US Airways is still struggling to merge seniority list of pilots. Theory of outsourcing is being tested by the Boeing 787 problems. Big casino may turn around Vegas economy.
US Airways pilots bothered by list
When US Airways merged with America West, pilots from one side were happy, the other was angry.
For investors, the pilots’ inability to agree on a seniority list has delayed contract talks that will result in higher costs and may continue to do so for the foreseeable future.
A solution seems to demand a seniority list that nobody likes. And so, a modest proposal follows, likely to anger pilots from both the former US Airways, known as the east, and from America West, known as the west.
Boeing 787 delays cast hard light on outsourcing
The 787 has been delayed for two years. Hoping to cut costs, Boeing turned to its suppliers overseas. Instead, it was beset by glitches in the supply chain including parts and software.
Even as the company gears up for the test flight, it now acknowledges that it outsourced too much of the 787 — now six years in the making — and will conduct its global partnerships differently in the future.
“We wouldn’t do it exactly the same way,” Boeing chief executive Jim McNerney said at an investor conference this month. “There’s plenty of blame to go around. It’s not just our suppliers’ fault. It’s equally our fault in many cases.”
Jobs, jobs, jobs: how one giant casino could turn around Vegas
This was a day when the MGM Mirage began fielding 160,000 applicants for 12,000 open positions at the CityCenter, “an $8.5 billion complex of shops, condos and boutique hotels, that is set to open in December.”
The new hires came from Vegas and from beyond — from New York City, from LA, from small-town Ohio. They’ve come to be salon receptionists, bell men, pit clerks, spa managers.
CityCenter could mark the much-hoped-for resurgence of Las Vegas, but then again it may mark the end of an era, a sort of peak the city won’t easily reach again. Thanks in part to wobbly credit markets, [MGM-Mirage Senior Vice President Alan] Feldman doesn’t think a project of this size will be completed in the city for at least a decade.
(Photo: jnsabino/Flickr Creative Commons)
