Vernon Demerest

Reminds me of the later years at Trans Global. We’d have one of our jockeys miss a turnoff and bury a 707 in a snow bank. The TransGlobal team would have a conference call to brainstorm a solution while Mel Bakersfield (the penguin who happened to be married to my sister)who managed the airport would have already made the call (that would end up wrecking you and the wife‘s childless evening plans) to you knowing you would round up not only a team from TWA, but from Braniff, Western, Continental and Eastern to get that plane clear of runway 29. Those were the days Joe.
In all seriousness, this move by United should answer any questions any of us have had with regards to our airline’s commitment to quality over cost. Truly embarrassing and I mean no disrespect to the fine men and women who fly for Commutair. I hope ExpressJet sells them the weight and balance system....

Austin Milbarge

The way you flew the Concorde was amazing Joe.

threeighteen

What will that do, realistically?

Nothing.

Having multiple ALPA regionals with no solidarity take concessions and undercut each other for flying isn't any better than having SkyWest running around competing for flying. For a mainline pilot, there is no difference as they're still going to get furloughed while the express guy still has a job flying mainline passengers.

All mainline pilots should get off their high horse and stop blaming others for their inability to do what it takes to get scope under control.

tallpilot

What it will do it step #1.

Step #2. Minimum pay for 'codeshare partners'

Step #3. Ratchet the pay up to the point where it makes more economic sense to move the flying in house.

It took several decades to get into this mess. You can't think we get out of it with one contract.

threeighteen

What is step 1?

How much leverage will mainline pilots be willing to give up for step #2?

It actually just took one contract to get into this mess, and it could be fixed with just one too, but it will require giving up leverage.

The cat is out of the bag, and can't be put back in the bag. It needs to be put down if you want it to stop annoying you. And the people who let the cat out of the bag need to start taking some personal responsibility for letting the cat continue to pee all over the house instead blaming the cat for being a cat.

blockplus

I hope expressjet modifies the w/b system tomorrow. To make it equal to commute air. And crap cans that system for good. Then pulls the plug on all the xrs to make them lrs. Burns the cash and tosses the baby with the bath water

Andy

Bottom line is that the 50 seater is pretty much dead.
The planes are older than dirt, customers hate them, and they have a high CASM. Commutair's contract is also likely to be cancelled before this is over.

tallpilot

I understand your point but the realpolitik of the situation is our ‘mainline’ brothers and sisters aren’t going to slit their own throats for the overall betterment of the industry. But just maybe they can be brought to see that incremental improvements to the B scale will serve to enhance their own pattern bargaining.

Unfortunately, now it’s going to be survival mode, so this little project, if it had any chance at all in the first place, is going on the back burner.

threeighteen

Yup, and as soon as leverage is regained it will be negotiated away for (temporarily) higher pay rates instead of fixing more important issues like scope.

Dobbs18

#truth....that great profit sharing over at Delta, yup that comes straight from the Delta Pilots PWA. If you want to see how important having a union is just look at what's going on at Delta. And from management's perspective how important NOT having unions on property is look at Delta and their FAs. Also look at JB pilots and see the deal that their UNION was able to get by having a nice scope clause in their contract. I could go on and on, but we all know everything Skywest has is the results of OTHER unions negotiating those rules. It might be a fine place to work but all of it came from the baseline work rules of other union contracts.