Porter Pilots Unionize

[WJ200]

Heard they went in-house this week and formed the Porter Airlines Pilots Association (PAPA). Currently at the labor board. Interesting times!

[scopiton]

lets wish them the best, you never go to labour board just for bad tasting lunch snack.
mind you, they might be getting organized to be ready when westjet makes an offer to buy them and be able to defend their interests. who knows...
lots of things happening in canadian aviation in 2012/13, reminds me the u.s real estate bubble in 2008 followed by the subprime fiasco...
before saying yes to an offer, always have the company's Quaterly Report reviewed by your accountant, if at all possible.

[Rotten Apple #1]

...mind you, they might be getting organized to be ready when westjet makes an offer to buy them and be able to defend their interests.

Or Porter makes an offer to sell themselves to WestJet.

I think any offer to purchase Porter would include the condition that their pilots de-certify. We won't be bringing a union on to the property.

[stickontheice]

Would we get the rights to the Raccoon too? He'd look good in teal!

[Jack Klumpus]

From a credible source at Porter, this info is not accurate.

If westjet pilots get first dibs at the 737, porter pilots will get first dibs on the PD flight attendants.

[Rotten Apple #1]

[KAG]

If we were in talks with Porter, I would hope that the Porter pilots see the potential upside here. Please guys/gals, talk it over but understand a union could be a deal breaker.

[Black Cat]

It's nice to see pilots with backbones these days. You don't want to be a second class owner without a united voice.



Congrats And best wishes to the Porter boys and girls

[green bastard]

Congrats. Don't worry about any deal breakers. You had to do what you had to do. "Every company gets the union they deserve"

[vrefplus5]

...

[Jack Klumpus]

If we were in talks with Porter, I would hope that the Porter pilots see the potential upside here. Please guys/gals, talk it over but understand a union could be a deal breaker.

I believe you've said it that you were at Jazz prior to Westjet. So you were a part of a unionized group of pilots, then at WJ, an in-house assosiation, yet you're telling your peers to seriously consider fighting for their rights, just in case WJ buys Porter? Even though West Jet has said publicly they are NOT interested in Porter. And while Porter has said that there has been no talk of any merger/buying out by WestJet?

I beleive Porter pilots should do what is in THEIR best interest, and while not being short-sighted, only they have the total situational awareness to make such a call.

From an outsider's view, it seemed to me Porter pilots were happy, however, as a group, we're usually more interested in having a beer and a good time, instead of bitching and airing our ditry laundry. Good luck to those boys n girls, I have many friends there.

[KAG]

It's a lot of speculation and what if's, I sure don't know what's gong to happen, but I do know a unionized pilot group would make a tough sell to the rest of WJ.
The fine folks at Porter can do as they please, and I wish them all the best, but coming from a union shop (jazz) I wouldn't be in a rush to certify. That's just me, to each their own.

[Jack Klumpus]

Do you think your last statement is due to the fact that you prefer your current association as opposed to the union you were a part of at Jazz?

Again, as an outsider, I personally think the relationship WestJet has with it's pilot group, beats any that we have in the majors. I was a member of ALPA in my past life, and I can see where your comment is coming from.

[KAG]

Don't get me wrong, ALPA has it's perks but was ineffective when it came to a couple of issues we had. That and unions tend to create an "us vs them" or "it not my job" mentality. There are companies that need them, luckily we don't and personally I like to see it stay that way

[justwork]

We're splitting hairs here, Westjet pilot association is a non certified union. The biggest difference is that management and the association work together! Even ALPA is an association, it's just certified. It is possible for a work force to become a certified association AND work with management, that should actually be the goal. I've also read a few quotes here, and in the papers, saying if WestJet did buy Porter, they would take care of Westjet employees first. So maybe it would be in the best interest of Porter Pilots to unionize, unless they want to take a pay cut slide over a seat. That's neither here nor there though, from the globe and mail:

WestJet emphasizes that it isn’t interested in acquiring Toronto-based Porter Airlines Inc., which operates 26 Q400s. But to allay the fears of WestJet pilots who might be worried about their future, management has offered job security to pilots flying “mainline” Boeing 737s.

[KAG]

This is all just conjecture until the WAWCON are known.
My question for the porter pilots are they considering a union just because they need one right now, or out of fear of being bought?
I can't speak for what our respective CEO's are or aren't discussing but I'd think twice or at least hold off a union vote until you see where this goes.
Again this is all what if's and hypothetical scenarios.

