To the other posters, my screen name is to keep continuity with that "other board"; I joined there in either '99 or '00. Never worked at Eagle, but I had an interview scheduled there for 9/13/2001.

To F9; CFI 1999-2001, freight dog (single-pilot piston checks) 2001-2003, CHQ 145 driver 2003-2007, and then B6 2007-present. Previous airline experience in non-pilot positions working for the AArogant empire. 190 FO 2007 to January 2011, then 320 January 2011 to present. I was present for the signing of the current RAH CBA as a fairly new FO, and can speak to why we signed it, the intent behind the short duration, the FO payscales, etc.

Some examples of the typical relationship between native RAH pilots and different levels of management that I experienced: calls from CP interns to explain 2-minute delays coded to crew, hotels not booked for reserve rotations (or better yet booked at substantially worse locations than the normal crew hotel), crew rooms in domicile being literal closets with a chair shoe-horned in, crew scheduling continually assigning illegal reserve pairings or line-holder reroutes, under the "fly it or grieve it" premise, multiple calls on the day before a reserve rotation threatening disciplinary action for failure to contact (although we were not required to be available on off-days); this was done in an attempt to circumvent Whitlow restrictions on the first day of reserve. This list is by no means comprehensive; the behavior became especially consistent in the 2005-2007 timeframe where growth of the 170 operation far outstripped the company's ability to support the crews. Any place in the CBA with the wording "the company shall, to the best of it's ability, provide/comply/etc" quickly became evident that the company would NEVER have the ability. Prior to approximately late 2004 those wordings had not been used against the pilot group.

As I said previously, I can sympathize with your frustrations regarding the SLI, especially if you've encountered some entitlement mentality amongst native RAH pilots. Regardless of your feelings regarding the IBT, the 190 greivance and arbitration should be a clear warning to your group about the amount of integrity Bedford and Heller truly have. I'd also think that any action to compensate native RAH pilots better (getting 190 pilots on the correct payscale) would reduce future whipsaw threats to the pre-merger F9 pilots. Just my .02