Originally Posted by
Merlyn
Trying to understand how our industry got this way is kind of like the 4 blind men trying to describe an elephant each holding on to a different part. One has an ear, one a leg, the trunk, the tail.
I work for a self described ULCC. Prior to this my background was military so my perspective is neccessarily narrow. Even so, I don't see how my carrier is responsible for pilot woes at the legacies. Consider these points:
It was the legacy carriers with the blessing of their respective pilot unions that created B scales and fostered the growth of regional airlines. Neither of those two descisions had anything to do my carriers existance. They did have much to do with wrecking T&C of pilots
The fallout from 9/11 gave airline management a cover to gut labor contracts in a way they probably could not have done before.
It's not entirely a zero sum game. As with Ryan in europe, our market is customers who normally would not have flown at all, or rarely.
One of ALPAs mantras is that pilot costs have nothing to do with the success or failure of an airline. Complaining about pilot wages at a LCC is therefore a straw man argument.
Before you complain about low wages and poor work rules at an LCC, however, you might want to do a little homework. Ive been with my carrier 13 years and my T&C are quite attractive and probably better than yours.
I'm not looking for a fight. Lots of smart folks with more time and skin in this game than I have. From where I sit I just don't see LCCs being responsible for whats wrong with this industry. JMAO
You make some good points. Notice I said that ULCC's are only
one of the reasons for our problems. I guess you could look at them as more a
result of our problems instead. There's plenty of other issues here, including government interference, the publics' insatiable demand for low fares at all costs, and stubborn, sometimes unreasonable union demands. I guess it's a chicken-or-egg argument, but certainly well financed and politically connected (probably interchangeable terms these days) start-ups like JB and VX benefit from young (seniority wise), lower paid labor to take customers from the legacies. At some point these companies will have the same issues that we do, and someone else will come along to take their place. It's a great cycle for consumers at least, but it wreaks havoc with our careers.