It's doom and gloom for the airlines now

Well the airline industry is in complete turmoil and only going down farther, due to fuel. United has just announced 950 pilot furloughs. Midwest will furlough, Frontier will also. Many others will follow. Among the regionals, Trans States is laying off 45 pilots on July 1st. Everyone else has stopped hiring, and others will probably follow. Mine just stated they will probably have to also in the fall. I'm a little nervous.

So anyone know what kind of jobs are out there with the railroads and how to get them?

saxman66 said:

So anyone know what kind of jobs are out there with the railroads and how to get them?

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I believe most, if not all, of the railroads, including Amtrak, have employment links on their websites.

I know NJT has a hiring freeze because of the track work.

ell my airline just announced they might be furloughing as many as 300. And I have 235 behind me ): Its not final, and hopefully some senior guys will take early retirement and others will take a volunteer leaves.

Here's a summary of things being cut. Like we've all guessed before, shorter routes are on the chopping block. American Eagle is pretty much giving up on the Northeast, as they are pulling out of Albany, Providence, and seriously reducing La Gaurdia and Boston flying. They are also cutting BOS to LGA service which I find very surprising. Thats a very popular route. They already pulled out of Bangor, ME and they have never served Burlington, VT or Portland, ME which are very popular among the other regional carriers and JetBlue. Not to mention they are also leaving San Luis Obispo on the west coast.

Despite this summer traffic has had high load factors. All my flights have been at least 90 percent full if not 100%. The exception being I did BOS to PHL out and backs twice the other day. Here's the sad breakdown: BOS to PHL at 6:45AM had 4 passengers. Coming back at 8:45AM we had 1 passenger!! The next flight to PHL had 6 and the next coming back to BOS actually had the most at 20! Granted many of them were making connections to Florida. Now PHL and BOS are really not hubs for my airline, but we do that flight for business folks. BOS is a small hub, but all the flights only go south such as Raleigh, DC, and Florida. The only northbound flight my airline does is BOS to Bangor.

I'm not happy my career is at stake but I am happy more and more people will probably ride Amtrak because of this. Thats the good thing. The northeast is prepared though. The rest of the country....not so much.

saxman66 said:

...Despite this summer traffic has had high load factors. All my flights have been at least 90 percent full if not 100%. The exception being I did BOS to PHL out and backs twice the other day. Here's the sad breakdown: BOS to PHL at 6:45AM had 4 passengers. Coming back at 8:45AM we had 1 passenger!! The next flight to PHL had 6 and the next coming back to BOS actually had the most at 20! Granted many of them were making connections to Florida. Now PHL and BOS are really not hubs for my airline, but we do that flight for business folks. BOS is a small hub, but all the flights only go south such as Raleigh, DC, and Florida. The only northbound flight my airline does is BOS to Bangor.

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Have you checked the PHL-BOS fares lately? Ever since FL pulled out, PHL-BOS has been priced by US and that means astronomical. A typical RT for short notice is over $1000! I used to do an occasional Acela-US joyride roundtrip, but no more. I can't believe anyone is flying BOS-PHL O&D on US. And has that helped Amtrak? Here is a quote from the April monthly report:

Amtrak ridership in the Philadelphia/Boston market continues to grow significantly since the NovemberFY08 pull-out of AirTran service. For Acela and Regionals combined, the April 08 impact to Amtrak

was a pick-up of +4,700 trips worth approximately +$0.62 million in incremental ticket revenues…

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In April, Amtrak PHL-BOS ridership was up 64% (+4700 riders) over April 2007 with a $620,000 increase in revenue.

Good luck with your situation. Too often it is forgotten that losses and layoff are not just numbers, but affect good people. Somehow I think the domestic air landscape will look a lot different this time next year.

We slowed down a good bit in the spring in the old car business but it has picked up pretty good now that we have gotten into summer proper. That had more to do with the economy itself than gas prices directly. Most of the cars we service are hobbyists usually 2nd 3rd cars etc usually are only driven sparingly. Such that gas prices only negligably impact the cost of the hobby unless you drive a lot. Also most owners tend to be financially well off enough to be able to afford the additional cost. It is one thing to drive a big old Cadillac that gets 11MPG once or twice a month to a meetup as opposed to driving a big SUV that gets 11MPG 60 miles a day...

