Set your alarm clocks.

What is being dubbed as a United Airlines’ “Leadership Call” with United COO John Tague is scheduled tomorrow morning at 8:00 AM CDT.

So will Mr. Tague be handling this call as COO of United Airlines or as CEO? Or as President?

The plot thickens.

Sources tell us that the airline intends to issue press releases before the markets open tomorrow, so my guess is that releases will come first — then the call.

Ticker: (Nasdaq:UAUA)

Technorati Tags: airlines, United Airlines

The Miami Herald is reporting this morning that privately held  Spirit Airlines may lay off or displace as many as 60% of its flight attendants and 45% of its pilots in two months.

The low-cost airline, which is struggling to cope with rising jet-fuel prices, sent Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act or “WARN” letters to union leaders late last week, informing them of the decision, the Miami Herald’s web site is reporting.

The carrier stated that it would furlough or displace up to 448 flight attendants and 242 pilots on Aug. 1. The airline plans to close its New York LaGuardia, San Juan and Detroit bases and reduces its Fort Lauderdale base, according to the report.

Spirit would not confirm the exact effect the layoffs would have on flight numbers, the report said.

‘Everybody is shocked,” Sean Creed, chairman of the Spirit Airlines pilots union is quoted as saying in the article. Creed, who is based in Fort Lauderdale but lives in Connersville, Ind., continued,  “We had a meeting [May] 21st with the company, when they gave a completely different impression of the state of the industry as far as Spirit Airlines is concerned.”

From one of our readers this morning:

“Here is what I am hearing on the United front:

1. Culling  the B737 fleet (94 airplanes) by Fall 2009.

2. Selling off 7 B747s by Fall 2008.

3. 25 percent staff cuts by Fall 2008.

4. Death to TED (quickly but painfully).

5. John Tague becomes the de facto President. (Hopefully after some quick-but-intense “Grooming by Glenn”).

6. Massive reorganization – “all the

wrong people are being promoted.”



Are you hearing similar rumblings?”

Yes. And more.

In fact, the Tague comment is especially interesting, as after the US Airways/United deal fell apart, we were told by several folks close to the deal that one of the big reasons was because John Tague wanted to become CEO of United, USTed, or whatever the merged airline would have been called.

So this dovetails with those comments.

We’ve also had a slew of other comments from readers this morning telling us that the entire United Boeing 737 fleet will be parked. So this seems to coincide with our reader’s comments above as well.

So it looks like instead of parking 70 aircraft, the total number of aircraft parked at United Airlines may be over 100.

Technorati Tags: airline CEOs, airlines, airplanes, United Airlines

Never a dull day in the airline bidness, that’s what I say.

And today proved that point when, instead of hearing about a potential merger, or parked planes, or higher fuel costs, instead we have a hefty 52 page lawsuit that USAPA, the newly formed independent union that represents the pilots at US Airways has filed against their brethren, the former America West pilots.

You may recall that it was because the bulk of the US Airways East pilots voted to break off from ALPA earlier this year that ALPA no longer represents the pilot group at US Airways.

The whole move to displace ALPA was rooted in one cause — the ALPA arbitration award concerning the merged seniority list for the two airlines.

Short and sweet — America West guys were generally okay with it, while the US Airways East guys were not. Mind you, ALPA  rules at the time were that the arbitration award was to be followed. But the guys at US Airways didn’t like the award — so they decided to leave ALPA instead.

And there you go.

Today, USAPA filed a suit against a group of America West pilots accusing the group of “racketeering activity, and acts in violation of federal and North Carolina state law, in which the defendants have engaged in pursuit of their declared goal of destroying the plaintiff union.”

The lawsuit contends that since April 18, 2008, the defendants and their co-conspirators have subjected USAPA, its officers, and individual US Airways pilots to a concerted campaign of sabotage, which has included:

1) a deluge of frivolous calls to USAPA’s toll-free telephone line in order to jam the service and impose costs on the Union;

2) false communications to USAPA’s safety line – the equivalent of maliciously triggering a fire alarm;

3) communications to US Airways pilots asserting that their “safety” will be jeopardized if they pay dues to USAPA;

4) the false attribution of defamatory statements to USAPA officers by use of a slightly altered e-mail address; 5) maliciously arranging for USAPA officers to receive subscriptions to electronic services, including sexually-related services, in an apparent effort to defame these officers and sabotage their electronic communications;

6) a concerted effort to deprive pilots at US Airways the ability to commute to work by denying USAPA members the use of the cockpit jump seat; and

7) a conspiracy to violate the union security provisions of the applicable collective bargaining agreements and to induce US Airways to violate these same provisions.

Yee haw.

For those of you with enquiring minds, you can download the entire .pdf file of the lawsuit here. Let me assure you, it makes for some very interesting reading.

Interesting, but pretty sad at the same time.

Ticker: (NYSE:LCC)

Our informed sources tell us this afternoon (hey, I’m on Pacific time) that we should hear more details Tuesday on United’s plans to contract.

On the cutting board (and I know this is going to upset Cranky Flier immeasurably) will be Theodore, better known as yet another tried and then discarded airline within an airline adventure. Yes, you all know the adventure as “Ted.”

Secondly, we’re told that the airline will announce the grounding of at least 70 aircraft.

Layoffs? Did someone say layoffs? (A nod to Coach Jim Mora there…)

Yes. We’re hearing at least 1500 folks are going to be on the short end of pink slips at UAUA headquarters.