crash and I can not believe he is even alive.


edit...oh and as far as airline failures lets hope AMR stays in the air at least until July option expiration
 
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