captainv

3 years in October.

A bit of perspective - I was stoked to escape the graveyard spiral that was my regional airline and get hired by Atlas. It is much, much better than being a regional FO in most respects, and surprisingly worse in others (work rules, mostly). A lot of my new-hire buddies were RJ captains, and other than the see-the-world/fly-big-airplanes thing, they're worse off than they were. Certainly on the 747, the pay would be a lot better.

I loved the job when I first came on line, and there are many facets that I still enjoy. But a lot has gone downhill in the last three years. Atlas in a lot of ways still has a small airline/flying club mentality, certainly they staff HQ as if were were a 400-pilot airline instead of 1,000. A lot of the support structure is run on a shoe string and is showing signs of wear. Everyday QoL has suffered tremendously. I don't mind schedule changes, when they're legal, or any of the other ACMI tradeoffs I was fully aware of when I got hired. It's the illegal schedule changes, insufficient catering, and constant hotel/travel battles that get old. I'm happy to defend my CBA, but to do so on an almost daily basis is evidence of a much more serious problem. (In fairness, I talk to a lot of people, so perhaps I hear about a lot more problems than the average guy.) At my former regional, to have to quote the CBA to a scheduler/travel/chief pilot was an extremely rare occurrence. Here, it's commonplace, and even then it's not unheard of, especially for certain people, to say, "No, we're not going to do that." Yes, the union sets it straight almost every time, but it gets old. Supposedly they are making some internal changes, we'll see how that turns out. The daily scheduling crisis shows no signs of slowing down, however.

Atlas is "the Cream of the Crap" and yes, we're far behind the majors in almost every respect. I am hopeful the next contract will show gains in every sector. I am fully engaged in trying to make this a better place, regardless of whether I am here to see it. I try to convince my brethren here that by simply insisting that the company follow the contract, as they demand we do, will give us huge amounts of leverage in the days ahead. But we are often our own worst enemy - accepting non-compliant hotels, travel, catering, schedule changes without so much as a peep. It is astounding how many of us will trade our integrity for a $50 meal.

I have my app in at one major airline. If they call, I will leave - the staggering difference in retirement contributions is reason enough. But I would be sad to leave. I'm convinced Atlas will be the most fun job (at times, anyway) I'll ever have. I would be perfectly content to stay and help build this into an airline I'll never want to leave, but we're not there yet. Getting to crew force to simply read and live by the CBAG would go a long way into making that happen.

There's a lot of chatter about the upcoming union elections, as if picking the right name will make all our dreams come true. WE are the union. If the company is violating the CBA, it's only because WE allow it to happen. I don't put in even a tiny percentage of the work of others, but I try to do what I can. Can you say the same? (I ask in the general sense, not picking on a specific individual)