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By David Parker Brown, on July 21st, 2009 at 12:11 pm
 Southwest Airlines Boeing 737 heading out of Las Vegas In years past, Southwest Airlines has been known to consistently make a profit. However, Southwest wasn’t able to keep up in the economic downturn and the end of hedged fuel prices. Then the airline saw three quarters of losses, but no more!
Southwest announced today that it made $54 million during the second quarter this year. This is far less than the $321 million they made during the same time last year, but better than being in the red.
Of course, like most of the world economy, Southwest is not fully in the clear. They are still taking a careful approach to the near future. Southwest chairman and chief executive officer Gary Kelly points out that, “demand for business travel remains weak, and we continue to stimulate traffic with more discounted and promotional fares.” He isn’t confident that Southwest will see a profit for the third quarter. Southwest is cutting about 4% or 1,400 employee positions through early-out offers, hoping to keep the airline profitable.
To compare, Continental Airlines posted a loss of $213 million, American Airlines posted a $390 million loss and United Airlines posted a $28 million profit. Additional airlines should be posting their second quarter results in the next day or so.
Image: gTarded
By David Parker Brown, on July 13th, 2009 at 8:33 am
 Two British Airway's Boing 777s It is not often when a group of people can come together, see the big picture, and be willing to take a cut in pay to potentially save a company. The British Airline Pilots Association voted 94% to cut their salaries by 2.6% and save the company about $42million per year. No one wants to have their salary cut, but 800 other staff members already agreed to work for free and thousands more took additional pay cuts. The pilots can see the writing on the wall and realize it might be better to sacrifice short-term, to save the company in the long-term.
Image: CS Chaulk
By David Parker Brown, on June 22nd, 2009 at 4:39 pm
 Virgin and British Aiways Boeing 747-400's racing for the finish (yes, I am sure this is photoshopped) Virgin Atlantic and British Airways have had a cold war going on for years, according to Sir Branson. Now he is taking advantage of British Airways’ admission of financial difficulty by urging the British government not to financially assist the legacy carrier. He states that British Airways is, “not worth much.”
Although Sir Branson might be trying to stir up trouble, British Airways is not in the best financial shape. British Airways’ CEO Willie Walsh has a self-imposed June 30 deadline which he calls, “a fight for survival.”
He recently asked all 40,000 employees to work up to four weeks without pay in an effort to keep the airline afloat.
Sir Branson, who founded the privately held Virgin Atlantic, obviously has much invested if British Airways fails. “We and others are standing by ready to take on their routes and runway slots at Heathrow if they get into serious trouble,” Sir Branson stated re-assuring the government their nation would still have a viable transportation network.
A British Airways spokes person calls Sir Branson’s comments as “fantasy.” The airline stated, “There are no talks with the Government and there will be no talks. We have opposed state aid and our position has not changed.” Both British Airways’s CEO Walsh and finance director Keith Williams have announced they will work for free during the month of July.
Even if British Airways pulls through and Branson is just in fantasy-land, it is never a good sign having an airline (or any company for that matter) asking its employees to work for free. In this economic time, nothing is impossible and it will be interesting to see how this plays out.
Source: dailymail Image: SamR
By David Parker Brown, on June 19th, 2009 at 4:15 pm
 US Airways tails. Cuts, cuts, cuts. Airlines cutting routes, planes, and people seem to dominate the airline news. However this cut, has a little positive spin to it.
In 2008 US Airways had to let go over 1,300 positions, something no company enjoys. With declining revenues, US Airways had to make additional cuts, but didn’t want to resort to laying off additional people. Instead, the airline is asking flight attendants to volunteer to take 4 to 16 months off to allow the airline to save some cash.
The airline currently has over 6,600 flight attendants among their 33,000 employees.
I wasn’t able to find anywhere if the employees would be paid, so I contacted the kind folks over at US Airways. They stated that the leave is an “unpaid furlough”, but “flight attendants will be able to keep their flight privleges during the furlough.”
US Airways are not the only ones talking about future job cuts. Air France is looking at 3000 cuts, Delta 2000, American 1600, and on and on.
Part of me wonders how many of these cuts are needed and how many are these just an opprotunity to eliminate people at a time where it is becoming more and more accepted to lay off large numbers of hardworking people.
Image: Tomcatgeorge
By David Parker Brown, on June 16th, 2009 at 1:26 pm
 Air India Boeing 777-337 (ER) VT-ALK Chattisgarh Air India has been having more problems than curry setting off fire alarms. The airline announced it will be paying 31,000 employees two weeks late.
“The national carrier is facing perhaps its toughest ever crisis,” said Kapil Kaul who is the chief executive officer.
The airline saw a loss of over $800 million in the last financial year and the future outlook isn’t looking much better.
Employees now are struggling to figure out how to pay their own bills, since banks won’t be willing to push off bills for another two weeks.
Hopefully this can be resolved soon since one of the biggest morale killers is not getting paid.
Source: Indian Express Image: Thomas Becker
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