Airlines Having Rough Ride Through Economic Turbulence

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.laborradio.org/node/8950

The airline industry continues to struggle through the turbulent economy. Jesse Russell reports:

The week started glum enough for the airline industry. American Airlines announced Monday that it would be slashing 7000 jobs or 8-percent of the company’s worldwide workforce. Wednesday the news didn’t get any better when Northwest Airlines announced the company would be losing as many as 2500 jobs or roughly 8.3-percent of the company’s workforce. Many of the jobs that will be slashed at Northwest are white collar jobs that include management positions. The airline plans to start the process with voluntary layoffs. The cuts will likely come in the fourth quarter of this year. Comair announced on Tuesday that it would be grounding 14 planes and letting go of 300 pilots and 220 flight attendants. All three airlines site rising fuel costs as the main reason for the job cuts. Northwest said in a statement that if prices start to come down it will revisit the decision.Economic Report:If you thought last year’s heating costs were bad, you might want to start saving for this coming winter. The National Energy Assistance Director’s Association is projecting home heating costs to be around $2600 this winter, that’s a $600 increase over last winter. The cost of the average fuel delivery will rise from $500 to $850. The previous winter saw more households seeking energy assistance at the highest rate since 1992.

[rpannier]

1. As far as the Airlines go...

The service of domestic airlines suck.
They suck whether they are flying with the US or flying overseas.

I've flown United and Northwest from Asia to the US.
All 3 times the cabin service they provided sucked.

Northwest lost some woman's cat on a non-stop flight from Incheon (Korea) to Tokyo (Japan).

In fairness to United, they flew my cat (and me) from Incheon to Moline (Illinois) and they did a superb job of taking care of my cat. They changed her water in Tokyo and cleaned out her carrier.

In Chicago, they also changed her water and again, cleaned out her carrier.
Too bad their cabin service sucks.

When I fly to the US, I fly Korean Air, Singapore Air, Lufthansa, etc Their service rocks and their planes are great.
Maybe airlines need to go back to concentrating on service.

[xchrom]

2. part of the reason their cabin service sucks -- is because we suck as passengers.

i've flown foreign airlines with few americans on board -- a very different experience.

[rsmith6621]

3. People Want Cheap Service ...They

....are unwilling to pay for the service of the past.....sadly the industry has been reduce to Greyhound type service...WHY!!! again they wanted cheap service.

Unfortunately until fuel become more stable there is going to be some more carriers going out of BIZ and fares are going to have to be raised with less onboard service.