newKnow

Bar,

IF JAL is announced, you still think they will furlough?

Bucking Bar

Too nose heavy and I'm not a fan of ol'Shelby when he got out of racing and into merchandising. Ford should have just left SVT in place instead of splitting them up and giving royalties (& jacking up the cost) of the SVT Mustangs. It was my pleasure to work for Mr. Jack Roush on getting his P51 back flying after the OSH gear up and if I was going to go with a "aftermarket" Mustang, I'd sure like it if he put something together for an ol' airplane buddy (I think he might).

What would get me real excited is a factory K Code Mustang ... why not?

sinca3

We haven't gotten the 1% bump yet. Were we suppose to get it along with the latest raise on 1/1/10? I called Fidelity last week and I was still getting the 11% total.

slowplay

You started earning the bump 1/1/10. The first time it will be seen in your account will be on the February 15 deposit for your January pay.

sinca3

Thx.......

DFW Refugee

All:

Got this from another source, and did not see any reference on the boards here.

Comments?

(Color, etc... mine.)

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Udvar-Hazy of ILFC Will Depart AIG Unit
By SERENA NG, JOANN S. LUBLIN And DOUG CAMERON -- WSJ
JANUARY 25, 2010

Steven Udvar-Hazy, the chief executive and a founder of aircraft-leasing company International Lease Finance Corp.—who tried to extricate the firm from its struggling parent, American International Group Inc.—is expected to leave the company as soon as this week, people familiar with the matter said.

AIG has been trying to sell ILFC, one of the two biggest aircraft-leasing companies in the world, for the past year. The company may name John Plueger, currently ILFC's president and chief operating officer, to succeed Mr. Udvar-Hazy as chief executive, according to a person familiar with the matter. Discussions on the succession plan are continuing, said another individual.

Mr. Udvar-Hazy, who turns 64 years old in February, was succeeded last month as chairman of ILFC by Douglas Steenland, an AIG board member and the former president and CEO of Northwest Airlines. That change wasn't announced by ILFC or AIG. Mr. Udvar-Hazy didn't respond to a request for comment Sunday.

The giant insurer, which was bailed out by the government in September 2008, has been looking to sell ILFC or parts of it after deeming the firm a noncore business. It is unclear how Mr. Hazy's departure will affect AIG's effort to find buyers for ILFC, now relying on its parent for some financial support after being effectively frozen out from the public debt markets.

Mr. Udvar-Hazy was recently in talks to purchase about $4 billion in planes from the leasing firm, which had total assets of $46 billion as of September 2009. That plan, which had backing from private-equity firms Greenbriar Equity Group LLC and Onex Partners, was recently rejected, according to people familiar with the situation.

Mr. Udvar-Hazy co-founded ILFC in 1973 with two other individuals and grew it into one of the two largest aircraft leasing firms in the world, with nearly 1,000 Boeing and Airbus aircraft.

The appointment of Mr. Steenland as ILFC's nonexecutive chairman and the expected selection of an insider to succeed Mr. Udvar-Hazy in leading the business should be welcomed by the industry, according to one airline executive. ILFC ranks alongside the Gecas unit of General Electric Co. as the world's largest aircraft-leasing businesses, and uncertainty over its future and potential asset sales had threatened aircraft values as well as efforts by number of other companies to sell their own leasing operations.

Mr. Steenland is chairing an ILFC board committee that was recently created to oversee the proposed purchase of part of its plane fleet by the bidder group involving Mr. Udvar-Hazy, according to a person familiar with the matter. The idea was to make sure "the overall process for conducting an auction for a small slice of the fleet is done at arm's length," this person explained.

While ILFC remained profitable in the third quarter of 2009, its roughly $30 billion debt load and continuing lack of access to short-term capital markets have forced the company to rely on federal funds channeled through AIG to meet some financial obligations. Last month, Moody's Investors Service downgraded ILFC's credit rating to "junk" from "investment grade," citing liquidity constraints and waning support from parent AIG, which is committed to backstopping ILFC through November 2010.

ILFC's weaker credit rating could further hamstring the aircraft financing company's ability to raise money by issuing bonds and commercial paper. Over time, it may have to sell off some of its aircraft assets at a loss to repay maturing debt, Moody's said.

Write to Serena Ng at [email protected], Joann S. Lublin at [email protected] and Doug Cameron at [email protected]

Superpilot92

IMHO, the only way we'd see a furlough is IF something really bad happens, 9/11 or depression. Currently there is ALOT going on and retirements are quickly getting closer. By this fall we'll be at 3 years into the age 65 rule change and guys will start dropping like flies. Also consider that the company thus far, if thinking about staffing, they have offered leaves and early outs. All of that would happen first in the UNLIKELY event of needed fbombs.

