Flying Blind
by pessimist
I just got sent an email joke about blind pilots who rely upon the terrified screams of the passengers to let them know when it's time to pull back on the yoke and take off. I wonder if there isn't more truth than humor in this 'joke' when we look at those who are flying the airline industry into the ground.
We know it isn't the pilots who are not taking care of business. We all watched (including the pasengers aboard the plane!) enraptured as the Jet Blue pilot brought down his crippled airliner as if he'd done it dozens of times before.
I'll fly with him any day - even on airplanes that should have been under some kind of regulatory review long before this!
Meanwhile, another JetBlue flight yesterday made an emergency landing at Kennedy after the pilot of the Tampa-New York flight reported that a warning light told him the flaps on the plane's wings were locked. The plane landed safely.
It turns out that the manufacturer issued a service bulletin - in 1998:
The nose gear problem caused enough of an alarm that in October 1998 Airbus issued a service bulletin to airlines, recommending that the seals on the A320s be replaced within 18 months."It certainly has occurred enough times to cause concern," former National Transportation Safety Board chairman Jim Hall said of the five reported incidents. "It sounds like it may be unique to the landing gear on the A320," Hall said.
Why, after seven years, is this still a problem? Because of Bu$hCo economic policies.
Any form of government regulation or oversight is an 'unnecessary' financial burden on business and must be eliminated. But if American citizens were as observant as they should have been, they would be noticing that this laissez faire governmental regulation strategy isn't working too well.
With too many of America's airlines facing or finalizing bankruptcy due to incredible mismanagement, labor is again expected to take up the brunt of the hit. Few executives are losing their jobs, while 44,000 airline jobs have been lost in 2005.
Maybe they should be losing their jobs. As the Nashua Telegraph - hardly a liberal rag - puts it:
The airline industry is another superb example of the perils of shortsightedness. I realize energy prices have dealt the industry a severe blow, but give me a break. The writing has been in the sky since the industry was deregulated. If only executives had gotten their heads out of the clouds, they might have noticed. According to an unofficial analysis by the Wall Street Journal, there have been more than 100 airline bankruptcy filings since 1978.Hmmm . . . ya think there may be a problem here?
No problem here! Move along! All blame belongs on the employee for not following management directives!
Northwest is about to layoff 1,400 flight attendants and 400 pilots, workers whose actions during the Jet Blue landing ensured that no passengers were hurt. The remainder of Northwest's employees await news of their fate.
Some have been on strike, and are waiting to find out if they are going to be replaced by scabs - a situation not allowed by their contract, which is deemed to be not in force by some. The situation is so uncertain that a former union official has crossed the picket line to serve his own self-interest - limiting his pay cut to about 25% while his former coworkers lose 100% of their pay.
Because they are necessary! That's why they are so worried that the new bankruptcy law won't allow them to pay the big bonuses for poor performance!
Crying towel for first class row one!
Northwest is hardly alone in the poor management department. Delta is about to layoff 9,000 workers while cutting the pay of those who remain by 7-10%:
The Atlanta-based airline said it will eliminate 7,000-9,000 jobs systemwide, cut most Delta workers' pay by 7 percent to 10 percent and reduce domestic flights by 15 percent to 20 percent by the end of 2007.
Other Delta employees have already borne some of Delta's burdens:
Last year, the airline's pilots took a 32.5 percent pay cut, and Delta cut all non-union pay by 10 percent on Jan. 1.
In addition to losing a third of their pay. Delta pilots might lose their pensions. If they were smart, they would insist upon a big piece of the Delta ownership pie like these pilots are doing with ATA.
The Red State of Georgia - a state which swallows Bu$h B$ like fine aged sour mash, and which allowed a Chickenhawk to defeat a proven war hero incumbent by using slanderous accusations against the incumbent's patriotism for not supporting George Bu$h's Oil War - is going to reap the bitter bounty of Bu$hCo economic policies:
As many as one-quarter of the up to 9,000 layoffs Delta Air Lines announced Thursday will come from Georgia, the company’s chief financial officer told state lawmakers. Ed Bastian said the reductions will take place during the next year and a half as part of a restructuring plan that also will include severe cuts in pay and benefits for those employees remaining and substantially fewer domestic routes.
Like the storm surge from Hurricane Rita, the damage such an action causes isn't limited to the immediate locality:
Rajeev Dhawan, director of the Economic Forecasting Center at Georgia State University, said the effects of the Delta layoffs will reverberate far beyond the company employees directly affected. He said that for every two Delta workers who are cut loose, three other jobs will be lost from the overall economy.Dhawan said all of those out-of-work people, with their reduced spending ability, will hurt local economies not only in the southern end of metro Atlanta — where most Delta employees live — but in the northern suburbs that are home to many of the company’s executives.
