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Steven Frischling
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Steven Frischling, aka: Fish, is globe hopping professional photographer, airline emerging media consultant working with large global airlines and founder of The Travel Strategist. Fish has racked up more than 1,000,000 miles since he started to track his mileage in 2005.

Fish's travel tends to be less than leisurely, including flying from New York to Basrah, Iraq, for six hours; Hong Kong for eight hours, Kuwait City for two hours and traveling around the world in 3.5 days to shoot a series of photo assignments in 4 cities and 4 countries on 3 separate continents.

Fish grew up at the end of New York's JFK International Airport's Runway 4R/22L, which probably explains his enjoyment of watching planes, fly overhead. When not shooting photos or traveling Fish designs camera bags, hones is expertise on airline security and spends his time at home cheering for the Red Sox with his 3 kids 102 yards from the ocean.

Mexicana: Dead Airlines Don’t Usually Negotiate Contracts

09.02.2010 | Author: flyingfish | Posted in Uncategorized

While Mexicana may not be flying, have UBS Global Financial saying the airline is dead and people writing off the carrier … I am once again going to stick my head out on a limb, as I did in this post: Mexicana Says Goodbye With Its Future Up In The Air … and say it is likely we may see Mexicana in the skies again.

Why do I think we’ll see Mexicana flying again when many others say the airline is dead?  Because a dead airline does not tend to continue to negotiate its union contracts.

ASSA, the union representing Mexicana’s 1,367 flight attendants, has begun voting on a new proposed contract.  The contract being voted on manages to use the contract currently in place between Mexicana and it’s flight attendants while reducing flight attendant costs by 30%.

In addition to Mexicana’s flight attendants voting on a contracts, Mexicana’s pilots, represented by ASPA, who presently own 5% of the airline, are working to create a long-term contract solution that aims to reduce pilot costs by 25%.

While Tenedora K, created by Advent International, owns 95% of the grounded airline, the Mexican Government has now stepped into to assist Grupo Mexicana in securing additional investors so the airline may be re-launched and the majority of the company’s 8,000 jobs can be retained.

The future may seem bleak for Mexicana … however dead airlines generally do not have an equity investment firm with US$24bil in assets backing them, a Government seeking to get them flying again, two labour unions working to ratify new contracts and the Chapter 15 protection that protects their access to their aircraft, slots, contracts, gates and terminals.

…now I guess all we can do is sit back, wait and watch.

Happy Flying!

One Response

  1. Mexicana May Not Be As Dead As Analysts Suggest It Is - Flying With Fish September 15th, 2010 at 8:24 pm

    [...] Recently there have been some interesting movements within Mexicana, including the Unions negotiating contracts and the Mexican Government working to secure investors in Mexicana, which I had written about two weeks ago here -  Mexicana: Dead Airlines Don’t Usually Negotiate Contracts. [...]

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