Originally Posted by
PBSG
I obviously haven't made it to a major yet either, but last week when dining with a few XJT guys at the Soup Nazis in Terminal C, we struck up a conversation with a CAL crew, who said they were planning on hiring 45 a month starting in October. When they left the discussion of "Do you really want to go to the new United?" came up. Bitter pilots and employees, dragged out negotiations, inept management..... We came to the realization that, while working for a company that sells it's own tickets would be nice, it just isn't worth it until the contract is settled. And I'm not saying this to flame, I have a lot of friends over on the dark side who told me flat out "Don't come here, it isn't worth it".
I'd STILL go if given the chance. And it's another apples to oranges comparison. But it's not unlike it was for the guys going to NW before the merger. It was a crappy, terrible place to work, and the pilots would tell you that. But it's STILL a legacy. With that in mind, it can't get ANY crappier than it is, the ONLY thing it can do is get better. Everything is relative of course.
Whereas being at a regional is NOTHING but a downward slide. Sure, our workrules have gotten better since Spring of 2007 with all the MOU's and LOA's that have come along. But when Larry (and Jeffrey) officially started the split of XJT and mamma CAL and undo all the work that Gordon Bethune put into the CAL/COEX product, that was the start of it. But we're STILL behind on pay thanks to LOA 9, and XJT is NOTHING like it was before that. Excellent MX, crew schedulers that ACTUALLY worked with you most of the time, dispatchers that knew what they were doing, XJT handling the ground ops. Now, not so much. We're just another sh1tty regional. As opposed to what could be considered the valedictorian at summer school when it was strictly XJT d.b.a Continental Express.