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Staffing Issues Query


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13 minutes ago, Pattycruise said:

I will say that at least the people on this discussion are aware of what you are walking into.    

YES.  I hope to assist in alleviating as much anxiety and informing others of the Ovation situation as possible by using facts and my perceptions based upon facts.  I hope that my thread is not causing anxiety but rather helping acknowledge the real-time reality for this ship and upcoming Alaskan cruises this season.  I am hopeful.

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27 minutes ago, LizzyBee23 said:

RCL seems unwilling to compensate people for a substandard product

I'm not sure I'd go as far as to say it's "substandard" as opposed to "different". This may be a case of semantics, but the reason I'm saying it's not necessarily an awful thing is in the results.

As you say, "ask your customers" and so far, the result has been stellar.

The other week, Royal Caribbean Group reported in its first quarter earnings that it "carried approximately 800,000 guests and achieved record guest satisfaction scores."

Now, that doesn't include the current uptick in Covid cases or the higher general capacity. But it did include the Omicron wave. 

But if there's one metric that is SUPER important to Royal is their guest satisfaction scores (aka the post-cruise guest survey).

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Cruising for the forseeable future (possibly years) will be very different than pre-covid. Between the great resignation which evidently has also impacted cruise workers to positive cases onboard/quarantines yada yada, its a new world. It sucks, agreed. I sailed on odyssey the first week of december 2021 and had a great time, Covid was a non factor. Literally the next week omicron starts wreaking havoc on cruising for the next 2 months. I felt blessed that we got ours in un-fettered but felt terrible for the ones who were unlucky enough to have a cruise scheduled in that mid december to mid february period as there were major disruptions. In this new era alot or our cruise experience comes down to plain dumb luck.

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11 minutes ago, Matt said:

I'm not sure I'd go as far as to say it's "substandard" as opposed to "different". This may be a case of semantics, but the reason I'm saying it's not necessarily an awful thing is in the results.

As you say, "ask your customers" and so far, the result has been stellar.

The other week, Royal Caribbean Group reported in its first quarter earnings that it "carried approximately 800,000 guests and achieved record guest satisfaction scores."

Now, that doesn't include the current uptick in Covid cases or the higher general capacity. But it did include the Omicron wave. 

But if there's one metric that is SUPER important to Royal is their guest satisfaction scores (aka the post-cruise guest survey).

Those are great points and deserving of our deference in RCCL's experience and wisdom.  It gives me some peace of mind.  Thank you.

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14 minutes ago, LizzyBee23 said:

I kind of get it... RCL seems unwilling to compensate people for a substandard product, while now booking at full capacity. I understand that the cost of COVID mitigation is high, but if you ask your customers (who you lured on the ship with promises of entertainment or amenities that never materialize) to bear too much of that cost to push you into the black, well... What's that old saying? Poo rolls downhill?

Read the cruise contract you receive with your luggage tags.  Nothing is guaranteed.  To say "poo rolls downhill" is sad when you are crapping on the very workers who are doing their best, taking on more work to make your cruise more enjoyable.  If you don't like a product don't support it by not buying it, you give the message to the company, not  to the employee who is just trying to make a living. 


In regards to a separate  comment  you made  "Even if they ultimately decide to do nothing, communicating that things are not ideal and taking their lumps with healthy doling out of OBC is better than leaving everyone in this quagmire."   It's not good marketing to communicate things are not ideal.  Things can change dramatically from week to week.  Doling out OBC won't make it any better-it might appease some people, but not everyone.  Royal had a 1.3 billion dollar loss in their first quarter, I'm happy they are back and doing the best they can, it beats the alternative. 
There are people who complained about wearing masks, but sailed-and continued to complain about it.  Then there were the people who complained the masks were optional, yet they didn't wear them.  I've been on sailings since August and watched the changes go from mask at all times except when seated and actively eating/drinking to unmasking midcruise (Feb 24) to being able to sit at the bars and the removal of signs "only 4 in the elevator  -or 6" depending on the ship . To tables being more than 6 feet apart and spacing in the clubs so that you were not near anyone else.  I've seen the crew be able to go down to 1 mask only to have to add that second mask back. I've watched ports only accept passengers who are masked (OUTDOORS TOO!) and carrying their vax cards to not masked, yet some businesses still require masks   
Crew and passengers need to be flexible and open minded.  Hopefully one day we will have more pleasurable topics we can discuss.

