atp409

wTH are you guys fighting about. If you weren't flying an airplane with "a whole different animal" on it before RAH dug their grubby little hands into Frontier than you were and still are a republic pilot right? Am I missing something? Were you making frontier or RAH pay your first year?

OldSF3Dude

Not to side track all this bickering, but...

First a question- someone in this thread implied they had inside knowledge that the new contract would have language that would allow first officers to bid their seniority to switch from FOs on the 135/140/145 to FOs on the 170/175/190. I'm curious to hear more about this. I kind of find this hard to believe. Even Jet Blue has 2 year seat locks for this kind of thing.

And this bring up another question/observation. ALL RAH FIRST OFFICER PAY IS THE SAME (except the airbus). It doesn't matter if you fly a 37 passenger EMB-135 or a 110 passenger EMB-195. So, as things stand now, I don't know why any first officer really cares what they fly. It all pays the same. I can understand base and schedule issues, but that's about it. Does someone have inside imformation that the new contract will have different first officer rates for different aircraft? I assumed that it would be some sort of blended rate in order to avoid massive switching around and training.

Personally, I would worry more about compensation (and quality of life) for first officers than all this petty squabbling about who flys a bigger airplane or what airline they should tell the public (who might know who Frontier is if you're lucky) they fly for.

MrBrosef

Your first question is just rumor. No one will know how they do it until the TA. If its separate there will probably be some sort of seat lock clause. The thing with that is there are some junior pilots at RW that chose to fly the 190 for crap wages. If there is a seat lock clause 2yr lock probably wouldn't be effective until the new contract was signed. Than for 2 yrs you would have junior pilots making more money than senior pilots who have been stuck on the 145. So for me as an FO, I would much rather see a blended rate.

Right now there shouldn't be a single FO that CHOSE to fly that plane. Every single FO on the 190 should have been involuntarily displaced onto that equipment.

3stripes

Couple of questions. Do Republic/Shuttle guys get staff travel on all of the mainline partners? How junior are MCI & ORD? How long is reserve running at? What are your average trips like? Is it line bidding or PBS?

Thanks guys.

Beechlover

Not sure what you mean by "Staff Travel", if you're asking if we are positive spaced for cummuting purposes that would be no for deadheads.., yes. We do have jumpseat privileges with other 121 carriers. As far as travel benefits (non-rev) that would depend on what "brand" you fly for. First off all RAH employees have F9 travel benefits for yourself and your immediate family members. On the Republic Cert, you'll either have F9 ONLY benefits if MKE/DEN based OR..., F9 AND USAIR benefits in every other Republic base. I know Shuttle flies for both Delta and United but I can't speak to how it's broken down by base although they do have F9 bene's as well as CHQ. NOTE: While on reserve, you WILL be tasked to fly code share brands for which you will have NO TRAVEL BENEFITS. for example..., I'm based in MKE flying F9 flights with F9 ONLY travel benefits and I get tasked to fly USAIR flights outa PHL. I DO NOT GET USAIR BENEFITS.

For FO's on the Republic Side I think we're pretty junior. I'm a Jan 08 hire and I would still be reserve today in MCI. I just checked last week. ORD I can't speak to as that is CHQ and S5.

Thats base specific, this airline (RAH) and it's three certificates encompases 22 bases. That SERIOUSLY dilutes ANY seniority you have. You could either be a line holder in a few months, or be on reserve for 3 yrs plus as in the example I illustrated above. It all depends on base, and growth in that base.
LGA Republic appears to have growth right now. MKE is the lepper colony with ZERO growth and day trip purgatory. I am barely holding a line with 23 nights in a hotel at my expense (Jan and Feb) due to the day trips.

Again this is certificate specific. On the Republic side in any base but MKE you'll likely find the standard 2,3,4 day trips that start early and end late ie: (uncommutable) on both ends. In MKE NOTHING but day trips where the first and last day of your string of 4 to six days starts early and ends late. hope you live in MKE cause their are'nt many crash pads and the hotel bill (for me at 40/day times 23 days no JOKE) Well you do the math.

We use FLICA to bid.


Our Union reps plan on meeting this week at yet another attempt to get our contract done. It's anybody's guess as to when we'll actually get a TA. I can say this though.., with a 4 year expired contract the pilot group on the RW/S5/CHQ side of the fence has voted 98 percent in favor of a strike and rightfully so. I predict that if Bedford is not present at these meetings the it will not bode well.

A word of caution: If hired now, please know AND PLAN for a furlough in the fall. This airline has furlough'd twice in just the past three years. We've had folks leave good jobs just to be let go while in class! This is unacceptable, irresponsible behavior and unfortunately, the caliber of **** poor management we have here! I'm making it my personal mission in life to get this information out to folks before they leave good jobs so please be careful, be prepared!

I'm a retired military guy on his second career and I love my job! The folks I have the privilage to fly with here without a doubt the best I've come across in my 25 plus years in military aviation and now commercial flying! Thats where my positive message ends.

If I didn't get this across to you before..., this management team cares not ONE IOTA about you, me or this pilot group! Having been here three years, I'm convinced that we are working under a mangement team that will exploit every single sitiuation to their (financial) advantage up and including the (financial) detriment of their own employees. I am a personal witness it.
Bottom line; This is a bottom feeder regional airline like ANY OTHER bottom feeder regional airline. Pay no mind to the 190's we fly under Fronteir colors because it is just an over sized regional jet working under it's expired, bottom feeder regional CBA. You can put lipstick on a pig..., it's still a pig. My reference is to this airline and this management team NOT the 190!