Are you Georgians better off now than you were five years ago? Still glad you allowed Owwer Leedur to steal power? Do let your local Delta execs know exactly how you feel!
But I digress.
Just as Texas is going to learn the lessons of New Orleans when it comes to hurricane damage, it looks as if Texas' airline employees are also going to crash and burn:
AMR Corp., the parent company of American Airlines, said its revenues rose during the third quarter on strong travel demand, but fuel costs are taking a heavy toll.
If this nation's economy were truly run on the 'free market' principle so loudly espoused by our wrong-wing friends, all of these fowled-up (sic) airlines would go belly up and make room for new blood. Sure, employees would be hurt by such a move, but they would get jobs faster with the new airlines than the execs should - and the execs who caused this situation to come about through their bad management should have to suffer along with the workers they led into unemployment.
But we don't have such a 'free market' - and this isn't just an economic slander bandied about by a progressive blogger like me. It is coming from someone who would know - an airline executive:
Sir Rod Eddington yesterday used his last public speech as British Airways chief executive to launch a blistering attack on America for subsidising and protecting its loss-making aviation industry. "America - land of the free - is turning itself into the land of the free ride," Sir Rod said. "In the last four years, the airlines have soaked up $15 billion to $20 billion of public subsidy and loan guarantees.
Sounds like Iraq!
But I digress.
Not Sparing, Sir Rod!
"America would do itself a favour by going back to long lost principles of real and honest competition. The lessons America has been imposing on Third World markets with an almost pitiless ferocity apply to America just as much."
But Sir Rod! Live by the rules we seek to impose upon other countries? How could you say such a thing?
"State subsidies preserve bad habits," Sir Rod said, pointing out that even with government help "North American airlines lost $9 billion last year" in a global industry that had $5 billion losses on $400 billion sales.
So shouldn't such businesses go out of business? Sir Rod thinks so, and puts his mouth where his money is:
BA opposes U.S. bankruptcy protection laws which they say allow carriers to hide behind legislation instead of competing by market rules.
But don't think that Sir Rod has a soft spot for his employees!
BA has cut 13,000 jobs since 2001. He declined to comment in detail on an industrial dispute at BA's catering contractor Gate Gourmet which led to a strike last month and grounded flights, but said it was unlikely the carrier would stop outsourcing catering. "It (the dispute) is not going to change the way airlines outsource. Is anyone going to take catering back in house? I don't think so," Eddington said.
This next article illustrates some of the governmental support that our taxpayers - many lowly workers themselves - are expected to bear (even though they fail to pay their 'fair' share of the tax burden!) in support of lousy airline corporate management:
US senator: Pension bill keeps 14-year airline fix
Delta Air Lines and Northwest Airlines, both in bankruptcy and facing massive pension plan shortfalls, have asked Congress to let them spread out payments to their pension plans over 25 years. Compromise U.S. Senate legislation to rewrite private pension rules will keep a provision to help distressed airlines by giving them 14 years to fix underfunded pensions as opposed to the 25 they had sought, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Charles Grassley (R-IA) said on Thursday.But some senators who advocate more airline relief, such as Georgia's Republican Sen. Johnny Isakson, have been pushing to reopen the issue in the merged bill, asking for between 14 and 25 years. Without enough time to repair pension underfunding, Isakson says Delta and Northwest, who recently filed for bankruptcy, may dump their pensions on the federal agency that insures them. Delta is based in Isakson's state.
Grassley, however, said the 14-year provision had already been a fragile compromise between the demands of older airlines and newer, lower-cost airlines that don't have traditional pension plans -- and don't see why their competitors who do have them should get special consideration.
But both of these senators are more than willing to put such a burden on the American taxpayers! Why aren't those who style themselves fiscal hawks screaming bloody blue-collar murder?
Because they are going to make money on the deal - lots of it.
Lawyers involved in the United Airlines bankruptcy have billed "more than $250 million in the nearly three years it has been in court."
In court papers last week, Delta said partners at its chief bankruptcy law firm, Stroock & Stroock, charge $550 to $950 an hour. One of the firm's primary attorneys on the Delta case, Lawrence M. Handelsman, bills at $795 an hour. Paralegals and clerks at the firm bill at $170 to $275 an hour.Northwest, meanwhile, has already spent almost $12.4 million on retainers and pre-bankruptcy legal advice, according to court records. That includes $5.6 million to its lead bankruptcy lawyers at Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft LLP of New York before Northwest even entered bankruptcy court. The firm has also already received $1 million toward future fees.
That money will go fast. The firm bills $590 to $800 per hour for partners, and as much as $645 per hour for other attorneys. It bills up to $220 per hour for its legal assistants, according to Northwest's motion seeking permission to pay the firm.
