PeezDog

I'm not entirely sure how many or which tail numbers. I'm waiting to talk to union reps about it. Playing phone tag. I just know it's happening. As others have said, the leases are expiring and skywest is releasing them. I don't think there's anything we can do

PeezDog

The old guys don't understand our troubles and we don't understand theirs. A lot of them have been hammered as well. I think what is being missed understood here is that those of us who have spent 100k + on this career feel a little ripped off. With an hour of instruction costing over a $100 an hour, what choice did we have? Some of us approaching a decade as regional FOs! 30 years old with no house, no family no money in the bank, and debt up to your eyeballs. I think anyone on our generation feels the American dream has been taken away from us. We were told if you go to college you will get a good job. A lot of people graduating now cannot find a job. Or one that pays well. This is the problem we are facing.

I take fully responsibility for choosing this career and choosing to take on a high debt load. But what I won't take is some old guy telling me to sit down and shut up because I don't deserve to be paid a fair salary because I'm a regional pilot. We've all had troubles in this industry, so let's act like we are on the same team and not enemies.

Waitingformins

The 100k figure keeps popping up because you feel like that justifies your frustration on wanting a respectful job, that pays well, has travel benefits, enjoyable, has union protection, ability to leave work at work. The breaking story is that everyone wants that, and your promissory note doesn’t mean anything.
You can be upset that you have spent 10 years of your life and have not managed to produce what you desire; so you can and should reject any TA that is not what you want, and no senior should ever give you flak for it.

bedrock

There were a lot of factors since 2001 which were out of any pilot's control. SARS's scared passengers away for a while, 140/ barrel oil caused havoc, 2008 mkt. crash, age 65, etc. The larger view is Wall Street and the mgmt. class have figured out how to ALWAYS get bonuses despite economic conditions. The middle class in this country has been severely depleted due to outsourcing.

All out of our direct control.

At the local level, however, what is intolerable is a shoddy mgmt. which destroys their own company and then expects employees to pick up the pieces--again and again. It's never going to stop if WE don't stop it. The seniority system has us boxed in and we cannot vote with our feet w/o committing a very bad self-inflicted wound. No wonder we are all frustrated and ****ed-off.

Jefferson

The system has flaws. The pay parity between a mainline 717 F/O and a regional 90 seat RJ pilot FOR THE EXACT SAME SKILL SET is not sustainable. These facts no one has a problem with.
However, when F/O "First Job out of College" (if not ever) sits down with a 6000 hour "consequence is depriving the world of the Captain he DESERVES to be" chip on his shoulder.... plows through A/C flows and speed rattles checklists because hes "over it".... then wonders why the guy in the other seat has such a bad attitude... THEN I have a problem...

Captain Tony

Can you elaborate?

Jefferson

4 yr F/O 717 DL- $112 110 seats
4 yr F/O MD80 AA -$108 140 seats
4 yr F/O 737-3 UA -$116 124 seats

4yr F/O CRJ900 EV -$42 76 seats (all sourced on airline pilot central and seatguru.com)


This is almost 3x the pay for less than 2x the seats....

Parity for the exact same skillset.

Captain Tony

And that's just the pay rates. don't forget the rest of the DL compensation package.

But the part I meant to elaborate on is how you can justify asking for that kind of compensation in the current regional airline bargaining environment.

Oh, and run those numbers again, divided by seats for a 50 seat RJ vs a 149 seat MD88, and see how much disparity it isn't per seat.

Jefferson

Offer any 4 year RJ F/O no pay raise but the balance of the A/A contract and see how the vote turns out.

And no... you're not going to get that kind of compensation with the system as it is.... There will have to be some consolidation...Internally within single companies, between "regionals" or between regionals and majors.

Captain Tony

You didn't answer the question. Run the numbers for us.