Boeing and SPEEA: were they in the same meeting?

Within minutes of each other, we received the updates from Boeing and SPEEA, below. It doesn’t sound like they were in the same meeting.

 

Boeing and SPEEA discuss Ed Wells Partnership funding

 Today, Boeing and SPEEA had an in-depth conversation about the Ed Wells Partnership and SPEEA’s proposal to fund the program.

The Boeing team restated our commitment to Ed Wells and clarified that we do not intend to cut funding to the program. Our focus remains on finding solutions to deal with expected future cost increases for Ed Wells, which is just one component of our employee training program.

While these negotiations continue, we already have an agreement in place to continue offering a full schedule of Ed Wells courses through the first quarter of 2013.

 Boeing and SPEEA are scheduled to meet again Thursday morning.

 Boeing has addressed the full range of proposals since our initial offer in September. Today, we posted a new fact sheet showing the current status of the issues raised as concerns by SPEEA from that initial offer.

We encourage you to log on to the negotiations website to see regular updates.

And now the SPEEA update.

Prof  & Tech Negotiations Update
Again, no response to SPEEA counterproposals, Boeing still wants to cut training

The Boeing Company today (Nov. 28) again did not respond to our counterproposals and issues from last week, including our proposals on respectful wage pools, pension and pay disparity between the Professional and Technical employees.

Discussing the Ed Wells Partnership – our joint training program – the company’s proposed budget would result in the loss of 10,000 class seats during the next four years. The bulk of discussions revolved around the impact of these cuts on engineers and technical workers and a re-explanation of SPEEA’s funding proposal.

“The presentation included an example of a student who credited an Ed Wells class for his ideas that helped the company,” said John McLaren, Professional team member. “The idea resulted in a $6.3 million savings for Boeing each year, 1,200 gallons of fuel savings per airplane annually for customers and enabled Boeing to increase the 737 production rate.”

Link to Joint Ed Wells PowerPoint presentation

Link to SPEEA Ed Wells PowerPoint presentation

Our efforts remain focused on negotiating a contract that recognizes our contributions to the success of Boeing. We encourage members to continue workplace actions, including refusing to work voluntary overtime and other ‘work-to-rule’ actions to bring pressure on Boeing corporate.

We are doing everything possible to avoid the need for a work stoppage. However, as it’s also important to be prepared, the SPEEA Bargaining Unit Negotiations Support (BUNS) committee is holding two picket captain training sessions next week.  Interested members should look for the notice in the SPEEA online calendar or talk to their Council and Area representatives.

 

Comparing the 747-8I and the A380 after the advertising battle commenced

Notation: Aeroturbopower weighs in on the controversy with his usual data-driven analysis.

With the commencement of the advertising battle between Boeing and Airbus, it is useful to make some additional comparisons prepared by AirInsight.

Here is the offending Boeing ad that set off the ad wars. It’s a two-page spread and sorry, we couldn’t scan it into one advert. Click each image to englarge.

From AirInsight:

The 747-8I and A380 are quite different aircraft, and while some view them as direct competitors, they are more properly lone players in different segments of the VLA market. Nonetheless, an airline will likely evaluate both aircraft as it maps its growth strategy, and two carriers, Lufthansa and Korean Air, have chosen to fly both aircraft types for different route structures.  Each of those airlines have indicated that the 747-8I fills a gap between their 300 seat aircraft and 525 seat A380 aircraft, and will deploy the aircraft appropriately to traffic demand and traffic growth in different markets.

While the two aircraft are quite different, they are still compared to each other and both aircraft mile and seat mile economics.  Of course, in comparing these aircraft, seating configurations make quite a difference, and the two aircraft manufacturers utilize markedly different assumptions in that regard.  Boeing indicates that standard 3-class seating configuration for its 747-8I is 467 seats, but Lufthansa is currently using 362 in its aircraft, compared with 334 in a 747-400, and 526 for its A380.  Each of these layouts is oriented heavily towards premium class seating, an essential element for many carriers these days.