TenYearsGone

Sticky,

My bad. Sorry. The way I read it, your statement sounded "false". The IBT achieved one list, lets hope the IBT gets you guys a livable and proud contract.

Good Luck, we are all hoping that you guys get a nice contract so you would not be in a position to undercut anyone else.

Fly Safe,

TEN

jayme

And imagine if all pilots collectively, with no leadership, wouldn't fly any airplane anywhere for less than $200/hr. We'd all be, like rich, or something.


The reason pay is/was good at some sirlines is because of strong unions with scope protection. Once that goes away you go to market rates.

sticky

That pesky thing called a free market is a real b!tch, huh?

TenYearsGone

Free Markets are great and capitalism is good. However "whoring" one self out for "weak" work condition to attain a mainline job, is bad and counter productive. You do have choices and I know how difficult it is to wait out for the right job.

I have my mainline job. Im relatively senior and I enjoy my schedules, aircraft and company. I wish you can taste it. Its nice and a great end to the hard work I endured. You worked just as hard, I know it. You deserve better if you want it.

I get very emotional and sad looking at regional pilots, knowing that most want to fly for Mainline, but cant because there are no seats in the mainline company. Why, because Mainline decided to "farm" out the flying with little resistant from our labor groups.

Business is business and Capitalism is Capitalism and that is how the cookie crumbles. There is hope out there.

Good Luck, we will save a seat for you if you want it.

Ten

jayray2

As a regional 9E/Colgan/XJ pilot, I casted a vote in the recent approved contract at the new Pinnacle. I made my voice heard to the pilots I knew and the internal message board. I used very similar words you used above (including pimping/whoring) and had a line of thinking which was very similar to yours. I was willing to pay the price short term for long term gain, I wanted a contract that rose the bar for the whole industry. If everyone raises the bar, pretty soon contract flying will be so expensive the mainline parent companies would just assume do the flying themselves (and mainline could pay pilots a good wage to do the contract flying and do the flying cheaper because the fixed costs are the same). Not everyone thinks like me or voted like me. I was asked what I was trying to prove and told I was being melodramatic among other things. The contract is not bad but it failed to raise the bar. Only one in ten rejected the contract, most people were just happy they got to keep their job or were afraid of the consequences of voting down the TA. I'm afraid this industry is not going to improve from the bottom up. Our last hope is the top pulling the whole industry back up.

TenYearsGone

Very nice post and I am sorry some of your coworkers did not agree with you.
It will be hard but I think a lot of my coworkers are ready to take the stand.
Dont lose faith and be strong in what you believe.

Good luck,

Ten

zoooropa

I am not exactly sure what page you are on.

I can't speak for the rest of the FAPA group, but this is the page that I am on;

The Eichen award, combined with the NMB STS decision, ended my career at Frontier.

I can continute to **** and moan about it, or I can move on.

I will probably apply at a few places and see what happens. The concept of starting over, again, is not really an exciting proposition to me at this point in my life. I am not sure if you understand the concept of "starting over", so I don't think we are really on the same page, yet.

In the mean time, I will be very engaged in the administration of the current FAPA CBA, as well as the future negotiation of any CBA that I am going to work under. I read a recent letter written by PG of the 357 Exco. A few of my initial concerns were addressed, hopefully he is speaking the truth. I guess I will just have to believe it when I see it.

I am extremely concerned about the financial strenght of the IBT. Not only the Local 357 but the entire Airline Division.

Negotiating one CBA is expensive, as all of you already know.
Negotiating another CBA isn't going to be any cheaper.
What happens if there is further industry consolidation and we find ourselves in another SLI arbitration?

The seven year fences is a very distant point on the horizon. We are going to navigate a few minefields along the way and surviving those challenges is going to require an incredible amount of funding.

sticky

deleted. good luck to you with what ever you choose.

WeaselBoy

I personally believe that Pat is "the real deal" and is genuine in his intentions.

Regardless of who wins the bargaining agent war, all the pilot groups need to have representation in the surviving organization. Otherwise, we're all (more) doomed to failure.

Carl Spackler

Yup. It ended up with pilots from another regional airline taking the flying from Comair. The same flying that used to be Delta's. Why did that new regional airline get the flying from Comair? Because said regional airline had pilots that refuse to stand up...the way Comair did.

No. The issue is that very few regional airline pilots stand up for proper pay and work rules.

They get replaced? Replaced by whom? Replaced by other regional pilots who refuse to fight for better pay and work rules. When Spirit struck the airline, they had all the same worries...but they fought the battle anyway. There is only ONE REASON the Spirit strike was a success: OTHER PILOTS refused to fly the struck work. No matter what.

This would work like a charm if all regional pilots stood up for proper pay and work rules. The regional managers could threaten all they want to take the flying elsewhere, but it would only go to another properly paying regional. The problem is...no regional pilot group will stand up.

That's correct. We at the majors will be fighting to ensure that no more contracts (or extensions) are signed as each one expires. Until then, regional pilots need to stand up. ALL OF THEM!

Carl