If this is something you all can live with for several years then let me be the first to welcome you aboard! We all make the best of it and still manage to have a great time here! Best of luck to all who apply!!!

3stripes

Thanks for your help. I've just applied, although it was at my wife's request. I currently work for XJT based in ORD, hold a relief line and I'm relatively happy, but she wants to move back to MCI where her family are. Our travel benefits work pretty much the same, so I'm basically trying to compare everything on a like for like basis. My gut feeling is that I'd be better off staying with XJT and commuting (I currently live in base).

Bolo

3 Stripes you are definitely correct on your assessment. Stay where you are. Why start over just to commute to MCI.
Beechlover very nice and honest post.

Oskeewowow

First, no one has any inside information on a new TA. At this point it is all speculative. Management has NOT been negotiating in good faith, thus not much progress has been made. Supposedly BB is attending our negotiation session today, so some people think that will accelerate things.

You're right that FOs get paid the same depending on equipment, but not being able to bid across certificates & airplanes has had a negative affect on both quality of life and pay. I'll give an example. My friend is a CHQ LGA FO hired in late 2007. Currently he is near the bottom of his base and has been on reserve for 4 years. He's lucky to break the minimum of 75 hours, and gets 11 days off a month. For 4 years!

Now if he were allowed to bid to Shuttle America LGA, his life would be drastically different. He would be in the top third of the base, weekends & ~15-18 days off working 85+ hours. You can do the math on how much extra money that is over the course of a few years.

Beechlover's post was spot on. This is not a great place to work. It might get better after a new contract, but we've been holding our breath on that for years.

zoooropa

First, a quick search on this forum will quickly identify my biased perspective against the IBT and their mission against the Frontier Pilots. With that being said, I don't have anything against the individual RAH pilots, even the ones on this board who share a different perspective than I do on most things "republic".

With that out of the way, I would seriously do some research before entering this circus of a holding company.

Specifically, there is publicly available information about the 2012 Fleet plan that makes me wonder why they are even offering a vacancy bid for summer recalls and potential hiring. I won't even go down the road about The Award and filling of vacancies via the IMSL (which according to some people on this board, is apparently only applicable to Frontier Airbus vacancies and not CHQ 145 vacancies or RA/SH 170 vacancies).

Lets forget about the Eischen Award for a second and just assume RAH is going to hire off the street in 2012.

The 2012 fleet plan, amended on November 7th 2011 indicates some huge potential problems.

First, they assume the AA CPA is going to continue. While this is possible I am not sure if it is probable.

Second, they are returning 3 190's in 4Q 2012.

Third, they already have 25 surplus aircraft.

Fourth, they already have an additional 11 "non-operational, subleased aircraft".

So in less than one year, they will have 28 parked airplanes if the AA CPA remains untouched or 43 parked airplanes if AA dumps the CPA, plus the 11 non operational aircraft.

This doesn't sound like a place that I want to be joining at the bottom of the list.

Now lets include the inevitable divestiture of F9. Some have claimed that it will be dooms-day for the Frontier Pilots, but lets just leave that argument alone for a minute. We are simply talking RAH Fixed Fee new hire here.

There are no more 190's scheduled for delivery. This is not a fictional story cooked up by Bedford. Embraer kept $2.2 million in Pre-Delivery Payments and then returned $2.8 million to RAH. There was an additional $12 million of PDP's remaining but that was used to cover the 2 190's that were delivered in November. In short, EMB does not have one dime of RAH money for 190 deliveries. There are four 190's deliveries in deferral, but with no money on the table and 320's available for the same price of a 190 (or less in the case of the two 320's recently acquired from Brendan) you won't see additional 190 deliveries unless EMB lowers their price substantially. This is the same reason the Q's were dropped. The monthly lease payments for the Q400 was way more than the current 320 market rates. Bedford isn't going to pay for 70-100 seats if he can get 168.

The 135 thru 145's are a bigger problem. RAH still has 51 flying under CPA and 31 parked without a home. That is a lot of pilots flying an aircraft type that nobody wants.

The real only future at RAH is the 170-175. There are five parked 170's, which will help (slightly) offset the risk of AA dumping the 15 140's. Speaking of AA, they could be a bright spot if scope restrictions are eased during their BK.

So, if you take a job at the bottom of the RAH list you are basically hoping that the 135-140's are parked/removed at a slower rate than 170/175 flying is increased. Kind of a big risk, in my opinion.

Best of luck to those currently employed at RAH and those looking for work. This being aviation, you really never know what is going to happen. That doesn't remove ones responsibility to complete the due diligence worthy of such a large decision.

Beechlover

My wife and I lived in MKE where I was based. Our plan for the last six years has been to move and retire in Colorado. So after a yr and a half of reserve in MKE I got a line and we made the move. Been commuting since April of last yr and believe it or not my 3 yrs of seniority has made the difference on about 25 percent of my commutes of getting on or not.

To be honest I do try to avoid F9 to commute only because, they/we are always so full. So my limited commuting advice would be seniority is king where commuting is concerned. The odds of being based where you want (MCI) right out of training is anybody's guess. You could get lucky. You'll likely get it eventually. I've been waiting on being Denver based for two years now, but really now my efforts are focused on moving on. Best of luck.