 

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I think that's more than a semantic difference, and I take your point. I think it was easier to extend a bit of grace and be satisfied with the experience when it was evident the measures RCL was trying to take to ensure guests were well taken care of... Even if it meant you didn't get to see a show, or couldn't get reservations at AO (ensuring our kids have fun was/is important to us, so obviously those were a bigger deal to our little family than say, my cruise addicted in-laws).

With capacity soaring, those measures have vaporized, it seems especially on a ship like Ovation that just doesn't seem ready for primetime. I would argue that dips into substandard, and not necessarily just "different", if the accounts onboard are true. I am sensitive to the notion that the loudest voices are often overblown, but there are a lot of them and it's hard to argue with pictures.

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8 minutes ago, Pattycruise said:

It's not good marketing to communicate things are not ideal.  Things can change dramatically from week to week.  

True, but that is what spin doctors are paid to do.  A captain of a ship has to wear many hats and spin doctor is one.  Captain doesn't have to say, "Due to staffing issues, your cruise will suck" but could say "due to the currently unexpected staff to cruiser ratios, we are striving to provide you with the best experience...Northstar is down due to maintenance but the Northstar observation deck is open for spectacular views of the glaciers."  Something like that.  

I too hope that the future will bring more pleasurable topics to discuss.

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@Pattycruise, thank you for acknowledging that not being up front with passengers is bad for marketing when your product is failing to live up to expectations. That's self-evident, and kind of makes my point.

As for the poo rolls down hill: another reason it would be best for RCL to accept responsibility for missteps with booking. If you gave someone who was rightly disappointed in the fact that headliner shows we're conspicuously absent from the schedule a token amount of OBC, and they continue on with the cruise merrily, would that not also be good for the workers? As it stands, RCL is essentially giving customers a singular choice that doesn't cost the cruise line anything, but does "roll downhill". I'm not willing to fault someone for making that choice after paying thousands for a vacation that just doesn't deliver on it's promise, even if it's not a choice I would make.

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8 minutes ago, LizzyBee23 said:

@Pattycruise, thank you for acknowledging that not being up front with passengers is bad for marketing when your product is failing to live up to expectations. That's self-evident, and kind of makes my point.

As for the poo rolls down hill: another reason it would be best for RCL to accept responsibility for missteps with booking. If you gave someone who was rightly disappointed in the fact that headliner shows we're conspicuously absent from the schedule a token amount of OBC, and they continue on with the cruise merrily, would that not also be good for the workers? As it stands, RCL is essentially giving customers a singular choice that doesn't cost the cruise line anything, but does "roll downhill". I'm not willing to fault someone for making that choice after paying thousands for a vacation that just doesn't deliver on it's promise, even if it's not a choice I would make.

Lizzy, read my post about my current investigations about the conditions on Ovation.  I hope that it appeases some of your frustrations as it did mine when I discovered them.  Part of the experience is what is offered, the other part is how you decide to experience...Let's not let some bad news pre-emptively make this cruise a bad experience.

 

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Hello everyone,

I just got off a 8 night alaskan cruise on ovation of the seas (May 5th -13th) and the staffing shortages are REAL. While passenger capacity was at 87.5%, staff was only at 60%. We saw the same crew members from the time we woke up to when we went to bed, there are no shift changes. We spoke to many past RC cruisers on board that they all agreed that this sailing was the worst they had ever been on. Although RC's website features the following activities/shows on Ovation : Pixels, A Beautiful Dream, Sushi Making Class, Archery, Wine tasting, Learning a language, etc...NONE of those were actually offered on our cruise. I felt as though, they had lost all of their crew members who specialized in niches and so they stripped all activities that required that talent. Instead it was replaced with a lot of trivia, I swear there were 12 trivia's a day, and bingo. Basically anything that any crew member could run. They've also lost their head chef's because the food (outside of the specialty restaurants) were bland. We had only purchased the 3 specialty dining package and wished that we had splurged and purchased the unlimited dining plan. Do yourself a favor, if you do intend to move forward with your cruise, purchase the unlimited dining package. At least that way, you'll enjoy the food, rather than eating just because you are starving and bored. 

I realize the cruising industry is in a tough corner, I really do. So I haven't written off RC forever, I'll just wait a couple years for them to work things out and I'll give them another shot. The ship itself is beautiful and has so much potential. After speaking with other cruisers who frequent RC pre-covid, they had such a great experience with them in the past that it is hard to write them off based on this one cruise.