Should be an interesting year.

[The People's Pilot]

I think this has less to do with a potential takeover and more to do with the present working conditions. Although management has a great group of people with an open door policy, right now there is no method of collectively bringing forth ideas and/or concerns.

The pilots don't even have their own specific contract which is something that needs to be addressed. HR has attempted to create a socialized system where pilots are treated as equals to FA's. Although this works great on paper, it doesn't necessarily pan out in reality.

I wish the boys and girls of PAPA the best of luck and hope they improve WAWCON and make PD an even better place to work at.

[reader]

If we were in talks with Porter, I would hope that the Porter pilots see the potential upside here. Please guys/gals, talk it over but understand a union could be a deal breaker.

It seems that waiting to discover the truth would be more prudent.

[twinpratts]

So... did it really happen, or just a bunch of speculation?

[quickflight]

Just speculation. Have it on good authority that amny pilots there are against the union.

[rudder]

It is probably RD himself spreading the rumours about WJ kicking the tires at Porter just to keep the union out. Every single pilot group at a company that RD has owned has unionised. What does that tell you about how RD treats pilots?

[ettw]

I might have thought that if my airline was potentially on the block, I'd like some representation. If they were bought up by say Canadian North ( just picked a unionized airline people, no need to point out that it is totally unlikely), if porter had representation, their jobs MAY be better protected vs. un-represented.

I'm for doing what you need to do for now AND for tomorrow. I don't think KAGs comment in this context is valid.

Cheers

ETTW

[justwork]

I might have thought that if my airline was potentially on the block

So, Porter is on a block?

[ettw]

I'll bet ya a whole years subscription to avcanada that Porter changes hands in the next 5 years.

ETTW

[Realitychex]

Who would buy Porter, why and how would you value it?

In theory, the value of Porter is its virtual monopoly at Billy Bishop, yet the reality is, it has resulted in nothing but losses since launch 5+ years ago.

The losses might be cut by reducing the over-capacity in the marketplace, however Porter's YTZ capacity is purely a function of making use of all their slots and not any underlying economic demand in the marketplace.

Reducing capacity means turning back unneeded slots which would likely be snapped up by the competition, most likely resulting in further losses as direct competition spreads across more routes.

If Porter were to be sold to another carrier in Canada, I suspect the Competition Bureau would insist that the slots be dramatically reallocated to ensure adequate competition amongst the remaining carriers.

I doubt any established operator would be allowed to have any more than about 60% of the slots by the time the Bureau had finished with them.

I also doubt that any new outfit wanting to get into the airline business will arrive with a big bag of money on Porter's doorstep, given their history of losses and lack of any lucrative exit strategy. There are better deals to be done out there.

Porter bet a ton of dough that the YTZ monopoly would result in windfall profits and a fabulous payoff down the road. I can certainly see how this might be tempting to the investors who poured money into the venture 6 or 7 years ago.

Alas, this has simply not occured. If Porter produces a couple years of consistent audited profits, that might change, but there's been nothing that suggests the results are materially better than those we saw during their failed IPO in June 2010. Loads are up, but at the expense of yields and costs are most certainly up.

We're coming up to the 2 year anniversary of Porter's last ill fated IPO attempt. If they've been profitable since then, it should not be a problem going public in the spring of 2012. SAVE did so last year and shares have jumped from the $11 range to $19.

No prospective purchaser will read too much into a couple of non-sequential profitable quarters. As has been said before, even a duck with a chair on its back could make money in the airline business in the third quarter.

Porter's value is in their virtual monopoly, yet that monopoly would almost certainly not be allowed to continue if it were sold to one and perhaps even the other most obvious buyer.

Porter currently produces 1/20th the ASM capacity of WJ and 1/60th the capacity of AC and has never been able to unequivocally establish to anyone that it is, or could be profitable in its current form.

If you sat on the BoD of either larger airline, what sort of valuation would you place on the venture, given that WestJet's market cap, after 16 years of consistent profitability, is about $1.9b today.

We're talking, at best, maybe $125m, a fraction of the current asking price. Add a unionized pilot group to the mix (all of whom would go to the bottom of the list at the acquiring airline) and the liklihood of the Competition Bureau requiring various undertakings that undermine the value of the business makes a buyout, imho, a non-starter.

It's a very good product, but what's the point if the business doesn't make any money and there's no way for long suffering investors to move on into something dramatically more lucrative?