Civil war at United Airlines

[marmar]

from MarketWatch:


United's pilots call for the CEO's resignation
By Christopher Hinton, MarketWatch


NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- The pilots union at United Airlines escalated its attack on the carrier's management Monday when it called for the ouster of Chief Executive Glenn Tilton.

During Tilton's tenure, "United has gone from being the finest airline in the world, with the best route structure and safety record, to a shell of its former self," said Steve Wallach, head of the union and member of United's board of directors.

The recent criticism is part of a wider fusillade following holding company UAL Corp.'s refusal to reopen a job contract with pilots that's set to expire in early 2010. And in June, United said it would cut 950 pilot jobs as it grounds its older, more expensive aircraft to help pay for jet fuel.
The Wall Street Journal reported over the weekend that the pilots union accused the airline of deteriorating maintenance standards and cited four recent engine failures on United 737 aircraft. See story at WSJ.com.

The Federal Aviation Administration and United are trying to ascertain why the engines failed, according to UAL, but so far the failures don't appear related. Maintenance of 737 engines was outsourced to Teamster mechanics at United's San Francisco facility, a spokeswoman told the Journal.
That facility has since been shut down, and United intends to ground its entire 737 fleet this fall. .....(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/uniteds-pilots-call-ceos-resignation/story.aspx?guid=%7BED742BAC%2D55C7%2D410B%2DAA1E%2D184E3F026B55%7D

[rucky]

1. Yeah, they pretty much suck.

[DemoTex]

2. United Airlines deserves better than Glen Tilton ..

After all, they suffered Steve Wolf back in the 1990s. That sucked too.

[Parche]

3. Exactly

They were flying what they called...wing tip, 2 planes at the same time to the same destination,
talk about stupid

They were only going after market share, rather then yield, that is another one

They have tons of different fares on one route, rather then 2 or 3

They spun off TED, which was the most stupidest thing ever.....

I always joked that American spun off theres and named it CAN............:woohoo:

They have some of the best routes of any airline, yet they failed to capitalize on their route structure some how.......

:hi:

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

4. I feel bad for their employees.

UAL has been horribly managed for years, and their labor relations continue to deteriorate. I've heard horror stories from pilots who used to work there, including one who walked away from years of seniority to start at the bottom at another airline, just to get away from there -- it sounds utterly horrendous. They want Tilton's head.

[cloudbase]

5. Right out of the

Frank Lorenzo playbook.

[ColbertWatcher]

6. "United's pilots call for the CEO's resignation" deserves a k+r, n/t

[Theres-a]

8. X2!

[XOKCowboy]

7. Dammit I like United Airlines

Granted I live in Denver and I fly a lot for my job. That means I've flown on hundreds of United flights all over the world in the last 15 yrs. It also means that I've flown on most of the other major airlines at one time or another. My view might be skewed a bit because I've been either Premier or Executive Premier on United most of that time and never had enough flights/miles on any other airline to achieve any status in their awards programs.

United has always treated me extremely well from the curbside check-in guys to to flight attendants. I've never had a problem with their online booking, check-in or frequent flier program. Any time my luggage didn't make my flight (3 times out of hundreds of flights) the United baggage people went out of their way to assure it was at my home or hotel as soon as possible even overseas. When I was stuck in Belize during Tropical Storm Arthur, United called ME to arrange an alternate flight so I could get home.

I never met the CEO of United or any of the board but UA's employees have made flying United a pleasure for me.

[AlCzervik]

9. same here, i almost always fly on united and my husband flies them about 200k

a year so needless to say we get a lot of free travel and automatic upgrades. The European flight crews are fantastic.