Expressjet was headed for bankruptcy, you were expensive and continental pulled a lot of flying, gee I wonder...your industry leading contract must have had nothing what so ever to do with that.
Expressjet got bought, yet they still have the desire to want to sink the company that bailed them out of having to take concessions. No one gets a better contract in BK and now y'all are not headed for it, that is unless you want to sink ASA too. And for what? A few years of another "industry leading" contract only to be praying you dont go BK when mainline drops you years down the road?
Your a contractor, in fact a sub contractor, and yet you demand to be paid as if there is no one else that mainline can turn to for a regional feed. GoJets is the classic example, or mesa, or whoever.
Growth = movement and better schedules, and thats exactly what will not happen when you get to be the most expensive. Im not saying we go the route of being broke and flying like GoJets, but we are far from that...lets get a better contract, but not one that blows everything everyone else has away. In a perfect world we would be getting paid the same as mainline and have 100% job security, blah blah blah. Get over it, your at a regional, if your a lifer...sorry, but most of us want to move on and not sit as FOs for a decade either. Getting paid over 100k a year (left seat)...and thats only after 10 years isn't bad. But its never enough...