I was looking at some old company letters last night and found one from Bob Tyler. He sent it to pilots and flight attendants back on April 18, 2006 *. Check out the difference between what he said about layoffs compared to what management did to the 70 pilots who were terminated. This is what Mr. Tyler said about the application of seniority in 2006:
“By the end of 2006, Flight Options expects to be operating about 150 aircraft. A reduction in fleet size was a planned and necessary aspect of the Go-Forward plan, but it's occurring faster than we had initially forecast. An unanticipated number of owners are exiting their shares or getting out of the Retiring Fleets. Owners in these older aircraft require much larger investments to transition to a newer aircraft and many are simply redeeming their shares without buying into the Go-Forward Fleets. While some of this was expected, we are seeing this take place at an accelerated rate, which is speeding up the next phase of our Go-Forward plan.
This swift reduction in fleet size must be accompanied by proportionate scaling in all other areas of the business, including maintenance, support functions, and flight operations…As the total number of aircraft has decreased, a fleet-wide surplus of pilots has developed. Some programs are adequately staffed, others, especially the retiring fleets, have excess crews…We're hopeful that crewmembers will take enough vacation to ease the temporary surplus of pilots. If too few bid vacation, take leaves of absence, or resign, we'll have to layoff. If we layoff, it will be by seniority; that is, the junior pilot will be laid off first, the next most junior will be laid off second, and so on.”
My question is, if management was willing to do seniority-based pilot layoffs in 2006, why did they fire pilots out of seniority in 2008???
I’m sure someone in senior management will spin an answer. Mr. Tyler and his buddies sure flip and flop, depending on what they think they can get the pilot group to buy into. But I don’t care what they say. If seniority-based layoffs, if they became necessary, were good enough for pilots in 2006, then pilots should have been laid off in seniority order in May if management needed to reduce the payroll! In 2006 management said they were worse off financially than they are today. Don’t tell me out-of-seniority terminations were the only way to do it this time. I support the Union and the terminated pilots 100%. We need to make sure that those pilots get their jobs back and management respects the seniority of all pilots. I’ll vote “No” on any contract unless they are put back to work. Because if they can do it to them, they will think they can do anything to all of us! We must protect seniority at all costs.
JB
* see the letter at the Flight Options Pilots website: (pilots.flightoptions.com) Click on "archives", look near the bottom of the page for "Bob Tyler Letter to the Crews 4/18/2006". Go to "Summary" at the end of the letter.
This was not writtten by me.
So it looks to me like Bob Tyler and company do actually lie to the FLOPS pilot group.
What do you think B19, Skanza, May, Marker, and now Narrow Bridge. Read the part in red. (its the best)
And you guys want to accept the first "bullet" proposal the loosers put in front of you!!!!
“By the end of 2006, Flight Options expects to be operating about 150 aircraft. A reduction in fleet size was a planned and necessary aspect of the Go-Forward plan, but it's occurring faster than we had initially forecast. An unanticipated number of owners are exiting their shares or getting out of the Retiring Fleets. Owners in these older aircraft require much larger investments to transition to a newer aircraft and many are simply redeeming their shares without buying into the Go-Forward Fleets. While some of this was expected, we are seeing this take place at an accelerated rate, which is speeding up the next phase of our Go-Forward plan.
This swift reduction in fleet size must be accompanied by proportionate scaling in all other areas of the business, including maintenance, support functions, and flight operations…As the total number of aircraft has decreased, a fleet-wide surplus of pilots has developed. Some programs are adequately staffed, others, especially the retiring fleets, have excess crews…We're hopeful that crewmembers will take enough vacation to ease the temporary surplus of pilots. If too few bid vacation, take leaves of absence, or resign, we'll have to layoff. If we layoff, it will be by seniority; that is, the junior pilot will be laid off first, the next most junior will be laid off second, and so on.”
My question is, if management was willing to do seniority-based pilot layoffs in 2006, why did they fire pilots out of seniority in 2008???
I’m sure someone in senior management will spin an answer. Mr. Tyler and his buddies sure flip and flop, depending on what they think they can get the pilot group to buy into. But I don’t care what they say. If seniority-based layoffs, if they became necessary, were good enough for pilots in 2006, then pilots should have been laid off in seniority order in May if management needed to reduce the payroll! In 2006 management said they were worse off financially than they are today. Don’t tell me out-of-seniority terminations were the only way to do it this time. I support the Union and the terminated pilots 100%. We need to make sure that those pilots get their jobs back and management respects the seniority of all pilots. I’ll vote “No” on any contract unless they are put back to work. Because if they can do it to them, they will think they can do anything to all of us! We must protect seniority at all costs.
JB
* see the letter at the Flight Options Pilots website: (pilots.flightoptions.com) Click on "archives", look near the bottom of the page for "Bob Tyler Letter to the Crews 4/18/2006". Go to "Summary" at the end of the letter.
This was not writtten by me.
So it looks to me like Bob Tyler and company do actually lie to the FLOPS pilot group.
What do you think B19, Skanza, May, Marker, and now Narrow Bridge. Read the part in red. (its the best)
And you guys want to accept the first "bullet" proposal the loosers put in front of you!!!!
