ATA Files Bankruptcy, Strands Employees
Posted on April 4th, 2008 by Tim Eavenson | 1 Comment »Filed under: Uncategorized |
Lost your job in the recession “downturn”? At least you were in your home city when it happened. We try to stay impartial around here, but this has to be one of the biggest middle-fingers to a company’s (former) workforce that we’ve seen in quite some time.
Needless to say, the Pilot’s union is not really happy*:
“ATA’s customers and employees had absolutely no warning that the airline was
going out of business,” Staples said. “This abrupt withdrawal is the airline
equivalent of getting on the last helicopter out of Saigon.”
(ATA Pilots Blast Management’s Late-Night Decision to Cease Operations via PR NewsWire).
Come on, ATA. You’re ridiculously in debt. You’ve already got the runways reserved. Even if you’re going to screw your passengers (look at that poor little kid in the picture), at least fly your laid-off employees home.
More from the PR:
“Staples said that all ATA employees are the ultimate victims of a series of incompetent managers who chose to blame economic conditions for the airline’s problems instead of admitting their own mistakes.
‘We were telling management two years ago that they needed to institute a fuel management program, and even found a fuel consultant who offered to work with the company – but our overtures to help ATA reduce its fuel costs were repeatedly ignored,’ he said. ‘Management decided to outsource virtually all of our maintenance, then acquired elderly, unreliable DC-10s that needed extensive repairs. The ripple effect of years of poor
management decisions – not the current economy – was what doomed ATA.”
1:30 pm on April 4th, 2008.