United studies outsourcing up to 2,000 airport jobs

[n2doc]

United Continental Holdings Inc. on Monday said it may outsource up to 2,000 jobs at 28 U.S. airports, including Atlanta, Miami, St. Louis and West Palm Beach, Fla., to vendors who would perform the duties at lower cost.

The jobs employ workers in areas including check-in, baggage-handling and customer service, and all of the personnel are represented by the International Association of Machinists union.

In 2013, United, trying to lower its costs, turned to vendors at six U.S. airports and three in Canada, affecting nearly 500 jobs. Last fall, it outsourced about 635 jobs at 12 additional U.S. airports. But some 200 workers at three small airports in Hawaii voted to accept concessions to keep their jobs. Now, in its latest salvo, United is potentially targeting a far large number of workers and locations.

The Chicago-based company UAL, +0.89% the nation’s No. 2 carrier by traffic, said it provided official notice to the employees and the IAM on Monday. But United said it is in discussions with the union about how it could keep some of those jobs within the airline.

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http://www.marketwatch.com/story/united-studies-outsourcing-up-to-2000-airport-jobs-2015-01-12

[cloudbase]

1. Going back to the days of Frank Lorenzo at Continental. n/t

[Kber]

2. I am part of a discussion board for frequent flyers

And this news is being very poorly received.

Consensus is that service will go down, savings won't be passed on, and would be minimum anyway.

If you asked the majority of serious United frequent flyers who make up most of their revenue / customers, it's a bad move.

Interesting that this group of mainly wealthy or executive flyers think "union" = "better service and quality". I wonder how many translate that attitude to their own companies?