Originally Posted by
gloopy
That's a bit of a straw man argument. Its only valid because the trappings of seniority and longevity. But were it not for those "golden handcuffs" in the first place, the issue wouldn't exist anyway. We'd all be free for all yearly contract pilots bouncing around trying to negotiate for not only pay but seat, base, work rules and everything else. It would be a disasterous experiment in good times and absolute industry catastrophy in bad times.
Even if regionals all went away tomorrow, it would still be contractually illegal for AA to hire a DL pilot at off contract pay, QOL and (essentially) seniority. And honestly, this career would be far worse off in a wild west scenario like that, even in the limited salad days we're in. After the next natural disaster/man made disaster/economic crash, and there will be those, do you really want to be on an at will contract that's coming to an end in a down cycle? No one is going to help facilitate that.
Airlines offer off contract compensation to pilots all the time. It's basically how the regionals are functioning these days. If the union would actually fight for us, these off contract side deals would actually be contractual raises for everyone.
This isn't a straw man argument. I've actually been airline management. Pre-bankruptcy, I expressed concern that cutting pilot pay up to 50% at NWA would cause a mass exodus of pilots resulting in the ultimate failure of the company. I was laughed at by upper management, who told me, for every guy that walks, two guys from the regionals will replace them, and thus, they could work the pay cuts. They were dead on balls accurate.