I watched nearly every>separation-eligible pilot leave my AF squadron and get hired>by the majors...first in the mid 80s, then again in the mid>90s. During those big hiring years there was nothing>competitive at all about leaving the military and getting a>job with a major carrier. Many...well over half...had>multiple offers. Getting one of those jobs was not about>being one of the best ones applying, it was about just being>one of the ones applying. The reality that I saw coming out of the Navy in the late 80's was that not everyone got hired, at Delta I know for a fact that only about 20% of applicants got hired. It wasn't really a "warm body" issue as you say, never saw anything like that here.>Not sure I understand how pay can be summarily excluded as a>cause for airline bankruptcy when wages are widely accepted to>be the second most expensive cost, only behind fuel. Although>"corporate greed, avarice, ineptitude, and unethical behavior">are certainly bad sounding things, I really haven't seen a>good factual argument ever made as to how that's taking the>industry down. Thats because you havent watched your CEO and the top officers make bad decision after bad decision and then secure thier retirements, with compnay money, outside(offshore) the normal pension plan and then depart in droves once times get tough. You havent seen your CEO and BOD sell off fuel hedges prior to the largest run up in fuel price in recent history. You havent seen your company slash fares well below industry standard on a wide scale when we were losing money to start with. I could go on but its pointless. It's happening at all the major airlines and the inabilty to adapt to the marketplace (IE LCC's etc) is destroying the legacy carriers. That plus the singlminded efforts to break the backs of organized labor in any form. Well you are correct about the percentages of costs, but when you cut only employee pay and ruin revenue with ridiculous marketing and fare wars its rather hard to make money. Over the last few years this industry has failed to transfer the higher cost of energy to the consumer as other industries have. I see this as a major problem and even with our draconian cuts, this still looms as a huge cost which has to be addressed. I see the emotional finger pointing at CEOs>(and a handful of other top corporate managers in each>company) that are making way too much money, and although I'm>not too sympathetic to them either, their numbers are too>small for their benefits to account for million dollar a day>losses. And in the case of Delta, I wonder how much a good>CFO would have been worth to its pilots...one with the>foresight, training and experience to not sell off the fuel>options contracts right before they were needed more than any>time in the company's history. A leader who sacrifices WITH his employees and makes the hard decisions about revenue, marketing, and personel would be welcome here. Do some research on what has gone on particularly at Delta over the last 3 years and see the horror story that is management. This is widely accepted as the worst managed airline in recent history, not just by me but most analysts and media. A good leader here would have had the cuts and programs in place already and realised that labor strife IS NOT the way to success. I knew we were going to take pay cuts but it should be done in a fair and equitable fashion, this has decidedly NOT been the case here.>The pension fund mess is bad, but it isn't new. I had a>neighbor who flew for Continental in the 50s and 60s, retired,>and after being in retirement for over 15 years, Lorenzo>pillaged their pension fund, and he lost more than 80% of it>with no way to recover. That was in the days before the PBGC>provided the pension insurance we have today. My grandfather>was a retired Eastern pilot, and he saved and diversified>wisely...he always said that one of the reasons he got paid so>well was that nobody knew for sure one day to the next what>the sign on the hangar would say. And I have friends in the>airlines who were earning $150-200K a year for over a decade>who are just a paycheck or two away from personal bankruptcy>at any given moment because they failed to grasp the risk>inherent in their historically cyclic industry and tailor>their lifestyles accordingly. It frustrates me to see them>fail, because I like them. Well, here we are alike, I have lived within my means and put money away for myself and my kids education. I have not made the "big" money albeit for about 1 year (prior to last years paycut). I have always prepared myself for the downside. What is very difficult to come to grips with is the loss of the pension. At my age something like this is a devastating blow and the realization that many things including my planned lifestyle during retirement are drastically changed is a very ugly prospect.>I'll grant you that you have an inside view of the industry>that I do not. But being inside can be at least as>perception-limiting as being outside. Only if you cant see the forest for the trees and don't have an open mind, In my case niether of these is true. My thoughts on this issue come from studying BOTH sides of these issues and from an un-emotional and rational perspective.Hornit

> The reality that I saw coming out of the Navy in the late>80's was that not everyone got hired, at Delta I know for a>fact that only about 20% of applicants got hired. It wasn't>really a "warm body" issue as you say, never saw anything like>that here.Probably true when looking at the entire pool of applicants to Delta, but the percentage of AF pilots who separated and were not able to secure a flying job with a major airline was well below 10%. I found that the odds of getting on with any specific airline were, again, timing related. If you were in the application pool when they were hiring 110 a month, your odds differed from when it was 20 or 30 a month.> Thats because you havent watched your CEO and the top>officers make bad decision after bad decision and then secure>thier retirements, with compnay money, outside(offshore) the>normal pension plan and then depart in droves once times get>tough. Ask your former AF pilot friends what a guy named Tony McPeak did for the AF. I think you'll find that our experiences with poor leadership have a lot more in common than you think.> A leader who sacrifices WITH his employees and makes the hard>decisions about revenue, marketing, and personel would be>welcome here. Do some research on what has gone on>particularly at Delta over the last 3 years and see the horror>story that is management. This is widely accepted as the worst>managed airline in recent history, not just by me but most>analysts and media.Now there's something else we can agree on. Big difference between a manager and a leader. Bad management and bad leadership both have their costs...and it's catastrophic when the bosses can do neither.>What is very difficult to come to grips with is the loss of the>pension. At my age something like this is a devastating blow>and the realization that many things including my planned>lifestyle during retirement are drastically changed is a very>ugly prospect.I guess my aforementioned ex-Continental neighbor and his experiences during Lorenzo's follies always spotlighted the pension risk in my analyses. It was a significant factor in my own career decisions. I have other friends who lost the vast majority of their retirements in the stock market collapse...especially the tech sector collapse. Watching an elderly couple have to move from their home of 40 years in the aftermath of a loss of 90% of their retirement savings is a sobering experience. I'm sorry that you got badly hurt, but glad that you were smart enough to have kept from being completely destroyed by managing risk prudently.And this is not confined to the airlines...there appear to be millions of people in the USA who manage financial risk as if it didn't exist. The low savings rate, the skyrocketing personal debt figures, ugly trends in irresponsible home financing schemes...they are apalling, and I often wonder how we're going to cope with what looks to me to be a nearly certain spike of millions of baby-boom retirees who reach retirement age utterly destitute becuase of their own bad planning...and yes, bad planning includes failure to provide for the possibility of a failure of a critical component of one's retirement plan.But then there's always Social Security... :-eekRegardsBob ScottATP IMEL Gulfstream II-III-IV-V L-300Santiago de Chile