Yes I am not surprised that the airlines are going to begin to throttle back literally and figuratively. The irony is as hard as it is financially for people to absorb the additional cost of energy - it is forcing the US population to look at energy as a liability - as opposed to a peripheral expense. This is how most of the rest of the world lives. I have a lot of customers that own big old classic American cars but they are occasional use vehicles and it is a hobby. I have several customers that have those cars yet do not even drive to work. I do not even drive to work myself anymore usually. I carpool.

If $4-5/gal gas persists indefinately in the long term we might since a psychological shift in attitude towards mass transit alternative transportation, alternative energy, and generally more efficient living.

Have you checked the PHL-BOS fares lately? Ever since FL pulled out, PHL-BOS has been priced by US and that means astronomical. A typical RT for short notice is over $1000! I used to do an occasional Acela-US joyride roundtrip, but no more. I can't believe anyone is flying BOS-PHL O&D on US. And has that helped Amtrak? Here is a quote from the April monthly report:

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I have not looked at the latest fares, but remember Delta (Comair) has been doing those flights as well now. I think we've only been doing that market for a few months now. I'm sure DL just wants to give US some competition, but obviously last Thursday, they lost lots of money doing those. I felt like it sure was a waste for me to be out of bed. Of course it was someones decision not to cancel, and get the completion factor which looks good for DL and the DOT. (Could have easily routed those passengers through JFK)

saxman66 said:

I'm not happy my career is at stake but I am happy more and more people will probably ride Amtrak because of this. Thats the good thing. The northeast is prepared though. The rest of the country....not so much.

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Actually, I don't think Amtrak can add much capacity in the northeast very easily. There are those fourty or so Amfleet I cars that as of 6 months ago or whatever all needed to be overhauled before they could be used, but that may be all Amtrak will manage to add in the next couple years. And those fourty cars are probably equivalent to about 25-30 full planes in terms of numbers of seats. But Amtrak may tend to keep those seats occupied longer for a given number of passenger miles, which may make them replace fewer planes than that.

All this airline turmoil hopefully serves as a reminder to anybody who might be thinking about coming to L.A. in October for the Amtrak Unlimited 2nd Annual Gathering to BOOK NOW. Things are only gonna get worse, meaning higher fares and more nickel and diming on fees.

Joel N. Weber II said:

saxman66 said:

I'm not happy my career is at stake but I am happy more and more people will probably ride Amtrak because of this. Thats the good thing. The northeast is prepared though. The rest of the country....not so much.

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Actually, I don't think Amtrak can add much capacity in the northeast very easily. There are those fourty or so Amfleet I cars that as of 6 months ago or whatever all needed to be overhauled before they could be used, but that may be all Amtrak will manage to add in the next couple years. And those fourty cars are probably equivalent to about 25-30 full planes in terms of numbers of seats. But Amtrak may tend to keep those seats occupied longer for a given number of passenger miles, which may make them replace fewer planes than that.

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Not necessarily. You are operating on the assumption that Amtrak would need to have all-new equipment designed for this purpose. This is not necessarily so. Now, admittedly, it might take more than two years for Amtrak to get them, but there is no reason why Amtrak can't piggyback on top of NJ Transit and acquire some Comet VI/Multilevel cars. They did it before with the Horizons. They could even call these Horizon IIs.

They wouldn't have to run on the NEC, although they could- they do have 125 mph trucks as is, I think. NJTransit has definitely been talking about certifying the ALP-46a for 125 mph operation. Amtrak could also acquire standard Bombardier Bi-Level (modified for Amtrak comfort levels, perhaps- or they could be used on the Hiawatha in general commuter design) trainsets, use them for Chicago/Midwest services, and yank whatever Amfleets they have off the NEC into NEC service.

They could also use NJTransit Multilevels (modified for Amtrak service to some extent, maybe) for some other trains that they would work with, especially the Keystones and Shuttles. (In other words, the cheapest way to use them would be to design them for trains that do not have food service!) Although, admittedly, their design would preclude use of carts.

Lastly, NJTransit is probably going to retire some older Comets, particularly the Comet Ibs (which are, frankly, nasty cars- converted Arrows) and maybe some Comet IIs. Amtrak hasn't bought used equipment in many years, but they could do so. Comets would not be good in NEC or Keystone service (I'm pretty sure they are only rated to 100mph) but they could be used for Springfield shuttle work, Hiawatha work, and as general cars for Chicago service. Admittedly, they are worn out now- but they would offer quick additional capacity, and probably pretty cheap to purchase.

I was really making more of a generalization about the NEC vs. the rest of the country.