For those who know something about this, it doesn't sit very well:
"If you talk to the average person, I think there's sort of a feeling out there that professionals are getting paid and creditors aren't, and they don't understand why the system works that way," said Ronald Barliant, a bankruptcy lawyer in Chicago, who has represented clients on both sides of the aisle.
But appearances can be deceiving - a fact that most corporate execs understand very well, especially when it comes to the government regulators and the investors. For the purposes of making this point, think of lenders as 'investing' their monies being lent:
Lenders line up to help airlines in bankruptcy
Normally, if a business can't pay its bills, lenders stay away. But not with airlines. The cash-generating companies have lenders lined up to help them. They often get preference at the top of the payback chain, ahead of folks who have been there for years. Lenders provide "debtor in possession loans." The Chicago Tribune reports most of them emerge whole in airline bankruptcies. The liquidity is there as cash flow is not jeopardized if they keep flying.
This is where appearances come in. It keeps the customers coming in:
The planes are still flying as usual for both Delta and Northwest which also filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection late last week. Delta has lost $10 billion since 2001. Northwest Airlines, crippled in recent weeks by a mechanics' strike, has been hemorrhaging $4 million a day.Both airlines say it will be business as usual for the nation's travelers. The lines at the Delta Airlines counters in Atlanta this week were as busy as ever. Passengers were buying tickets, upgrading seats and making reservations for future flights.
The only thing missing was any sign that the airline headquartered there had just filed for bankruptcy within the past week.
It's the airlines' investors and creditors who will be left in mid-air. Workers, too, as history shows most will be asked for more salary and benefit cuts to shore up the carriers.
Managers are quick to lay the blame for their profitability woes at the feet of their employees:
The number of complaints against airlines about late arrivals and departures, overbooking, lost baggage and customer service is climbing, with some of the angriest reactions reserved for major airlines that have declared bankruptcy. Airlines generally do decrease in operational performance or quality when they go into bankruptcy status.It comes down to morale. With job cuts, pay, benefits and pensions on the line, unhappy workers can have a huge effect on any business, especially if the pressure erodes not just their lifestyles but their quality of life.
Business management consultants - whose services are bought and paid for by the very executives who usually refuse to acknowledge the findings these consultants come up with (as illustrated below) - know that there is a connection between mismanagement, employee performance, and customer satisfaction:
Brent Bowen, director of the University of Nebraska-Omahas Aviation Institute, who each year co-authors a national Air Quality Rating study, said he recently spoke to some senior Delta workers in Salt Lake City. Oh, they unloaded on me, he said. Morale has been diminished at Delta since they started this.Delta pilot and Park City, Utah, resident Ed Thiel agrees. "The thing I just don't understand in the service industry is: when you go bankrupt, you turn on your own employees," he said. "They give you a pay cut, reduce your medical benefits, and then tell you to go out and serve the public."
In my personal life, I have had to endure such similar short-sightedness by 'expert' managers who 'know better than I' how to run the business.
But I digress. This post isn't about my employment conditions, but that of America's bankrupt airline workers:
Pilots, however, are anxious. Last November they agreed to a 32 percent pay cut--a total of $5 billion--plus reductions in benefits and retirements that worked out to a 45 percent cut, Thiel said. And here it is 10 months later, they are coming back again. At least the pilots have a union, he said.
Outsourcing work is also something that management negotiators have insisted upon when negotiating labor agreements (there is one in mine as well), so that when they deem it necessary, all it will take is a notice that the action is to be taken, and many union workers lose their jobs without any response allowed from the union.
The airlines have been very militant about this, sending much of the maintenance work out of the company to contractors. "But not to worry," we are told by these executives. "Uncle Sam is watching!"
Allen Kenitzer, a spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration in Seattle, said his agency may increase behind-the-scenes oversight if it suspects safety problems. They might catch something to do with maintenance, for example, he said.
"Might", he says! "If" they "suspect" safety problems. Somebody scream and let them know it's time to take off!
But the FAA inspectors aren't always as diligent as we are being led to believe, primarily due to Bu$hCo enforcement directives. Instead, such maintenance flaws are generally found AFTER an incident:
An incident report filed with the Federal Aviation Administration shows that in that case, the nose gear wheels on the A320 were also turned 90 degrees to the right, just as they were in the case of the landing Wednesday night. Three weeks later, a United Airlines Airbus 319 had the same problem coming into Chicago.An NTSB report said a part was incorrectly installed by a contract maintenance facility in the case of the United flight.
Anyone remember Valu Jet?
This is what America's air carriers want to become to save a buck? Are you willing to fly on such an airline?
I wonder if there is still time to catch a train. Damn - missed it!
It isn't always the worker - contracted or not - who is to blame. Sometimes, it's the 'new' parts which aren't up to standards:
In 1999, an America West flight from Newark to Columbus, Ohio, landed safely after the crew had received a warning that the gear had not extended properly. That incident was blamed on a faulty seal on a steering control valve, and the FAA ordered a modification.