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12 minutes ago, CruisingNewb said:

Lizzy, read my post about my current investigations about the conditions on Ovation.  I hope that it appeases some of your frustrations as it did mine when I discovered them.  Part of the experience is what is offered, the other part is how you decide to experience...Let's not let some bad news pre-emptively make this cruise a bad experience.

 

I don't disagree, and I think you and I are in different spots: we can move our vacation around a bit (though it would be annoying, and I got my DBP at a price that would be pure unicorn these days). I want to make an informed choice, and it's hard to do that. I also think we as consumers are within our rights to raise a little muck when things aren't right... Otherwise these temporary annoyances become permanent once all involved become a bit too complacent. And honestly, maybe that's where the market is heading anyway (perhaps temporarily), because of just how relieved some people are to be back onboard. Why would RCL do anything differently if it can fill ships with people who have extremely "flexible" expectations?

There are only a few things that will really mar our experience (AO not being open, hours long meal times)... We'd absolutely change sailings or make radical adjustments over those.

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Ultimately what this comes down to is knowing what you are paying for. RCCL has not changed what is advertised on its website and items like Northstar can be the difference in selecting one cruise over another. Getting what you pay for, or at least being given the opportunity to make an informed decision rather than a roll of the dice is not a big ask. It’s certainly not something that should be taken out on staff but there is a wide chasm between the company not living up to expectations and belittling staff members. 

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I hate to say, but once Covid has hit the majority of staff onboard the staff will all be working and the ship will be back to normal. Unfortunately there’s no way to predict how fast Covid  is running through the staff, nor when it started.  Assuming it’s the latest variant hitting staff I imagine ships will be better staffed within a month or so. 
I wonder how long they need to stay in quarantine after they test positive. 

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21 minutes ago, Pattycruise said:

I hate to say, but once Covid has hit the majority of staff onboard the staff will all be working and the ship will be back to normal. Unfortunately there’s no way to predict how fast Covid  is running through the staff, nor when it started.  Assuming it’s the latest variant hitting staff I imagine ships will be better staffed within a month or so. 
I wonder how long they need to stay in quarantine after they test positive. 

This is not true as one person can get Covid many times, some even only 19 days apart. 

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12 minutes ago, carlosalonsor said:

This is not true as one person can get Covid many times, some even only 19 days apart. 

Some can still test positive after 10 days isolation which is why those who have had covid [ think its 90 days prior to boarding ] do not have to test to board, do not have to test to fly or even test on land if they dont feel to good. In fact its encouraged you do not test after getting it simply because results can still show positive for a long period afterwards 

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1. I have had Covid twice and within a short period of time. No. it wasn't a continuation.  I tested negative twice in between cases.

2. I still keep reading comments about covid cases in this thread. My thread was specific to Ovation of the Seas.  Please show me the source for covid cases amongst staff (or otherwise) currently for Ovation of the Seas.  I still cannot find where some of you are getting this info.  

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21 minutes ago, CruisingNewb said:

1. I have had Covid twice and within a short period of time. No. it wasn't a continuation.  I tested negative twice in between cases.

2. I still keep reading comments about covid cases in this thread. My thread was specific to Ovation of the Seas.  Please show me the source for covid cases amongst staff (or otherwise) currently for Ovation of the Seas.  I still cannot find where some of you are getting this info.  

About 10 seconds on to chris wongs video blog the one you say doesnt mention covid, he says " shore leave is cancelled due to rising cases in crew " he mentions rising cases twice in the first 20 seconds...its covid hes on about not luggage in an elevator lol 

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50 minutes ago, Ray said:

About 10 seconds on to chris wongs video blog the one you say doesnt mention covid, he says " shore leave is cancelled due to rising cases in crew " he mentions rising cases twice in the first 20 seconds...its covid hes on about not luggage in an elevator lol 

He never says on the ovation. He says it in such a way that it could mean COVID cases on any Alaskan RCCL ship. I watched it several times with volume on loud and closed captioning.

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A FB group I'm in has someone discussing COVID among crew. Evidently someone's genie was pretty candid with them regarding the state of the crew onboard (also mentioned many were new... lots of mishaps including a bartender serving alcohol to a minor who ordered a virgin drink, and countless stories about having to deal with room charges/double grats, etc.) Take with a huge grain of salt, but I'll say the sheer quantity of these takes dwarves any other sailing group I've ever participated in on FB or elsewhere.

