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Author Topic: US to require negative covid test to fly into the country  (Read 2343 times)
Pappy13
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« Reply #15 on: January 14, 2021, 05:18:58 pm »

How so?

Get a negative test within 48 hours of boarding...no big deal.  Lots of people are doing that anyway.

It's just a suggestion to stop spread and find extra cases.
Must be easy for you to get a test. Ain't quite that easy here. Make an appointment, show up at the time of your appointment, wait in line, get the results a couple days later maybe. Every time you got to fly? And then you have to do that again coming back if it's been more then 48 hours? When you have TONS of people bitching about the fact that they have to wear a mask? Are you kidding me? People would fucking go ape shit. You have no idea the crap we take just for forcing you to wear a mask.

And while lots of people might be doing it, it's not the majority. Not even close. The airlines can't afford to lose a single passenger these days.
« Last Edit: January 14, 2021, 05:25:32 pm by Pappy13 » Logged

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Pappy13
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« Reply #16 on: January 14, 2021, 05:34:18 pm »

I have no pity for the airlines, not one bit.
To quote Dolf Lundgren as Ivan Drago "if he dies, he dies"

They could have used the many years of fat profits and milk and honey to put their companies into a strong state able to weather the the storms of COVID, instead they decided to use these profits on stock buybacks and bonuses. So fuck them. Let them go bankrupt, I'm sure there are better run companies that will buy their equipment for pennies on the dollar and restructure their assets and routes in a better run way. These are the free market principles that i hear all those Ayn Rand types are all about.  And if you think that's harsh and you're for some sort of government intervention to "save" these companies, then congratulations, you're a socialist.
I guess you don't fly much. There are many many people that rely on the airlines. Lots of those covid tests and vaccines are using the airlines. Lots of them doctors and medical people use the airlines regularly. Got lots of military that fly too. You think the government hands out billions of dollars because they are just in the giving mood? Without the airlines this country would be in a world of shit and while you may think it's easy for some other airline to just come in and replace them all you would be wrong. Many have tried, most have failed. You're welcome to your opinion, but you should probably do a little more research on the topic.
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Fau Teixeira
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« Reply #17 on: January 14, 2021, 05:53:57 pm »

You mean research like working in the travel industry for almost 10 years and having operational knowledge of how airlines work to how they price fares to how many $$ per square foot an economy class seat makes in comparison to a business class seat in comparison to a first class seat? How penny pinching upgrades and add-ons work. How about how airlines leverage the commodities market for fuel purchases. And how they debt-finance their fleet purchases?

I'm not going to tell you that I'm the most knowledgeable person when it comes to air travel, but over 10 years of experience, I've picked up a thing or two.

Many people rely on the airlines ? I'm sure any industry has people that "rely" on it.

UPS, Fedex, DHL, USPS, and dedicated cargo companies run their own fleet of cargo airplanes. And while they sometimes "rent" space on commercial flights, I'm sure they can manage the distribution of vaccines without southwest or spirit.

Government hands out billions of dollars because people that make laws have been bribed by both the hedge fund managers that own stakes in airlines and by the unions that represent the airlines to dole out the free cash.

Without current weak commercial airlines, we'd get what happened when Pan-Am went bankrupt, other stronger airlines filled the void. And new ones entered the market or expanded. And if the private sector "gasp" can't fill the need then the government is more than capable of chartering a public airline like they did with amtrac for trains.
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Dave Gray
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« Reply #18 on: January 14, 2021, 06:52:44 pm »

Must be easy for you to get a test. Ain't quite that easy here.

Yeah, it's easy here.
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Dolphster
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« Reply #19 on: January 15, 2021, 07:56:52 am »

You mean research like working in the travel industry for almost 10 years and having operational knowledge of how airlines work to how they price fares to how many $$ per square foot an economy class seat makes in comparison to a business class seat in comparison to a first class seat? How penny pinching upgrades and add-ons work. How about how airlines leverage the commodities market for fuel purchases. And how they debt-finance their fleet purchases?