Training alone is going to kick the airlines butt and the constant realignment of planes and people will keep this airline on its toes going forward. IMHO we've made it over the hump

80ktsClamp

Absolutely agreed. Or, in the words of Snoop Dogg: Fo drizzle.

Bucking Bar

Don't have any clue. Barring any significant structural change the trigger is the US Unemployment numbers. For people to purchase our service, they need jobs. I figure we have to see an improvement of 1 to 2% for a turn around and 4% to see any significant growth / restoration.

One aspect of this displacement was getting people in position to furlough and we must admit, the timing of displacements, training, seasonal flying adjustments and DC9 retirements are uncanny.

J MHO.

Superpilot92

Pilots contract threatens Continental-United ventures



A little-known pilot contract provision could scuttle two major international initiatives planned by Continental and United Airlines and their Star Alliance airline partners.
The two U.S. carriers, along with Lufthansa and Air Canada, received antitrust immunity from the U.S. government last year to divvy up revenue and closely coordinate flights across the North Atlantic.
Chicago-based United and Continental are using that partnership as a template for a trans-Pacific venture they are forming with All Nippon Airways to compete with that region's troubled juggernaut, Japan Airlines.
However, Continental's pilots hold an effective veto over the deals as a result of a clause in their contract that bars the Houston-based carrier from entering into a revenue-sharing arrangement with another U.S. carrier.
Deep in contract talks with Continental management, the pilots union is refusing to budge on the "scope" language in their collective bargaining agreement.The stalemate is holding up the full launch of the Atlantic joint venture and would be a barrier to the Pacific deal, sources said. The Atlantic partnership must be fully operating by December under the terms of the antitrust immunity granted by the U.S. Department of Transportation last summer.
"There are a number of open items related to governance and commercial issues that we are working through on the joint venture, including discussions concerning our pilots' scope clause," said Continental spokeswoman Julie King. "The companies and the DOT recognized that there were a lot of issues to be resolved in setting up a joint venture, and that's why the DOT order gives 18 months for the joint venture to be implemented."
The pilots are aware of the clout that they hold as potential deal-breakers and the importance of the international forays to Continental's management. The nation's fourth-largest carrier defected last year to Star from the SkyTeam alliance and formed a close relationship with United that many analysts think is a precursor to an eventual merger.
"I think they're counting on us," Capt. Jay Pierce, head of the Continental pilots union, told the Tribune. "History would probably tell you that's not a bad gamble for them to take. I will say this: We are well aware of the leverage this gives us."

Continental and its pilots have been in contract talks since July 2007 and, after reaching agreement on nine sections, are starting to tackle "hard economic issues" like pay, Pierce said. Scope issues touch all of the hot buttons: pay, management's rights and job security, he noted.

Since Continental is known for healthy employee relations in an industry rife with acrimony, industry observers predict the carrier will find a middle ground with pilots.
"It needs to get worked out," said aviation consultant Robert Mann. "Like it or not, this is where the industry is going."
Many U.S. pilots find the prospect of large-scale partnerships deeply threatening. They worry that carriers are seeking to outsource the long-range flying jobs that are among the most prestigious and highest paying.
American Airlines' pilots oppose its proposed trans-Atlantic alliance with Oneworld partners British Airways and Iberia. While United and Continental pilots didn't try to block Star's Atlantic venture, they want assurances that pilot jobs won't be a casualty of "metal-neutrality," the practice of giving all participating carriers a cut of revenue on a flight regardless of who flies it.
"We do not want a shell operation," said Capt. Wendy Morse, who heads United's pilots union. "We want metal in the market, United pilots being productive in terms of flying their own airplanes and route structure."
That concept is less threatening to Delta Air Line's pilots, who already participate in a metal-neutral venture in the Atlantic and last fall endorsed their management's bid to form a partnership with JAL that would likely have a similar structure. But the pilots have safeguards against flying cuts. Delta, for example, is required to maintain a minimum number of landing slots at Tokyo's Narita Airport for its own aircraft, according to a Nov. 30 union communique.
Proponents of the new ventures argue that they will create jobs and travel growth as passengers in Tokyo or Brussels find it easier to get to destinations like Costa Rica.
"Joint ventures and alliances make us a stronger airline and partner, and create and protect jobs," said United spokeswoman Jean Medina. She estimated that United's alliance with Lufthansa and other partnerships have created or protected 3,000 jobs that would have otherwise vanished.
But this decade's alliances may prove far different than those forged during the past two decades, when global aviation boomed, warned aviation consultant Hubert Horan, a former airline executive who helped form the original Northwest-KLM alliance in 1992.
"These are taking place in markets that are shrinking, not growing," he said. "There's no discussion of how that pain will be shared."