These CEOs may have a point
05-19-2014, 04:17 AM
#91
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Apr 2007
Position: B777 Capt
Posts: 844
I think it is quite obvious why you don't work for a major and most likely never will. The chip on your shoulder and gramdios self worth are holding you back.
I realize I am a cog in a wheel. There are 11,000 plus pilots at my airline that can do my job. I am not special, I am very fortunate and I treat my co-workers and passengers like I appreciate them because I do. I have been on strike, I have had good contracts and bad. It is the cycle of the industry.
The RJ's flying today just don't have the ASM's to support the cost. With cheap gas and all relatively junior employees the RJ's were marginally successful. With the cost structure today a 50 seat jet is market suicide. This is one of the changes in the industry. Much like our own pre-BK contract was unsustainable based on our revenue you guys have hit the ceiling in the 50 seat jet market.
05-19-2014, 05:12 AM
#93
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Feb 2013
Posts: 3,011
05-19-2014, 05:35 AM
#94
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Mar 2010
Posts: 1,951
I don't even fly a 50 seat jet, and I'm way too old to be a hipster, Lam. Strike two. See, you assume all RJ pilots are a bunch of punk kids, not middle aged family guys who had their career stolen by greedy Boomers who needed 5 more years to pad their retirement and make up for their own poor life decisions.
05-19-2014, 07:12 AM
#95
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Apr 2007
Position: B777 Capt
Posts: 844
I don't even fly a 50 seat jet, and I'm way too old to be a hipster, Lam. Strike two. See, you assume all RJ pilots are a bunch of punk kids, not middle aged family guys who had their career stolen by greedy Boomers who needed 5 more years to pad their retirement and make up for their own poor life decisions.
You may not fly a 50 seater but does your company have a large number of them? Your airline has to look at its finances as whole. Those smaller planes will keep your salary lower due to economics. Also, I am not convinced a 70 seater jet is really that much better financially than a 50. A 70 seat turboprop maybe but the jet economics are poor below 100 seats.
Enjoy your victim status. You are playing that role very well. I just hope the hiring departments can weed out guys like you at the majors. Can't imagine 4 days with you in the cockpit.
05-19-2014, 08:20 AM
#96
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Dec 2007
Position: Hot tub for now
Posts: 1,203
You make a large amount of assumptions about myself and pilots at the mainline. It's okay for you to make them? So I should say "back to your cartoons, hair gel and hipster clothes"?
I think it is quite obvious why you don't work for a major and most likely never will. The chip on your shoulder and gramdios self worth are holding you back.
I realize I am a cog in a wheel. There are 11,000 plus pilots at my airline that can do my job. I am not special, I am very fortunate and I treat my co-workers and passengers like I appreciate them because I do. I have been on strike, I have had good contracts and bad. It is the cycle of the industry.
The RJ's flying today just don't have the ASM's to support the cost. With cheap gas and all relatively junior employees the RJ's were marginally successful. With the cost structure today a 50 seat jet is market suicide. This is one of the changes in the industry. Much like our own pre-BK contract was unsustainable based on our revenue you guys have hit the ceiling in the 50 seat jet market.
I think it is quite obvious why you don't work for a major and most likely never will. The chip on your shoulder and gramdios self worth are holding you back.
I realize I am a cog in a wheel. There are 11,000 plus pilots at my airline that can do my job. I am not special, I am very fortunate and I treat my co-workers and passengers like I appreciate them because I do. I have been on strike, I have had good contracts and bad. It is the cycle of the industry.
The RJ's flying today just don't have the ASM's to support the cost. With cheap gas and all relatively junior employees the RJ's were marginally successful. With the cost structure today a 50 seat jet is market suicide. This is one of the changes in the industry. Much like our own pre-BK contract was unsustainable based on our revenue you guys have hit the ceiling in the 50 seat jet market.
If 50 seaters were so bad, so evil, we wouldn't still have hundreds if not thousands flying around the country. I will give you this though. If i was to shrink a company i.e.: Eagle, i would start at the smallest jet. And start working up.
05-19-2014, 08:29 AM
#97
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Dec 2012
Posts: 547
we know the regional model is unsustainable. If we fly for free it still fails.
either bring it back to mainline or get large enough AC to make it work but don't come crying to me that economics has reared its ugly head.
Fix it or shut up
either bring it back to mainline or get large enough AC to make it work but don't come crying to me that economics has reared its ugly head.
Fix it or shut up
05-19-2014, 09:12 PM
#100
On Reserve
Joined APC: May 2012
Posts: 15
Hiring captains off the street allows the airline to meet it's demand for growth and training while maintaining operations and attracting more qualified applicants who otherwise wouldn't go and work there. This is good not only for the airline but for the pilots who really wouldn't advance any slower but their airline would grow faster and healthier and have a higher average established experience base.
The advantage for existing pilots who later upgrade or transition would be that the seniority system would allow them to bid past the captains hired after them and avoid reserve lines altogether when they upgrade (assuming they are in the same type/domicile). They would work for a larger and healthier airline that has saved significant training costs.
The advantage for existing pilots who later upgrade or transition would be that the seniority system would allow them to bid past the captains hired after them and avoid reserve lines altogether when they upgrade (assuming they are in the same type/domicile). They would work for a larger and healthier airline that has saved significant training costs.
I observed a few things:
- DEC's facilitated rapid growth, expedited the deployment of the new type, yet still occupied the least desirable bases/schedules due to seniority.
- As an ancillary benefit, DEC's provided (in my opinion) a positive, perhaps needed, infusion of diverse airline culture into what was... ahem... a company with somewhat "humble" origins. As 9G said in the quote above, the DEC recruiting attracted pilots from larger airlines that had more advanced training programs, who otherwise would most likely have not accepted employment with the company.
- Finally, there was a palpable resentment from some senior SIC's towards the DEC's. For some, it was unconscionable, borderline criminal, that a pilot would occupy the position of greater responsibility through merit over date-of-hire. Again, it's the entrenched belief that airline career progression is nothing more than "a line". Start in the back, shuffle slowly to the front, never, ever cut. In the case of our company's DEC's, they brought PIC qualifications and relevant - sometimes even type-specific - experience. They stepped up to an elevated position with increased compensation. In an industry where there exists a chorus of criticism against pilots willing employ their skills for rock-bottom prices, one would think such an opportunity as DEC hiring - and the pilots who pursue it - would be championed. Apparently, not everyone thinks so... Even now, I wonder if some reading this consider DEC's as less-than-noble for their disregard of their place in "the line" of career progression.
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