Empty shell of what once was

Back in Indianapolis for a day's worth of recurrent GSC training. Considering the last year or so that I spent at ATA, was as a headquarters employee, I'm certainly familiar with the territory. It's been a little over a year since my last trip to Indy. So much has changed. Even though my last year with ATA was one where layoffs were the norm, empty space was growing and company pride was riding a slippery slope south, Indy still felt kind of like, "home." Not the same as the place you go to every night to hug the wife, hang the hat and relax by the tube. "Home" in a sense that you were in familiar territory. A place that you had spent years coming and going from. People all around that you knew and so many you didn't, yet you all had something in common. Everybody worked for a well known and respected airline that was affectionately known as, "Indy's Hometown Airline"

Sadly, Indy's pride in the sky has taken a severe beating by the economy, high fuel and piss poor management decisions that involved just about everything but ATA's best interests. So many heads of the company have come and gone since I first set foot on ATA soil back in 1998. Intentions seemed to be so good, yet the judgment and fate of bad decisions has resulted in the near death of this once proud little airline. Back in 1998, ATA was close to breaking history as America's 10th Major US Carrier. Money couldn't be spent fast enough. Almost everybody who worked with ATA shared a pride in our little airline. Growth and success was just something we did everyday because that's what ATA was all about. The reality was, the writing was already on the walls for what the next 10 years was going to bring. I had the pleasure of enjoying a wonderful 3 years with ATA before the floor started to fall out from under us. 2001 to 2008 had been painful to say the least. One idiot after another came through to try and rescue the struggling ATA and had left it in worse shape than the last guy. Bankruptcy has come and gone, and ATA survived a storm that should have knocked us out. The proud employee's gave it everything we had, and survival came in the form of a financial holdings company. This financial company is living up to it's industry reputation.

Now, my visit to Indy is empty. The pride is gone, along with so many of the dedicated employee's who held firm during the darkest of days. Headquarters positions are moving south to the holding company headquarters and the people who held them and fought so hard to keep them in Indy are now out of work, or moving on to other companies. No longer can you walk into the airport hotels and see plenty of familiar faces. No longer can you arrive and taxi from the runway to the terminal while looking out the window and seeing a building or aircraft that you take pride in. No longer can you walk into the place that you felt so familiar too. The structures remain, but the people and the heart that occupied those buildings are all but extinct. As ATA continues to shrink, my prayers go out to those affected employees and their families, especially those who fought tooth and nail for ATA's survival. It was an honor to be a member of that team (family) for as long as I stayed.

I may be a business man at heart. I may be a strong supporter of capitalism. I am not, nor will I ever be a supporter of the greed, ignorance and visionless management that destroys the lives of good people. I have found in my short time in business, the greatest success has come, not from my own hard work, but from the people who's lives I've made a positive difference in. Looking at my own little company, I built people up, and in turn, my business has grown. To me, that just seems like the right path to follow. I just hope that if I ever start making poor decisions that will likely wreak havoc on people's lives...that someone with a clear head will slap me hard with a solid dose of reality.