You know it serious when HE shows up
- Dec 16, 2025
- 3 min read
While you’re sitting in the meeting with Ryan today I want to remember 2 things-
1)You’re listening to a guy who’s quarter BILLION dollar net worth has been created by your labor. Just his family trust alone made $360,000 off stock dividends this last year….Yes, THAT stock dividend, the one they just increased by 8% last month.
2)He spent between $25,000 and $42,000 just in jet fuel to fly here and back
Why should you remember these numbers? You’re going to hear about expensive global acquisitions like Concho and Marathon, which led to overlapping positions. (No one has yet explained to me how buying Concho makes an Alpine Mechanic redundant and in need of laying off but… ok ) You’re going to hear about competing in a global market, our “peer” competitor stock prices & their lower operating expenses (not to be confused with the “peers” our wages were compared to). Maybe even “share holder value” will get thrown out there.
But WTF does ANY of that have to do with RIF’ing people on the slope?...and then posting hirings with-in a month. What does ANY of that have to do with cutting our wages? Or reducing our headcount? They’ve stolen money from YOU to pad their pockets and impress wall street. And have we impressed Wall Street? No. The stock price is lower now than it was in early September when they announced they’re laying off 25% of the workforce.
You’ll hear things about “controllable costs” which include things like our wages. They’re not happy that things cost more now than they did in 2021, and neither are we. But the difference is THEY can take steps to “control costs” by cutting your wage; can you take steps to spend less on your kids' school clothes? Milk? Your flights to work? Long-term care for your mother? THEY looked at inflation and said “nope, no thanks” and expect you to do the same.
Just remember they spend tens of thousands just in jet fuel to fly a multi-millionaire here to tell you why it’s cool that they’re cutting your wage. Remember that.
What to see the math?*
Did he fly up on the brand new Gulfstream G500 or their “old” (1.4 years) G600? I’d bet the G600 because it has the better range, but that’s just a guess. Either way, the fuel burn rate is between 400-500 gal/hour. We'll be conservative and used the best fuel milage rate of 400 gal/hour. It’s 3280 straight line miles between IAH (Houston) and ANC, then another 630-ish to Kuparuk. Jet A costs $7.23/gal this morning in ANC and around $6 a gallon @ IAH. Now obviously these are retail prices, there’s a good chance COP has a fuel contract and gets it cheaper, I don’t know. But at the cruising speed of G600 it’s a rough 6.5 hour flight to Anchorage and then about 1.5-1.75 hours to the slope. So that puts the total burn at around 3200 gallons one way. Of course there’s a bunch of assumptions you’ll need to make about how much they’re fueling in ANC for the Kuparuk leg vs carrying extra fuel from Houston but the simple math says 3200 gallons x $6/gallon = $19,200 for the flight up and then 3200 x $7.23= 23,136 for the flight back to Houston. Now, again- they probably have a fuel contract so lets be generous and just use $4 a gallon (one hell of a discount right?) for all the math, that still puts us @ $25,600. Yep, they are spending a $25,000 to $42,000 just in fuel to fly Ryan here to tell you why they can’t afford to pay you.
*Disclaimer- I’m a dumbass knuckle-dragger that needs a Skillsnow procedure just to use an adjustable wrench and can’t be trusted to operate a pocketknife, I’m not a pilot, so my numbers aren’t perfect. Maybe someone could just ask Ryan for the flight invoice.
Please guys stay calm in the meetings, remember that nothing can change due to status quo. No matter if someone gets moved at the top it will not change the direction the ship has already turned. Don’t loose sight of what happened and what will happen again and again under failed promises. Protection is the only answer. Gotta say though hell of a publicity stunt flying to Alaska to address the team in these hard times. It’ll look good on a news paper headline and for the investors.