Originally Posted by Nevets

There are many misconceptions about ALPA. One misconception is that people think ALPA should be able to make your airline profitable, have the best pay, work rules, have good relations with management, be the saviour of every pilot, etc. But there is not much ALPA can do about making sure that their company is profitable, have favorable relations with management, make every pilot happy, make them thee best paid group, etc. Think of it this way, if your fellow new hires were from Mesa for example, do you think they would have had a better experience without ALPA on property? No, of course not. JO would take more advantage of them if there was no union. So just because you came from another airline that was ALPA and maybe wasn't profitable, or wasn't treated fairly by management, or didn't have the best pay and work rules (by definition only one airline can at any one point in time), doesn't mean that ALPA was not helpful. There is only so much ALPA can do when dealing with managements of the like at places like Mesa, Colgan, Airtran, the economic environment, the RLA, etc. This is not propaganda. Its not just ALPA either. The reason why its hard to get on property there is because of the Cinderella syndrome. Its not uncommon among pilots though so its not just Skywest. Historically pilots are their own worst enemy usually by being short-sighted.

Originally Posted by Terrain Terrain

I have no idea what you just said

Originally Posted by Utah

American only retires around 500 out of their 11,166 pilots in the next six years. If only a third of their furloughees come back , and they stay the same size, they won't need to hire for 7 or so years.