I have finally managed to carve out some quite time and began to wonder what the New Year will bring. Looking back, it is clear the person of the year for 2004 was Mother Nature – the grand lady pretty much roughed up the entire world.
Will a revamped airline industry emerge? United Airlines pilots pension program has been moved to the government’s Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation. They were already operating at a $23 billion deficit – now the PBGC will be adding about $1.4 billion additional dollars to the already staggering deficit.
On top of that, the United flight attendants voted to authorize wildcat strikes if the company carries out it’s threat to break their contract and implement new wage and benefit cuts. Yikes!
Then there’s the strife at US Airways. Baggage problems at Philadelphia were caused in part by a winter storm and were exacerbated by unusual high number of employees calling in sick. So, the company asked their employees to give up a day off and volunteer (translate, not get paid) to help unscramble the mess. What they got were mostly mangers from around the US Airways system. Looks like they’ve been to the well one time to many.

