[L-39 Driver]

Originally Posted by wheelsup

You never want to ask pilots about running an airline. We think we know but we generally don't have the "big picture".

Wow! You just opened up a can of worms. I won't bite on that one except to say this: Happy Pilots can help to make more Happy Customers. I’d include Flight Attendants in that equation as well, but my focus is on the Pilot right now.

Happy Customers mean more revenue potential. More revenue potential means higher probability of business success. What’s the primary “technical business reason” why so many airlines have had so many problems staying viable here in the United States of America (without getting into the whole 911 sideline – or deregulation)?

When you get down to where the rubber meets the road every business on earth needs proper levels of dynamic cash-flow to remain “sane”. Without it, they eventually go “insane” and eventually implode or “adapt” through yet another “merger”. We have not adapted very well in this country, so failure has become too much the “norm”.

Both Pilot Strikes and Company Furloughs hurt customers at the end of the day. Yet, the causality of both stem from a cash-flow problem. Inadequate cash-flows are always the fault of the executive level (not including severe economic realities, of course) and not the pilot level.

I believe that airline stocks can become viable alternatives again on Wall Street, which means massive success for all involved. Not to mention having an airline that is healthy, strong and an amazingly interesting place to work. But that will require a “new type” of airline structure or business model. And, that is at the heart of my short survey.

Pilots play a very big role in that “change”, but it they are not willing to do things “different”, then the re-designing of an industry simply won’t work. Charity begins at home and change begins in the “mind”. In that “new world”, everybody in the program both understands and has a buy-in to the “big picture”.

It is not just a “job”…… it’s an epic adventure! (or, at least it should be)