I'm not going to tell you that I'm the most knowledgeable person when it comes to air travel, but over 10 years of experience, I've picked up a thing or two.

Many people rely on the airlines ? I'm sure any industry has people that "rely" on it.

UPS, Fedex, DHL, USPS, and dedicated cargo companies run their own fleet of cargo airplanes. And while they sometimes "rent" space on commercial flights, I'm sure they can manage the distribution of vaccines without southwest or spirit.

Government hands out billions of dollars because people that make laws have been bribed by both the hedge fund managers that own stakes in airlines and by the unions that represent the airlines to dole out the free cash.

Without current weak commercial airlines, we'd get what happened when Pan-Am went bankrupt, other stronger airlines filled the void. And new ones entered the market or expanded. And if the private sector "gasp" can't fill the need then the government is more than capable of chartering a public airline like they did with amtrac for trains.

I initially agreed with Pappy, but you made a really good argument for your case here.  I guess I had never really thought about it, but everything you said makes sense.  It is always nice on here when someone has personal knowledge and experience on a topic instead of just throwing opinions out there. No offense to Pappy as I would have said something similar to him before reading your comments.  Although having worked for the government (between military and federal law enforcement) I shudder to think of the government taking over the airline industry in the way amtrak did the rails.  There are a few things that we (the government) do really well.  But with the overwhelming majority of things, the government has an almost magical ability to screw things up to an astonishing degree. 
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Fau Teixeira
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« Reply #20 on: January 15, 2021, 08:48:11 am »

Amtrak is actually a fairly well run company. there are 2 main problems Amtrak has.
1 - they don't own 99% of the rails they run on, so when it comes to a freight company that owns the rails, or a passenger company like amtrak, when there's a conflict, amtrak has to wait, so they suffer delays constantly.
2 - even tho their NE corridor trains are hugely successful and turn a profit, they are under a MANDATE from the government to keep long-distance service going, they lose money on the long-distance trains .. so chicago to LA for example.

The other part is that it's very very difficult for amtrak to upgrade rails to high-speed rails because 1 - they don't own them and 2 - the washington to boston metro area is so crowded that it would be billions upon billions of dollars to upgrade a DC - NY - Boston line to a highspeed train like they have in japan
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MyGodWearsAHoodie
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« Reply #21 on: January 15, 2021, 09:15:27 am »

You think the government hands out billions of dollars because they are just in the giving mood?

Lobbyists and campaign contributions are the primary reason.  That is why the covid relief is going primarily to major corporations rather than people.
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Pappy13
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« Reply #22 on: January 16, 2021, 02:57:37 am »

No offense to Pappy as I would have said something similar to him before reading your comments.
I work for an airline. Southwest daily has a e-mail that's sent with airline information not just about Southwest but airlines in general. I've been to many of the all-hands meetings with the CEO of Southwest Airlines over the last 10 years. During the pandemic Gary has had a weekly video log where he takes questions from employees and answers them directly. Employees have more to lose then anyone so a lot of really good questions come up all the time and they are answered. He's been very frank with the employees. All of this information is not shared with the public. Now I'm not saying that I have a lot of insider information, but I know a thing or two about it as well.

So a couple points, yes there are dedicated airlines for cargo, but those companies he mentioned, they are still doing business. Federal Express, UPS, etc they do cargo for a living so they don't have a lot of extra room for things like the vaccine. Federal Express can't just throw out all their current business to make room for the vaccine. Certainly they are doing their share, but actually since the commercial airlines have been doing like 35% of the business they normally do their planes are not full and their cargo areas are not full, they have extra room. They have room for the vaccines and medical equipment and they have to fly to all these place where it's going whether there's something in that space or not, so the commercial airlines have been practically giving that space away so it actually saves the taxpayers money to use the commerical airlines so it works out great for everyone. Now I'm not saying that the commercial airlines are doing the majority of the business, no but they do quite a bit and these other carriers could not pick up the slack if all the commerical airlines went out of business.

