doz4dllrs

Isn’t profit sharing industry standard? Don’t all majors have it except us. What aren’t we asking for this in negotiations?

monkeybrains

Profit sharing has historically been something that management groups offer to pilots as they are gutting pay, retirement, work rules, etc. It has historically been worth little or nothing. We had profit sharing and it was negotiated away as part of the FAPA Invest deal when we were purchased by Indigo.
There is not a single management group out there that had any idea of the turnaround this industry was about to make. If they had a clue, they never would have offered profit sharing the way they did. In addition, every pilot group was *****ing and moaning about profit sharing when these deals were made, and now they would likely give a kidney prior to giving up their profit sharing...and their management groups have been asking.
There is an exception here which would be AA. They were given(not negotiated) their profit sharing while the airline was profitable, not because they have saavy negotiators or because DP is a great guy. AA offered the profit sharing because the American pilots had already fallen considerably behind DL and UA in wages, and didn’t have other provisions that DL and UA had like avg min day among others, and Douggie didn’t want the airline to implode. AA profit sharing is nowhere near as favorable as DL profit sharing. Indigo has already demonstrated they don’t care if the airline implodes.
If profit sharing is really something the pilot wants as part of this negotiations then we should make that known to the NC, but, much the same as it was when DL, UA et al negotiated it, it won’t be free. They gave up huge money to get it(of course they had no choice because they were in bankruptcy) and we will too. Personally I have no interest in sacrificing pay rates or retirement money for profit sharing when our airline is making historic profits, the same way I wouldn’t want to buy a house the day before the real estate burst. The cost will be way too high. It sucks, but that is life.

PulledBreaker

I wouldn't want any of my compensation tied to profits with these dingleberries at the helm. The ULCC model works, but these geniuses can't seem to figure out that you can't extract every penny from the operation, crap on your core employee groups, and then expect us to show up and go the extra mile to help them continue to take money out of our kid's mouths.

With the exorbitant amount of cancellations, I highly doubt there's any profit left this year. And that's by Frankie's design. If he can't have it, nobody can.

doz4dllrs

So profit sharing is industry standard and you don’t want it. What else is industry standard that you don’t want? Scope, LTD, work rules, retirement?

It’s pretty hard to get an industry standard contract if you don’t negotiate for industry standard in ALL sections of the CBA.

Notarealpilot

Frontier airlines doesn’t make a profit it’s holdnig company and indigo do. Profit sharing is about as worthless as promised upgrade times in this industry when the people running the place have no morals and can move money all they want. They can easily show we’re making millions or losing money depending on how they manipulate the numbers.

doz4dllrs

That’s a BS answer. If that were were the case FAPA Invest would be worthless. A properly worded profit sharing clause would hold up to EBITDA numbers just the same. The days of running alter egos and the like to skirt cba’s scope or profit sharing or whatever are over. ALPA has wised up to that game.

PulledBreaker

Careful, you might jinx yourself. With all these cancellations (and more to come) you just might see negative YTD coming when the deal comes up for audit.

Call it BS or not, this is a privately held entity, where management and advisory "fees" extract all the profit. If you think they won't temporarily attack the valuation to screw the pilots out of money, I feel you are in for a surprise.

Missed Appch

Very true. There is no way Indigo is just going to hand that money over. I don’t care what the FI people say. Past behavior should be a good indication of future actions.

monkeybrains

Ummm, not at all what I said, but why would we want to let facts and reality come in the way of some good rhetoric, I never said I don’t want profit sharing, I asked what you would be willing to forego to get it. Let me save you the trouble....I’m guessing your answer is nothing, I want it all. Well if that is the case, then good luck, and if you think this process is taking forever right now, with that strategy, we will all be dead and gone by the time we get an agreement.

Big E 757

This is a very good summary of how the Legacy profit sharing occurred. At the time, when Delta pilots were staring down the barrel of a gun, taking a second pay cut, totaling 42% of what we were at in 2004, and ALPA said....but we got profit sharing. I thought, “WTF you fu€k nuckle, of course you did. We won’t make a dime off profit sharing for 10 or more years.

I wouldn’t waste a dime of negotiating capital now for it for your group, but I wouldn’t give up our profit sharing for anything, either. Part of our issue for us is all the International code sharing Delta is doing too, though. It gives us a little benefit while we watch our company use our alliance partners to operate all of these codeshare flights all over the globe with 787’s and A380’s while I spend 30 hours on my Syracuse layover.

You won’t get it now for a reasonable price, but after you get a better contract, if the company cries poor and asks for you to take a pay cut, then you get a good profit sharing plan in place with the pay cut.

I truly hope none of us has to go through the years after 9/11 or the 2008-2009 years again, but in this industry, no one knows what’s around the corner. Good luck guys! You really deserve a lot more money, and I hope it’s coming soon for you. The financial markets are making me nervous.