rp2pilot

I'm not an expert either .. Googling "proxy fight" provides some good insight into the matter. There's quite a bit that the board can do and it sounds like Oscar Munoz weathered a similar proxy fight at CSX. For us, I think we'll be best served if we continue to post improvements in reliability and customer satisfaction and convince the majority of the shareholders that things are running fine WITHOUT the raiders taking over.

buscappy

good question.

this is why F Lee Bailey told the MEC waaaay back that the only way to avoid these investor and BOD actions would be to own a majority of the shares. and the MEC pursued the ESOP.

the reasons for the failure of the ESOP are as numerous as the number of pilots on the seniority list. and everyone has a different take on why it failed

when there are shareholders and creditors, and directors and executives, and bankers and lawyers, and clients, and employees, in an American public corporation, guess who has zero say?

either move the corp to asia or europe (where sometimes employees are legally stakeholders), buy a majority of the shares, or work as an employee under the collectively bargained labor agreement and keep your logbook current

those seem to be the options

tomgoodman

Sometimes a barking dog has no real desire to catch the car, but to see how much the car will pay him to go away.

Monkeyfly

Quotes from Bethune just after the merger:



Also, this hilariously prescient quote from Smisek himself:

Done and done, sir!

APC225

March 21, 2016

Fellow United Pilots,

We all have seen the recent deluge of news concerning activist shareholders who are trying to install several handpicked board members, including former Continental CEO Gordon Bethune. Mr. Bethune is well known for leading the turn-around at Continental Airlines in the 1990s. This airline success story is chronicled in the book, “From Worst to First.” Mr. Bethune inarguably created a wonderful legacy for Continental airlines and himself, which we hope will remain untouched and untarnished by those attempting to use him as a distraction in their attempt to raid United’s corporate assets.

March 14 was CEO Oscar Munoz’s first day back at work, returning from his heart transplant. The pilots and employees of United welcome him back and are looking forward to what we believe will be positive change at our airline. Mr. Munoz has vowed to fix the remaining problems created by the merger, problems that languished during former CEO Jeff Smisek’s tenure. It is axiomatic that these positive changes will lead to a more proactive and engaged workforce, an overall better customer experience, and improvements to the bottom line. We also have received a firm commitment from Mr. Munoz to address and fix the myriad problems that have been obvious to all employees for some time. Your MEC, as well as Wall Street, are well aware that these problems were created and/or ignored by Mr. Munoz’s predecessor, Mr. Smisek; a man handpicked by Mr. Bethune, who continues to make public comments openly supporting Mr. Smisek.

The suggestion that Mr. Bethune would be a great choice for the United Airlines board is designed to play on employees’ good will and feelings of nostalgia. We believe it is a mere ploy, a red herring, and a complete ruse designed to distract everyone from the activists’ real goal, which is to smash and grab from United’s coffers. In order for our airline to remain competitive, continued investments need to be made that will benefit all stakeholders, not just shareholders. Instead of rewarding corporate green mailers, investments in the future viability of our airline need to be made. To remain competitive, we still need many improvements to the infrastructure, IT systems, fleets, maintenance, training, customer experience, employee contracts, and other integration issues.

Now, with the ineffective Mr. Smisek out of the picture, and the return of a more inspirational leader in Mr. Munoz, our airline has turned the corner. The UALMEC looks forward to effective leadership from Mr. Munoz. We support the positive direction that he has taken thus far. We are not interested in outsiders who are late to the party and interfering with United’s bright future. We are not interested in handing over hard earned profits to those looking to raid the corporation. The pilots and employees of United Airlines deserve better. Our passengers deserve better. The shareholders deserve better. All stakeholders of United Airlines will benefit by thwarting these destructive forces disguised as shareholder activists.

The United Master Executive Council
Air Line Pilots Association, International

AllenAllert

What the MEC said was they'll take the '???? in the poke' versus the devils they know.

baseball

I am fairly certain that all investors are in it for the money. And all big investors are in it for the big money. All Institutional investors are in it for insane amounts of money.

They own both a piece of Delta and a piece of United strictly because of two factors: one United route network and two Delta's management team. For United they believe the route network is very strong and would be a formidable force to reckon with if higher PRASM's can be realized off those routes. On the Delta front, they know the top 8 managers from Gordon Bethune's turn-a-round of Continental are key decision makers at DAL and they are betting they will keep that airline efficient and competitive.

Since they aren't going "all in" on one airline over another, they are simply content to make a butt-load of cash from both. Too risky putting all their eggs in one airline basket.

If they can be successful in putting up candidates for each board they will be more likely to invest more money in both. This gives them "hedges" against their cash positions in being comfortable with the decision-making skills of their candidates.

It's sort of like Obama putting up an ultra liberal judge for Supreme Court. Obama doesn't have to wonder how that person will rule on abortion or other liberal special interests.

hedge funds and other institutional investment firms seem to do this allot at publicly traded companies when large sums of money are in play.

baseball

The operational performance was OK. I don't think they measured the operational performance of my flights. Seemed like MX was playing with the jet until 15 minutes past domestic departures and 40 minutes past on international departures.

What does need fixing is the bloated chain of command and the slow decision making process. Daily ops depends on a few things: pilot staffing, in flight staffing, MX reliability, and good WX. I think MX was PO'd most of the year no?

Flytolive

Here is a link to the top 9 executives at Delta Airlines.

Delta Leadership : Delta Air Lines

Only one, Glen Hauenstein, was at CAL during Bethune's tenure. Who are the other 7 'key decision makers'?

baseball

between 2004 and 2007 there were some financial pieces written about the defection over to Delta. I will see if I can find them. It's been a few years and many may have moved on.

Glen Hauenstein was the network guru over at CAL. Now he's the revenue guy. He was a big player.

Ben Hirst comes to mind as well.

There are some other people within the operation at Delta that may not be wearing a suit and tie every day. I recall some folks at Tech Ops who were pretty talented.