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1 hour ago, CruisingNewb said:

He never says on the ovation. He says it in such a way that it could mean COVID cases on any Alaskan RCCL ship. I watched it several times with volume on loud and closed 

surely he wouldn't blog about other ships being put into quarantine and not Ovation would he? And you are correct he doesnt mention Ovation by namr...HOWEVER he does write it! As requested and previously mentioned here is the source

 

 

Screenshot_20220516-211648_YouTube.jpg

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11 minutes ago, Ray said:

surely he wouldn't blog about other ships being put into quarantine and not Ovation would he? And you are correct he doesnt mention Ovation by namr...HOWEVER he does write it! As requested and previously mentioned here is the source

 

 

Screenshot_20220516-211648_YouTube.jpg

Thank you! So if COVID is causing the problems, at least we have some idea of a timeline when the ship will no longer be understaffed. 

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I would just like to say it is a possibility Ovation will be understaffed for a while. I was under the impression, based off talking to crew during reduced capacity, all the ships are fully staff. In that they have the required number of crew to support full capacity but things like covid (and the ramp up of capacity imho) reduce the ratio. I think the issue is they don't have back up staff, so when a good portion of sick crew members happen, they can't replace them. 

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I got off Quantum this morning.   We had a very similar situation that Ovation seems to be going through.   Our facebook group was lit up with all the usual rumors, even if half of it was true then RC is not prepared for the full capacities that are boarding right now.  Several of our “everyday” crew members disappeared and we were told they were sick.   The entire crew was told to upgrade their masks to N95’s midweek.  One of our concierges that we were extra friendly with profusely apologized for the cruise experience (I wasn’t even complaining about anything).  They were struggling to find their groove all week.   It was obvious they were not staffed for the full ship.

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You don't have to look very far these days to see staffing shortages in many aspects of life.

The hospital where my mother was had nursing shortages.   Then when she finally got back to a nursing home they had support worker shortages.  There are crew shortages with airlines leading to cancellations and delays.  While in Vancouver we heard of crew shortages on the BC Ferry systems.  You show up and no ferry today or they have a skeleton crew and the food venues are all closed for lengthy ferry rides.  Amtrak has crew shortages.  A bar I visit has employee shortages some days.    

It's everywhere so the only surprise is that people are surprised there are cruise crew shortages, like somehow cruise lines should be exempt from the shortages that are hitting so many businesses.

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43 minutes ago, twangster said:

You don't have to look very far these days to see staffing shortages in many aspects of life.

The hospital where my mother was had nursing shortages.   Then when she finally got back to a nursing home they had support worker shortages.  There are crew shortages with airlines leading to cancellations and delays.  While in Vancouver we heard of crew shortages on the BC Ferry systems.  You show up and no ferry today or they have a skeleton crew and the food venues are all closed for lengthy ferry rides.  Amtrak has crew shortages.  A bar I visit has employee shortages some days.    

It's everywhere so the only surprise is that people are surprised there are cruise crew shortages, like somehow cruise lines should be exempt from the shortages that are hitting so many businesses.

Royal intended to be at full capacity by May/June. They also knew about potent staff shortages. So then why push forward for a capacity that they could potentially not cater to? The past sailings of around 40 to 70% were doable. So mathematically, if they wanted more passengers, they should have had the staffing and contingency plans in place prior to full sailings. 
 

a business is usually in a greater position of power and knowledge, passing off the shortage issues onto the consumer is somewhat wrong. I’m not saying we can play dumb and be blissfully ignorant, but the opposite is to say that we should not expect the greatest possible outcome as a consumer, ever. 

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24 minutes ago, CruisingNewb said:

Royal intended to be at full capacity by May/June. They also knew about potent staff shortages. So then why push forward for a capacity that they could potentially not cater to? The past sailings of around 40 to 70% were doable. So mathematically, if they wanted more passengers, they should have had the staffing and contingency plans in place prior to full sailings. 
 

a business is usually in a greater position of power and knowledge, passing off the shortage issues onto the consumer is somewhat wrong. I’m not saying we can play dumb and be blissfully ignorant, but the opposite is to say that we should not expect the greatest possible outcome as a consumer, ever. 

Unfortunately,  I predict a life of many disappointments for you. I hope your crystal ball is more accurate than Royal's, for your sake.

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I'd speculate all of the lines would love to be sailing at 100% and still be able to operate with a crew compliment of 50% just to make up some margin.    Unfortunately, the crew is just as susceptible to be sidetracked due to the bug, and with an already reduced crew, service diminishes faster and they're hindered keeping up with  the new sanitation protocols.

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12 hours ago, CruisingNewb said:

I watched the video.  I never heard that the staff members of "Ovation" had covid.  I know that a sister ship had cases but not Ovation.  I may be wrong but I am just pointing out that Chris did not specifically say it was Ovation.

