ClickClickBoom

Back on topic, why her, why now?
See above.

ClickClickBoom

This, is what I am alluding to. Pilots are egocentric and often myopic, this causes them to miss the bigger picture. UAL, DAL et al, exist for one reason, to move people from a to b for money. More market share, usually means more money. Regional, mainline is a moot question, those concepts are a labor component. Regionals came in to existence when pilots were oozing out the cracks and B,C, and D(regionals) scales were created to utilize cheap labor, today not so many pilots, so maintaining/retaining your skilled machine operators will become critical. They want pilots to think that a job at the majors is the ultimate brass ring, when in reality, it's becoming the opposite, crap work rules, crap schedules and spending a large portion of your life in a stanky, smelly plane full of walmart shoppers isn't all it's cracked up to be. Add staying in the same hotel as the herd that they just delivered, means that the job isn't really the brass ring they thought it was. All this means that the majors have issues, personnel is the largest looming on the horizon. Just a couple of years ago, the average Airline pilots age was 48 years, an aging workforce, coupled with an extremely high cost to qualify for admittance means there are looming issues. The airline that cracks that code will succeed at the expense of the remaining competitors.
Make no mistake, for the most part, every pilot that wants to fly cattle cars in the sky is doing it, those that say "if the pay was higher, I'd be there in a second" are kidding themselves, because even if this job paid them the same as the one they have filling out TPS reports, there is the issue of QOL, spending a large portion of your month away from your family has higher costs than money alone can compensate for.
The industry will have to move back towards 20 days off a month, and 150k+ average pay before the job becomes attractive again and that ain't happening anytime soon.
The paradigm has truly shifted and the airlines are 3 generations deep in the "way we do things" mentality.
With the consolidation that has occurred, there will not be the ability to acquire skilled machine operators, by acquisition or merger, since there will only be 3 players, let the bidding wars begin. Make no mistake, we are all mercenaries, cash rules the roost, corporate loyalty is dead, we have more loyalty to our college sports teams, the chit show is just warming up.
This won't be immediate, but will morph over time....

MoarAlpha

Has anyone else heard the rumors of new uniforms? I heard the Crew Outfitters in ATL talked to a pilot about a meeting they had with Expressjet about them as if we already knew or something.

yimke

No, but I hope they say SureJet on them!! If it is true, Delta pilots probably complained enough that they can't tell the difference if you wear your hat.

atrdriver

ASA is going back to silver stripes, that's all.

ClickClickBoom

The F/As forum has as much info on uniform details, uniforms really?

yimke

Time to dig it out of the closet!

AtlCSIP

I still have that stuff somewhere.

Bucking Bar

No, not at all. Yesterday's version of a "regional" was Delta. So was "Southern" and "Atlantic Southeast Airlines." All were carriers where the pilots flew their airline's code, exclusively.

Consider ALPA's Admin Manual language on Alter Ego Carriers in 1999.

"Whenever management forms or acquires another company for the purpose of operating an airline, it shall be deemed an alter ego and ALPA shall utilize every available mean at its disposal...to prevent its formation or to compel a merger thereof."

If one were to run today's structures through that language while considering Todd1200's SunTzu quotes for added spice a different profession shapes up pretty quickly. Alter ego airlines were as a matter of policy, to be destroyed, or assimilated.

We (as in ALPA's membership) removed, via our Executive Board, the language that would have prevented our acceptance of our current structures. We did this for a reason.

I would encourage anyone with a deep interest to read both volumes of Flying the Line. There you can read about what worked against EL Cord, what failed against Lorenzo and what a disaster over reaching is in the Crew Compliment discussion (how many three pilot 737's are out flying?).

SiShane

New uniforms? Really what's the point of wasting money on silly stuff like this?