Originally Posted by
DALMD88FO
Let's see 3 years furloughed, 32% paycut when I did come back to stay out of bankruptcy, then another 14% paycut in bankruptcy, loss of retirement, base closed, and a merger that has stagnated pretty much everyone. If you've been getting a steady paycheck every two weeks then you've been doing better than the over two thousand pilots on the list that haven't.
Not to make light of your life right now, but you aren't stressing on feeding your family either.
Sorry to hear about your furlough. I feel terrible for the guys who had to endure a furlough this last round. A good buddy of mine was a furlough returnee and we both sat in the same basic indoc class, so I'm very familiar with the sacrifices some had to endure.
I am well familiar of the downside risk in this business. It would be foolish after seeing soo many out of work in the early 2000nds to think otherwise.
It seems you are trying to draw parallels between your experience and mine. So yes, if you strictly compare my career to that of others there are those who's careers took a far worse trajectory than mine.
I'm not looking for anyone's pity. But if you compare the scenarios you mentioned above and what is happening now there is a huge fundamental difference:
- Our company is financially successful, not just a little, a lot, and has been for nearly 4 years...
- We have new aircraft coming, some of which are actually growth aircraft and they are just months away.
- Retirements are starting to pick up and will continue to accelerate.
From a "good news" perspective we should be sitting pretty. Yet somehow my own personal experience doesn't match the trends.
If I chart my career against the companies financial success I fail to find a correlation. In speaking to some of my buddies, that sentiment is shared. The good news always seems "just around the corner." Yet somehow someone keeps moving the cheese...
Don't get me wrong, the evidence is overwhelming things will improve, soon. Still I would be a fool not to use past experience to temper any early enthusiasm.
So when t is overtly optimistic, his perspective is informedd by his experience. When my recent optimism wanes that is similarly directly related to the latest AE...
The downside risk is still here, but the upside rewards keep getting trimmed. More codeshares, new rapidly growing foreign competitors and bigger aircraft will take even more bites going forward.
All of these threats and more will have a negative impact on one of the last remaining promises in this business -- our careers.
It behooves us as a group to aggressively work to reduce and stem any current and future negative impact on our careers...
Cheers
George