United Continental to cut up to 500 Houston jobs

There are 2 people for every job in this company now....50% have to go. Its going to get worse.

...that's a primary purpose of mergers...understood by all including the government...consolidate jobs, routes, structure

Branded as UA, the workforce will be down under 60,000 within 3 years, as one failed shuffling of assets after another fails. Ineptitude never emerges until a merger occurs. In the year that USAir Group ran US and PI as separate companies, Group made more money than in any year prior or after. Killing a brand and the team that supports it is insanity; the synergies are elsewhere as is the customer and brand loyalty.

If you voted Republican you have no one to blame but yourself. Government do 'something'? Yea right. Ask your Conservative friends to help you - according to them, Government is the enemy - until you need a friend.

I suppose none of you realize that TONS of CAL people from Houston are moving to Chicago?

These positions must be cut in order to afford the 7 digit bonuses that Jeff and other remaining management will continue to receive. If they don't do this they will not meet their "targeted goals" (bonuses) inregard to synergies associated with the merger I don't have a problem with that (saving money), but their bonuses, stock options, incentives, and any salary increases should go to the employees that are loosing their jobs. NO ONE at United deserves more than 500k total annual compensation
If you want to see a successfully run company on less than a half a million a year to the CEO see ticker symbol LUV.

The DL NW merger worked well. The largest well, only cut in jobs were management positions. Its harder to place two of the same at that level. UA CO folks can only ride out the storm maybe they will follow the path DL NW did and actually hire more front line.

If gordon was here you would saying the same about him.

Let business respond to supply and demand. Not govt have red tape to regulate. Look at how aviation has expanded since govt got out of regulation. If there is a market, someone will emerge to serve it. Look at Allegiant Air, Southwest, etc. The reality is that the democrat-liberal dominated unions have killed much of American industry, not the "bad old republicans." Thank you tea party.

The merged CO UA airline has too many hubs, and too many overlapping employees. They will be gone soon, but the great part is, they can get another job or even better, start something new that might actually CREATE other jobs rather than rely on the government to "protect them."
People longing for the "good old days" really gets annoying, and should stick to airliners.net

These cuts are Only The Beginning. CLE will be shutdown as soon as possible, and Mgmnt ISN'T Fooling anyone. CO should have NEVER jumped in bed with a dinosaur like United in the First place!. The CEO at CO needs his head examined.........it was ALL about Ego.

Your comment appears to be driven by your anger not at the IBT contract that was agreed to by those CAL employees, but the fact that now they have a contract and it levels the playing field, i.e., they will have the same seniority driven job protections that you have at UAL. It also seems that you may be upset that they were able to negotiate better pay than you currently have, while your union, the IAM has failed to conclude any agreement for you. From published reports, seems that the IBT is well on it's way to a new agreement for the UAL mechanics and has already negotiated the return of jobs already; which appears to make your union the one with the problems.

Anonymous,

According to the SWA 2010 Proxy, Gary Kelly, the CEO at Southwest Airlines made just under $1.6 million in total compensation in 2009 including over $1.0 million in cash compensation. In addition, both Ron Ricks (EVP) and Michael Van de Ven (EVP/COO) earned over $1.0 million, Robert Jordan (EVP) earned over $900K and Laura Wright (SVP/CFO) earned over $800K. I'm not suggesting that any of these people didn't earn this compensation and weren't deserving of it. I just think it's helpful to inject some facts when you make statements like, "If you want to see a successfully run company on less than a half a million a year to the CEO see ticker symbol LUV."