Chris is on Ovation. He does later that it doesn't apply to other ships. 
I imagine within certain company criteria each Captain his ability to make changes to shore leave based on the requiremnts of the ship at the time.

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4 hours ago, CruisingNewb said:

Royal intended to be at full capacity by May/June. They also knew about potent staff shortages. So then why push forward for a capacity that they could potentially not cater to? The past sailings of around 40 to 70% were doable. So mathematically, if they wanted more passengers, they should have had the staffing and contingency plans in place prior to full sailings. 
 

a business is usually in a greater position of power and knowledge, passing off the shortage issues onto the consumer is somewhat wrong. I’m not saying we can play dumb and be blissfully ignorant, but the opposite is to say that we should not expect the greatest possible outcome as a consumer, ever. 

Sadly if they don't sail at full capacity they will fail and go out of business. 

I don't think most people realize how close they are to failing and going bankrupt.  

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7 hours ago, CruisingNewb said:

Royal intended to be at full capacity by May/June. They also knew about potent staff shortages. So then why push forward for a capacity that they could potentially not cater to? The past sailings of around 40 to 70% were doable. So mathematically, if they wanted more passengers, they should have had the staffing and contingency plans in place prior to full sailings. 
 

a business is usually in a greater position of power and knowledge, passing off the shortage issues onto the consumer is somewhat wrong. I’m not saying we can play dumb and be blissfully ignorant, but the opposite is to say that we should not expect the greatest possible outcome as a consumer, ever. 

I feel like you're consistently ignoring two factors: 

- the companies need to ramp up capacity to keep their businesses going. Don't forget that all these ships earned no money at all (whilst still incurring costs) whilst they were sat doing nothing.

- you can't have contingency staffing INA cruise ship. Where are they supposed to live? The lifeboats?

 

 

 

 

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16 minutes ago, GatorCruiser said:

I hate articles with headlines that don't match the content of the article.

There's no mention of a plan in the article. All Carnival says it is doing is bugging the state department to get their butts moving.

 

In response, Heald said that Carnival’s management is aware of the worker shortage and looking to fix it: “I believe that Christine [Duffy, president of Carnival Cruise Line]...will find a way out of this and will work with the United States State Department and we will get the visas our crew are waiting for [to] return, ready to serve and entertain you,” he said.

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31 minutes ago, GatorCruiser said:

And would you look at that, the short term plan is to cut guest capacity.

At some point this becomes a safety issue, in addition to being wildly bad for business. The idea that 1-2 months of reduced capacity may lead to insolvency (while possibly true) doesn't really trump that.

"Last week the U.K.-based Cunard Line, a Carnival Cruise ship, drastically cut down on the guest capacity for the Queen Victoria and Queen Mary 2, and P&O Cruises canceled seven sailings of Arcadia last month. Both cancellations were due to limited crew availability, which would have negatively impacted guest services."

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Definitely not just a Royal issue, just off Celebrity (I know a sister brand) and staffing being short was the #1 topic of conversation around the ship.

The cruise was still a good one and I wouldn't go back and "not do it" but you know its not good when the writeup for every event/venue includes the words "drinks will not be served at/during this event, please make sure to bring them with you".

I think on the 9 night cruise I was brought a drink by a wait person about 3 times (including the MDR), the rest were stand in the line at a bar and hope the bartender would notice you.

Sympathetic to the cruise lines struggling to find staffing but its ugly when you cant staff to serve a ship at about 60% capacity.

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7 hours ago, twangster said:

Sadly if they don't sail at full capacity they will fail and go out of business. 

I don't think most people realize how close they are to failing and going bankrupt.  

If you factor fuel costs, and the cash burn on the new ships -they're really on the edge right now.  Fuel costs alone have to be killing them.  Was  the strategy to get the entire fleet sailing the right one?  Or focus on regions, ships and itineraries that can maximize cash and minimize risk and costs?   If not this year, next we're going to see the  industry contract.  

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58 minutes ago, cruisellama said:

If you factor fuel costs, and the cash burn on the new ships -they're really on the edge right now.  Fuel costs alone have to be killing them.  Was  the strategy to get the entire fleet sailing the right one?  Or focus on regions, ships and itineraries that can maximize cash and minimize risk and costs?   If not this year, next we're going to see the  industry contract.  

Fuel costs haven't hit them yet, they hedged fuel.  But it is a coming storm.  

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