jsled

Avoiding a 4 year stalemate like the current status at UPS/SWA was a BIG part of it. Our last contract went 3 years past the amendable date. It was easy to vote yes for a 15% raise (in addition to the 3% we still have coming) with no offsets and to correct LOA 25 with a decent retro payday for those guys. 13% of that raise is effective Feb 2016. In exchange, the company got a 2 year extension of our current CBA. No brainer.

Regularguy

Ok the TA is now an approved agreement and yet some keep trying to bend the conversation.

So I have one request, who is Staller?

Lambourne

That's easy. He's Capt Franswinvit ;-)

duvie

I personally think the reason this was able to sell so well to the pilot group is because the vast majority of our contract is pretty good. There are definitely adherents to the philosophy that when the economy is good you should gouge the company for everything you can, because they will take you for ride during economically bad times. However, I think that that large pendulum swing is slowing down a little and many pilots are OK with a good contract rather than trying to shoot for the moon only to lose it all later.

This particular extension gave us an appreciable wage increase and was only offset by the company having a little more flexibility to fly ultra long-haul routes, which we also benefit from financially, but had more leverage on duty extensions, etc. pre-extension.

Ultimately, it also probably just comes down to the fact that times are good. We are growing and hiring/upgrading a lot of people, and with our former CEO gone and our customer ratings improving, I think most people are just not in a very combative place.

TJohn

That cleared up my head scratching that is not due to dandruff.

👍

A320fumes

I think you're in for a surprise. I'd stop digging that hole right now if I were you.

-BS

Regularguy

Still don't get who "staller" is.

But I know this most of the LUAL pilots I now voted for the cash. So I would also recommend the slam on the LCAL pilots be canned.

Andy

I voted yes on C2012 in spite of LOA 25 which ended up costing me 7 1/2 years of furlough credit. For me, it was more important to get the two pilot groups working as one and put the divisions in the rear view mirror. Looking at the AFA, it reinforces that it was the right thing to do.

Perfect is the enemy of good. Pragmatically, C2012 was 'good enough'. Nowhere near perfect, but just good enough for me to accept.

The company's oil positions: From the conference call (Gerry Laderman, acting CFO),
"Turning to fuel expense, for 2016 we are 17% hedged and are in a loss position of approximately $225 million. Our portfolio allows us to participate in 98% of any future declines. We are currently evaluating the structure of our hedge program. And in the meantime, we have not added any new hedges since July 2015. Based on the guidance we have provided for cost and revenue in the first quarter of 2016, we expect our pre-tax margin to be between 8% and 10% in the first quarter."
United Continental's (UAL) CEO Oscar Munoz on Q4 2015 Results - Earnings Call Transcript | Seeking Alpha

Note that Oscar Munoz was on the call and answered quite a few questions.

As far as oil hedges beyond 2016, there likely aren't many, if any at all. That's because energy futures trading gets very thin much beyond a year and one would be paying a fairly large spread between bid and ask in order to get contracts filled for longer dated periods.

American has no oil hedges. Southwest has hedged more than United and has shown higher hedging losses. Delta's refinery is a huge hedge on jet fuel crack spread - and they also have to buy oil to refine so they're really ballz deep in an unprofitable hedge (they cook the books to make it look profitable; accountants can do a lot with numbers).

Oil futures are in normal backwardation (not contango) right now so futures contracts are more expensive than current prices. A July 2017 contract is trading for more than $40/barrel.

An additional consideration is that alternative energy is reducing oil demand so I don't expect to see prices rise much over the next few years.

Scott Stoops

Every single lual fleet was thrown under the bus. A 319 pays differently than a 320, but the 787 pays the same as the 747? Oh but not the 767-300 with a whole 5 seats less than the 787. The whole game reeked of garbage decision making based on a shortsighted group that intended to influence the sli. It didn't work. It wasn't even considered in the decision. Neither was loa 25. At least that one has been partially righted.

svergin

Our MEC fought for us to get our good placement in the SLI. Yours did the same. What's wrong with that?