But the consequences of NOT dealing with materials issues is a lesson that remains to be learned by flight executives. Take NASA, for example. They outsourced a great deal of precision engineering work during the Reagan Regime. Standards slipped, and especially due to intense political pressure from the White House, NASA management allowed the launch of the Challenger, equiped with a defective insulation foam material. Fractured through violent shaking in cold air teperatures, the foam caused a fuel leak which was ignited by the booster rocket exhaust, the result of which blew up Reagan's grandiose bragging plans for the SOTU speech that night - and, incidently, cost the lives of seven expensively-trained astronauts.
Then there was the Columbia disaster, where engineers were again squelched by NASA management - and seven more expensively-trained astronauts became star dust. And after two years of evidence-burying and random finger-pointing, Discovery almost joined that somber roster. Only then did NASA management have to conclude that they couldn't keep up appearances any longer, giving in to reality - really solving the problem in order to save their phony-baloney political jobs.
And you would trust people like this to keep your house from being crushed by a falling airliner??? You shouldn't, nor should you trust the government officials that order them not to do the best job possible because it might cost their contributors - the mentally-bankrupt managers that run the companies that fly them - a lot of money that would otherwise flow into GOP coffers!
Business travellers don't seem to trust bankrupt airlines, and - especially after this week's sparkly landing at LAX, Jet Blue may go in the red. They would join such sore-wing condors as Delta, Northwest, United, US Airways, and America West in a turbulent atmosphere of economic downdrafts. Smaller feeder companies like Comair are in similar straits, as their business relies upon the big guys.
This situation isn't playing well in Middle America. In fact, they are quite fed up with providing the financial cushion that Sir Rod so soundly denounced above:
Twenty-seven years after deregulation, the so-called "legacy" carriers still have not learned to compete. The airline industry has been lurching near the brink of ruin for 20 years. If any other industry suffered the ailments of the airlines, the mess would have been cleaned up long ago. The savings and loan crisis of the 1980s taught us that it's better to deal with financial failures quickly, rather than let them fester.This is made possible partly by the airlines' friends. Airline suppliers - such as General Electric - step in with financing so that busted airlines can keep buying. Small cities kick in subsidies to get airline service. Creditors and bankruptcy judges accept rosy forecasts when letting bankrupt airlines off the hook. USAirways is on its second bankruptcy. TWA went broke three times before disappearing.
The airlines are pressing for more time to bring their pension funds out of the red. Delta's pension alone is $10 billion short. The government is considering giving all companies five to seven years to bring underfunded pensions up to snuff. The airlines want 25 years. During that time, they'd run up more pension obligations, making the ultimate bailout worse. That, too, is a bad idea. The federal Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation, which insures pensions, already is running $27 billion short of what it needs to meet its obligations. Now, there is a movement in Congress to cut airline fuel taxes. The federal deficit was running at an annual $330 billion before Katrina added at least $62 billion more. Cutting taxes in the face of that is foolish. In hindsight, that money was wasted. It postponed the reckoning.
No sentient being would bet a dime on the chances that any airline, other than a discounter, will survive five more years, much less 25. Airlines that can't cut it should liquidate. Consumers, who have benefited mightily from fare wars, might pay a little more. But as long as Southwest can sell a ticket from St. Louis to Chicago for $64, its competitors will have to match it.
In a bankruptcy, that simply means less money for Uncle Sam and more for the airline's creditors and perhaps its employees. The latest bankruptcies should teach Uncle Sam a lesson: Emergencies are a time for hard-headedness.
You can tell the political biases of this author, can't you? Sure you can! Can't leave enough blame out for the working man! After all, if he had done his job well, this wouldn't be happening:
Labor must accept lower pay and benefits, because a lesser job is better than no job.
Is that the argument that is going to be offered those who will work for substandard wages cleaning up the Gulf coast from two major hurricanes? Sure it will - no one will rise to challenge that assertion! Those Red State Roosters trust the pilot! Someone should remind them of the fate of the passenger pigeon
People won't fly if they don't trust the pilot. Why should they continue to trust the government that allows these buzzards to continue flying?
All I know about that is this: ever since the election of Ronald Reagan, America has been flying blind by the seat of its well-worn pants. Few have succeeded in reaching the people by rising up in protest against the conservative onslaught that is seeking to turn America away from flying among the stars in favor of a return to lofting glorified kites buffetted by the winds of change.
Maybe it is going to take a major crash before people wake up and start asking the uncomfortable questions that a facile facade turns away. Maybe then the people will seek substance over image - and maybe then we can rejoin the world in the 21st Century. Maybe once again we can reach for the stars and slip the surly bonds of Earth.
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