Take a look at the Wikipedia page for a list of failed airlines. There's hundreds of them in the last 20 years. You think NOW is a good time to be starting up an airline? No. If the major carriers go under there won't be anyone to take their place. And don't think that another airline can just pick up all of another airlines business, it's not quite that simple. One of the most coveted things an airlines has is gates at an airport. If an airline goes out of business they don't just hand over those gates to anyone that wants them. There's a process and the airlines have to put in a bid for the gate and they are expensive. Now a few gates here and there will be snapped up quickly by other airlines but all the gates won't be claimed overnight because most of the airlines are not in a position to go grab hundreds of new gates right now not with the way planes are flying half empty as it is, it's not good business.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_defunct_airlines_of_the_United_States

Yes people rely on other businesses too, but it's not quite the same thing. If a restaurant goes out of business, you can go to the grocery store and eat at home, there are other options that are equally as good. If the airlines go out of business, you can take a car or a train or a bus or something but there is no bullet train in the US. You aren't going to get there as quickly as you can in a plane. Now that's not a big deal if you are taking the plane to go on vacation, but there's lots of folks that rely on air travel for their profession and it would be a HUGE problem for them.

And that's not to mention all the people that would lose their jobs. The plan in place to help the airlines is called the PSP or Payroll support program. It has only 1 purpose and that's to prevent the airlines from laying off thousands of employees. What would happen if the PSP weren't there? All those employees would be out of jobs and would be going to unemployment and would be picking up a check from the government anyway so it's not like that money isn't going to end up being spent on them anyway. This is just a way to keep the airlines in business and keep some of the burden off of the already overtaxed unemployment system. All of the airlines have actually been extremely aggressive in providing ways for employees to retire or take voluntary seperation packages to reduce their headcount, but it's not enough. They need this help so they don't have to lay off employees.

I can understand some of your anger towards airlines, at least some of them. American Airlines in particular has been spectacularly poorly run for years, but Southwest on the other hand has not. They have made a profit every year for something like 25 straight years. They have never laid off employees in the history of the company. Southwest had billions of dollars in cash available to them when the pandemic started and they were able to secure loans for billions of dollars more, but when you are losing millions of dollars a day that's not going to last forever. Southwest has actually been really good with it's cash and not just lining the pockets of it's execs. The CEO of Southwest has suspended his pay completely during the pandemic. No airline however can withstand losing 60 or 70% of it's revenue for this long. At some point without the governments help they would have had to lay off thousands of employees. Thanks to the PSP, Southwest is not going to have to put those people on unemployment and they won't lose their insurance benefits.

It's not quite as simple as just let the airlines fail. That's not really an option. Congress knows this. The reason the airlines need the PSP is because the US needs it's airlines. It really does whether you want to believe that or not. The US cannot afford to let the airlines fail, it would take years to recover from that. It's going to take years for the airlines to recover anyway, but at least the airlines will still be in business. Maybe not all of them, I fully expect 1 or 2 might still fail unless things turn around soon, but without the PSP just about all of them would have failed or would have had to have MASSIVE lay offs. That's not good for the airlines, but it's also not good for the US. It's just not.
« Last Edit: January 16, 2021, 08:54:32 am by Pappy13 » Logged

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Pappy13
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« Reply #23 on: January 18, 2021, 02:20:04 pm »

I'd like to share the message from the CEO of Southwest Airlines that we received today in the mail. Keep in mind that Southwest was the BEST positioned airline prior to the pandemic in the US.

All Southwest Warriors,

The year 2020 has come to a close—hallelujah! Words don’t do justice to what that year was like for us; let’s just say it was unlike any other. The worst global pandemic in a century wreaked total havoc on the world as we knew it, especially for health care and travel and tourism. Like you, all those affected by COVID-19 remain in my heart, my thoughts, and my prayers—and especially those impacted in our beloved Southwest Family.

