Why airlines tend to be unionized • Hacker News Board

Re: Why airlines tend to be unionized

#61

Post by borism » Wed, Nov 03, 2010, 9:59 PM UTC

stcredzero wrote: post #51

ahi wrote: post #37

"Union agreements and seniority-based schedule assignments lead to reduced safety for passengers, as the least experienced workers are pushed the hardest and get the least amount of rest. " The reason junior officers get paid 16k a year is because there are people willing to do the job for 16k a year. Without the unions airlines could probably get volunteers (much like Greenspun who is certainly not doing it for the…

In the case of Southwest, one would think corporate culture had something to do with it.

What corporate culture? All I know is that Southwest has pilot union, they get competitive salary and they love their airline. How come SW (or JBLU) don't have same issues as legacy carriers?

Re: Why airlines tend to be unionized

#62

Post by borism » Wed, Nov 03, 2010, 10:10 PM UTC

timthorn wrote: post #10

tomerico wrote: post #8

A pilot's job is one of the easiest to replace with a computer. It is already happening in the military. In fact, the only actual role of a pilot today is to take off and land the plane, the rest is auto-pilot. If the unions make it so hard to employ humans, it would only give incentive to further develop auto pilots, and the problem will solve itself.

Landing is typically done on autopilot these days; it is done manually to maintain a pilot's rating or for exceptional reasons.

Landing is almost never done by autopilot. Approach is. When the runway is in sight Pilot Flying has to take over from the autopilot, and gently put the wheels on the ground. Computers are still not very good at it, especially not when there is slightest deviation from the norm (i.e. crosswind).

Autoland is very rare and is either used in ideal conditions or in terrible conditions (but then both aircraft and airport AND flight crew have to be rated to Cat IIIc standard - extremely rare occurrence).

Re: Why airlines tend to be unionized

#63

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Nov 03, 2010, 10:20 PM UTC

borism wrote: post #61

stcredzero wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the case of Southwest, one would think corporate culture had something to do with it.

What corporate culture? All I know is that Southwest has pilot union, they get competitive salary and they love their airline. How come SW (or JBLU) don't have same issues as legacy carriers?

[deleted]

Re: Why airlines tend to be unionized

#64

Post by lsc » Wed, Nov 03, 2010, 10:39 PM UTC

scrod wrote: post #56

lsc wrote: post #6

Regardless of whether the U.S. is able to maintain its trade barriers, a sustainable long-term structure would be a pilot-owned airline. If the pilots are the owners there need be no conflict concerning distributing profits. Selling the company to the union, or rather, worker-owned companies seem to be the best case solution to the "union problem" - If my employees started unionizing, that'd be my first shot at a sol…

Why don't you just give them back the money you stole from them in the form of profit? I'm sure they'd have plenty of cash to buy your company then.

uh, actually in my company, the amount of profit we've earned wouldn't even cover the value of the servers we have, and the company is probably worth about 3x the value of the servers. Sad but true.

Re: Why airlines tend to be unionized

#65

Post by stcredzero » Wed, Nov 03, 2010, 11:55 PM UTC

borism wrote: post #61

stcredzero wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the case of Southwest, one would think corporate culture had something to do with it.

What corporate culture? All I know is that Southwest has pilot union, they get competitive salary and they love their airline. How come SW (or JBLU) don't have same issues as legacy carriers?

Yes, Southwest pilots love their airline. Southwest convinced its pilots to help pick up trash between flights. Also, all Southwest employees I've ever spoken to absolutely love their company. They practically gush! There's something up with SWA's corporate culture. So much so, Herb Kelleher cited it as a competitive advantage!

Re: Why airlines tend to be unionized

#66

Post by tzs » Thu, Nov 04, 2010, 2:30 AM UTC

Odd. I would have thought with the time that they spend at high altitude, and the corresponding above average exposure to radiation, that they would tend to be more likely to be ionized.

Re: Why airlines tend to be unionized

#67

Post by borism » Thu, Nov 04, 2010, 8:15 AM UTC

stcredzero wrote: post #65

borism wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What corporate culture? All I know is that Southwest has pilot union, they get competitive salary and they love their airline. How come SW (or JBLU) don't have same issues as legacy carriers?

Yes, Southwest pilots love their airline. Southwest convinced its pilots to help pick up trash between flights. Also, all Southwest employees I've ever spoken to absolutely love their company. They practically gush! There's something up with SWA's corporate culture. So much so, Herb Kelleher cited it as a competitive advantage!

Well, that still doesn't explain why pilot's union doesn't take 95% of their profit, does it?

Re: Why airlines tend to be unionized

#68

Post by loewenskind » Thu, Nov 04, 2010, 8:53 AM UTC

jamesaguilar wrote: post #53

loewenskind wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

15 minutes? I have to arrive up to 2 hours earlier now. The security scan itself doesn't take so long but rather everything leading up to it.

My wife arrives one hour early for domestic flights and has yet to miss one (she travels as part of her work). I even in my anal-retentiveness about flights rarely arrive more than an hour and a half early. So there is a good amount of time you are leaving on the table that you could reclaim. I hope this series of comments will help you waste less time and money driving.

Well, I fly into the US from outside. That entails rechecking all baggage and going through a second security line. There are less airports you can fly into now from the outside and all of those I've been to so far have huge lines at the security. We now schedule in 4 hours between that initial connection and we've still almost missed the connecting flight a few times.

Re: Why airlines tend to be unionized

#69

Post by loewenskind » Thu, Nov 04, 2010, 12:03 PM UTC

pavel_lishin wrote: post #57

loewenskind wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

15 minutes? I have to arrive up to 2 hours earlier now. The security scan itself doesn't take so long but rather everything leading up to it.

What all does that involve, and how was it different pre-9/11? You can't pack a bunch of fluids in your carry-on, so you have to get little travel things - that's not worth 7 extra hours.

It's not a straight x/y calculation. For me, going through security usually takes between 40 minutes to a couple of hours depending on the air port. But the experience is so awful that I dread it for hours ahead of time and am infuriated by it for hours afterwards. I don't like driving long distances but at least I can avoid some of the stress.