tom11011

Regional airlines can't give pilots the needed raises. That money doesn't exist, it comes from their major airline partners and the contracts that are negotiated with them. Regional airlines do not set ticket prices.

Regional airline management can ask for a bigger pot of money from their parent partner, but if the pot gets too big, the money will get awarded to someone else's airline who will do it cheaper. If there is no other airline willing to accept the pot of money from the parent airline, then the flying goes away and gets reabsorbed back to the major where it should be anyway.

Regional Airlines are nothing more than a B scale. Wanted by the major airline. Wanted by the major airline pilots. Wanted by regional airline ownership. Perpetuated by regional airline pilots. The less you make, the more everyone else makes. But isn't this the way you really like it? It must be because nobody in 20 years has done anything about it.

Flying Ninja

Shiny. Jet. Syndrome.

It's cheaper to go out of business, (and/or) start a new airline, and hire a fresh batch of pilots at year 1 pay. *cough* Go-Jet *cough*

tom11011

Ultimately, its self defeating. Each time an airline collapses, a certain percentage of the pilots can't/don't/won't return to the airlines at year 1 wages. They are lost forever.

cactipilot

Very Impressive attempt to continue yesterday's model. Much like that 45 year old that was the belle of the ball in her 20s continues to delude herself in to thinking she is the apple of everyone's eye, in spite of what they see in the mirror.

eman

I'm glad I'm keeping up with this thread...learning a lot.


Reminds me of an AA pilot I know who's always encouraging me to apply at regionals with their offers of "bonuses" and flow agreements. I'm not one to buy into these promises and hinge on other people's words (especially those only concerned with exploiting employees)


Now..I've tried to research B Scales but still am a little foggy on it..why wouldn't Major pilots want a B scale if they are already living the dream and we're still paying our dues anyway?


Your comment reminds me of a little research I did years ago which led me to believe the unions and pilots pretty much decided to screw over new pilots and chalk it up to "paying dues"


I don't think it's the way ALL of us want things to be, but certainly the majority of the population is out for themselves, looking out for #1 and not caring about what they do to others. Combine that with everyone who takes a regional job (for whatever reason they may have, and I can empathize with some of them) and I don't think this will EVER go away.


I for one wouldn't mind seeing the regionals implode and disappear, but I'd hate to see so many men/women out looking for jobs. Not to mention the competition most of us would face in moving up. But as long as there's people wanting to be pilots, I doubt they'll run out of willing victims.


Sometimes I think I really hindered my career by not going regional years back (still not applying there), when I see my friends getting jobs at LCC's and majors. But screw it, there's no reversing time and I'm not going to be part of that mess.

tom11011

The pilots trade scope for more money. Or in some cases they trade scope so they don't have to give up money.

It might look something like this.

Dear Major Airline Pilot group of 1000. The company would like to give some flying to our regional partner. Afterwards, we will be a pilot group of 975. In exchange, we will give you a big raise. This raise could go away at any time should we decide to file bankruptcy (part of our 5 year business plan), but the scope is given away forever because the regional airline pilots all suffer from SJS. Would that be ok with you pilots?

The major airline pilots then think about it for 5 minutes and say "Yes, that sounds fantastic, we agree!".

Flying Ninja

eman, I'm with ya. The airline career is a really screwed up world with plenty of blame to go around. But at the end of the day, this crap will never change. Exploitation is too tantalizing to walk away from when those getting whipped are enjoying it. The big fish will always eat the little fish. And every once in a while, a little fish survive long enough to be a big fish (and participate in eating the little fish).

This system is by design, and functions just as surely as gravity, entropy, and other physical laws of nature. And it is immutable.

tom11011

My absolute favorite game for time wasting!!
Fishy Game

Twin Wasp

It came up in the Pacific section on pprune. Their take was why go to the US for 20k a year and no health care.

BoilerUP

Because there's such an over-abundance of qualified pilots available in Haiti and Rwanda.