On Sat, 28 Jun 2008 18:38:29 +0200, Mxsmanic
wrote in :

Larry Dighera writes:

I expect to see a lot more of this sort of thing occurring as the
economy worsens:


http://www.chicagotribune.com/travel...,0,81993.story
Today we announced initial details concerning the first wave of
pilot furloughs resulting from our plans to take 100 aircraft from
our mainline fleet due to record high oil prices and a softening
U.S. economy. The first notices to furlough approximately 100
pilots for the flying month of September will be issued in
mid-July.

By the end of 2009, when we expect to complete the full reduction
of our 94 B737 aircraft and six B747s (see June 4 NewsReal), we
anticipate the need to furlough approximately 950 active pilots.
This process is one of the difficult but necessary steps we need
to take to size our business appropriately to reflect the current
market reality....

Companies that try to reduce costs rather than increase revenue eventually
tend to fold, because you can only reduce costs to zero (and you'll go out of
business long before that), whereas you can increase revenue indefinitely.
Cost-cutting is easy for even the stupidest corporate officers to understand,
but it's a poor, short-term, emergency measure, not a competent way to manage
a company.


Reducing the number of flights to increase capital asset utilization
seems like a sound strategy to me.