Next to getting Southwest Airlines off the ground 50 years ago, it was the most dramatic challenge we have ever faced. And, we thought the 2019 MAX grounding was a big deal! It was, of course, but nothing compared to the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020. Combined, the MAX grounding and the pandemic delivered a staggering one-two punch. It knocked us down, but not out. Even with the MAX grounding, we had near record earnings and record profitsharing in 2019. For 2020, we will incur billions of dollars of losses, easily a record for us—and it will be our first annual loss since 1972, just our second year of operation. What a stark and scary contrast to what we all expect each year, and especially compared to the high ambitions we had for 2020. Devastating is the only way to describe losing the majority of our Customers and revenues for the 10 months of this pandemic. It’s hard to fathom at one point that number was north of 90 percent!

Our challenge, of course, is to arrest these losses, restore our profitability, and then—and only then—can we rest easier and feel good about pay and job security once again. I am confident that day will come, but we have a long way to go to get through this pandemic.

As I wrote to you last year, I reflected on our 2001 Annual Report—20 years ago now—which was themed, “Be Prepared.” That preparedness served us well in the aftermath of 9/11. That preparedness has always been a strength of Southwest Airlines. In fact, I think it is one of our greatest strengths, and it was on full display again in 2020 as the pandemic ravaged our business. Never has it been more important to be prepared—and, what a crucial lesson for generations to come.

We had strong business momentum coming into the year. We had strong liquidity in terms of cash, short-term investments, and a bank line of credit—all totaling $5 billion, which was well ahead of our target liquidity. We had the lowest leverage, or debt-to-total capital, in our history at 24 percent. We had unencumbered assets of more than $12 billion. All that translates to solid investment-grade credit ratings, which translates to access to the capital markets, and at lower costs. Boy, did we need it! In 2020, we raised, net of repayments, nearly $11 billion. That exceeded a typical year by ten-fold. All that money simply to cover the hemorrhaging we were incurring from daily cash operating losses, which averaged as much as $30 million a day, at the height of the pandemic, in 2020.

We did a lot more than just raise money. We radically reduced our flying to adjust to the precipitous drop in traffic. We cut $8 billion of cash spending from our annual budget in 2020. We rolled out generous, voluntary, time-off programs, including the Voluntary Separation Program and the Extended Time-Off Program. The cash outlay to our Employees for those two programs will be $1.7 billion. Of course, we owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to the thousands who took advantage of these programs to help preserve and protect the livelihood of our Southwest Family.

We implemented new health and safety protocols for all Employees. We developed and deployed new, remote work for back-office Employees and Call Center Representatives. We designed and implemented the Southwest Promise for our Customers. The Safety and well-being of our Employees and Customers was front and center in every decision we made, and I am enormously proud of how we took care of each other in such adverse conditions.

The dramatic decline in traffic and flights meant we had to cancel and republish our flight schedule multiple times, resulting in a large volume of Customers needing re-accommodations. The reduced schedule idled hundreds of aircraft, requiring short-term parking and short-term storage programs. These efforts were Herculean involving many Teams and Departments, but our Southwest Warriors got ‘er done!

With a surplus of airplanes and Employees, we decided to be aggressive and play a little offense by adding 14 new cities, with six launched last year and eight more launching this year, giving us the opportunity to generate more desperately-needed Customers and revenue.

All these things were unplanned for 2020. All were done extraordinarily well. Many were enabled by technology that has been years in the making—and, without which, we most certainly could not have achieved all that we did. Just as I don’t have words to adequately describe the carnage resulting from this pandemic, I also can’t do justice in describing the heroic efforts and results by our People in responding to this crisis. Truly, 2020 was your finest hour. We would not be where we are today without your exceptional performances. Down, but not out—not even close. Bravo!

On the planned list for 2020 was the launch of Southwest Business’s Global Distribution System (GDS) strategy, first with Travelport in May, then Amadeus in October, and, finally, in December, an agreement was reached with Sabre, which will deploy this year. The timing was fortuitous. For the first time in our near 50-year history, corporate Customers will have industry-standard access to Southwest’s inventory, along with other travel management tools. It makes corporations doing business with Southwest vastly easier, and opens up a multi-billion-dollar market to Southwest that, heretofore, has been the dominant domain of the big three Legacy airlines. Armed with this new competitive weapon, our Southwest Business Team is out to win significant new corporate business—when business travel returns.

