RockyBoy

So he must be one of the LEC reps.

acl65pilot

No I have a really good idea who he is.

newKnow

Ok, here's your help.

First of all, I didn't say I thought we needed radical leadership. I said we needed our leasership to be, "somewhat more radical." So, I understand that the whole burn the house down attitude is probably too extreme. But, there is a reason I wrote that our leaders need to be somewhat more radical.

As for all of your examples, it seems to me that every one of them is losing their shorts to scope, radical or not. Scope is the title of this thread, by the way. Not who has gotten by over the past few years with the least amount of pain.

There is a concerted effort to chip this profession away, piece by piece. In the end it won't matter how painless we made it for ourselves if the end result is that we as mainline pilots have no bargaining power.

In my opinion, all of the airlines pilots are failing in the area of scope. Our "businessman" attitude, as you call it, is short sighted if it is intentional. Because, where we end up is a place where the airlines don't need a mainline. They just have seperate pilot groups fighting amongst themselves to get the scraps. Oh, and by the way, the contract goes to the lowest bidder.

So, while I am not looking for a union to become overly radical, I would like to see someone push back hard against the encroachments to our flying. It's that important, because eventually we won't have any flying to defend.

New K Now

BlueBall

Until pilots relize we are BLUE collar labor and not White collar labor we will never get ahead. Management does not want to discuss there business plan with us, nor do they want to pay us more than they have too. You can paint NW 400's white with a little bit of red and blue but it does not solve the problem unless the pilots or the wantabe whale pilots hold the line for scope, work rules, and pay.

NuGuy

Heyas,

Just spoke to two of mine last night. They understand fully the criticality of the situation. There are lots of resolutions in the pipline from numerous bases.

If Moak doesn't already have the message, he's about to...

Nu

acl65pilot

I am aware of that. I am just curious how your two guys on the mec are thinking. This would come to an MEC vote, and am just curious on where they stand.

alfaromeo

To me, this whole argument comes down to first officers who are not happy being first officers, they want to be captains. Understandable. A typical pilot has 30-40 years from the time he gets hired to the time he reaches age 65. Most major airlines have a little more than half their pilots as first officers (crew augmentation). So wouldn't you expect that about half your career should be in the right seat? If you take a 35 year average career, then you should expect about 17-18 years in the right seat, with a fixed number of pilots. So if you want to upgrade sooner than that, then you have to have growth. Most first officers now seem to think that 5 years is the standard time to upgrade. In order for that to continue, an airline would continually have to grow at pretty remarkable rates.

The real cause of change in the industry is the introduction of small jets. Back in the 1980's and 1990's, commuter flying was in prop planes. They were loud, small, uncomfortable and unpopular. Hub and spoke airlines made a lot of money on monopoly markets. For instance, Delta used to have a lock on the market in cities like Columbia, SC. Passengers would not tolerate a long flight on a prop plane to Chicago or Houston or Dallas to connect, so the market was left to Delta. They flew all mainline aircraft to Atlanta and passengers connected from there.

The yields on those monopoly routes were unreal. In fact, Delta charged so much in Columbia that the state of South Carolina funded a startup carrier, Air South, just to try to break the stranglehold that Delta had on that airport. (call sign Khaki-Blue, what's up with that).

Now, along comes the regional JET. Yep a real jet. It goes up high, goes fast, is reasonably quiet and comfortable. Now a passenger can sit on one of those to Chicago or Dallas. Now that market gets fragmented and competitive. Now you can't charge unreal rates and now 75% of your business passengers are flying on other carriers. Now you can't support mainline aircraft on that route anymore, or at least not as many.

This isn't about scope or labor contracts, this is about a disruptive technology (the RJ) that changed the industry in a radical way. How radical? How about AMR, simulated bankruptcy, US Air two bankruptcies, United bankruptcy, Delta bankruptcy, Northwest bankruptcy, Continental concessionary contracts. That seems pretty disruptive to me.

Some think the answer to this is scope. Have better scope and all those mainline jobs will come back. Nope. You can maybe get the RJ pilots to change uniforms and now are mainline pilots, but you won't get what you really want, which is hundreds of more big mainline airplanes (like 737's) to come back so you can make captain at 5 years. The only way to do that is to get Congress to pass a law to make RJ's illegal in the US. Lacking that, then you have to learn to live with these smaller jets.

The question then goes to who flies them. The first officers who are itchy for that fourth stripe probably don't want to be RJ captains because that would be a pay cut. They really don't want to be RJ first officers, for many they have already been there done that. So the question for the union becomes how much leverage do they have or are they going to expend to get these pilots to switch uniforms and now join the mainline ranks. In 2002-2007, nobody had that leverage and you had to fight defensively. The market was changing and you could not negotiate that fact away, certainly not when your company was bleeding cash.

As many have pointed out, pick the carrier with the best scope (AMR?, CAL?, or whoever) and show me what is happening to that carrier in mainline. Both AMR and CAL are losing airframes this year and they have no plans at all to buy 90-110 seat aircraft. So the premise that good scope leads to early upgrade to captain has no real world proof. It is just some "common wisdom" among disaffected first officers that has no wisdom behind it.

I support the reintroduction of 70-76 flying back to mainline. You have to remember that once you do that, you will lose ALL control over how many of those airframes that management gets. Swallow up Compass, great, but now E-175 flying is unlimited. Be careful what you wish for. I am pretty sure that E-175 captain pay is less than 767 FO pay.

What is the end game for this? Consolidation will play a big part. Delta is losing 200 50-seaters in 2008-2009. Mainline flying is pretty static in comparison. It seems that UAL and CAL are slimming down for their wedding that probably will come late this year or early next year. What happens with AMR and LCC is anyone's guess. I am thinking that LCC gets fragmented with about half surviving.

At some point, there will be three or four carriers left. Market fragmentation will decline because there are less players. Delta's strategy right now is to move to higher yields just by having a massive network that goes everywhere. Want to go to Lagos, who do you fly? That will work for a while, but eventually others will catch up. In the end, with fewer carriers and a growing market, you will probably see the minimum gauge get back up to 100 seats, but that is a long way off.

There is no magic bullet to this. Technology has changed and we aren't going back. Remember when travel agents got more money from our tickets than the pilots did? (yep that was true back in the 80's and 90's). Those days are gone too. If you want to recapture 70-76 flying at mainline, I am all behind you. You are only going to do that if you can convince your management that it is in management's interest.

If you think that you can do this by being "tough" or "radical" or "hard line" then dream on. That is a bunch of self delusion by frustrated pilots that imagine themselves as the sun drenched gun fighter going off to slay management. Go read the Railway Labor Act and then come back and give me your "radical" theories. Who are the highest paid pilots now? Southwest, right? What a bunch of radicals. SWAPA does not even have a Strike Committee. Seems their measured, thinking approach has served their pilots pretty well.

Good luck with your hard lines and LEC resolutions. How about go develop a business plan for recapturing this flying and you will be much more successful. I know that will be a lot of work, might as well be you that does it.

Imapilot2

I read your post a couple of times. Some real good points. I read all the posts prior to this and I can't figure out how the hell you get this point.

alfaromeo

Experience. ACL65 specifically states that waiting 10 years to upgrade to captain is too long. Been around this game for a while, talked to a lot of junior people. Guess what, I was junior too, once (flying pterodactyls), and I know the feeling. It is not a criticism, as I said I understand the feeling. I just think we need a rational response that takes into account the real world.

slowplay

Accurately and eloquently put, alfa! Well done, sir!