Finally, as was our plan for 2020, the FAA ungrounded the MAX in November, and we launched our work to return the airplane to service in early 2021, and now plan for revenue flights on March 11, 2021.

In my 2020 Battle Plan, our 2020 goals were stated as follows:

1.   Run a great, ontime operation with exceptional baggage handling. Our goal is to beat 2019’s excellent performances.
2.   Offer outstanding Customer Service with unmatched Hospitality. Our goal is to beat 2019’s excellent performances in terms of net promoter score and fewest DOT complaints.
3.   Escalate our efforts to control our costs through enhanced efficiency and reduced waste, and limit our cost inflation (excluding fuel, profitsharing, and the MAX grounding) to less than two percent.
4.   Work diligently with the FAA and The Boeing Company to safely and effectively return the MAX to service.

I am very pleased with our 2020 results compared to these goals. While the DOT results are not final for the year, as it stands now, Southwest has the lowest ratio of DOT Complaints out of all the Marketing Carriers. And, understanding that the MAX return to service work is well underway, but not yet complete with respect to Pilot training. Otherwise, we achieved all our goals—I’ll certainly take it! It’s especially impressive given the turmoil we were thrust into by the pandemic.

Finally, I need to mention the role the U.S. Government played in our fight for survival. The COVID-19 pandemic had an unprecedented effect on many sectors of the global economy—at least, in modern times. It was the worst since World War II. After successful lobbying, the Federal Government stepped in not once, but twice, with significant Payroll Support for the Airline Industry. Without that, and the broader fiscal stimulus, along with aggressive monetary moves by the Federal Reserve, I’m convinced you would have seen a very different outcome in our Country: an economic depression. No private enterprise can survive a loss of substantially all its business indefinitely. Only a sovereign nation has the means to supply that kind of liquidity. Members of Congress and the Administration recognized that, and stepped in with, in our case, billions of dollars of payroll stimulus and low-interest-rate loans. As a result of this much-needed relief, along with our preparedness, planning, and pivots we made along the way—we were able to extend our streak of job security, avoiding involuntary pay cuts and furloughs.

By far, my greatest source of pride and top priority is our unparalleled record of no pay cuts and no furloughs (well, next to the safety and well-being of our Employees and Customers, of course!). In a year like 2020, that was one heck of an accomplishment—one that no other US airline can claim!

In a nutshell, we survived 2020. And we’re poised to enter this milestone 50th Anniversary year for this cause we call Southwest Airlines with the hope and conviction that our best days are still ahead.

As we speak, the pandemic is still surging; our business remains depressed; and we’re still burning a significant amount of cash each day. Yes, we remain in intensive care after 10 long months.

Still, we have every reason to be hopeful. We ended the year with cash in the bank and more on the way via the Federal Payroll Support Program. We avoided pay cuts, layoffs, and furloughs in 2020 and intend to avoid them again in 2021. Vaccines are now available (I got mine last week as part of Phase 1B), which should mean the beginning of the end of this pandemic. We have the cash to see our way through this year, barring some unforeseen event. Eventually, Customers and air traffic will return; and, if it’s this year, we have the airplanes and the People ready to respond—enthusiastically! We have thousands of Employees out on Extended Time Off, who can be recalled in that event, as well.

At the end of the month, I will send out our Annual Battle Plan for the year 2021, along with a recap of our 2020 financial performance. Until then, thank you from the bottom of my heart for all your heroic efforts in 2020 to ensure our survival—and especially for your commitment, devotion, dedication, perseverance, but most of all, your resilience.

Here’s to a rejuvenating 2021!

LUV,
Gary
« Last Edit: January 18, 2021, 02:34:32 pm by Pappy13 » Logged

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