Originally Posted by
JohnGardner
I wish I had the time to properly respond to your post. I'm going to respond but I'm not going to do your post justice so I apologize.
This idea of the regionals need to clear profit on their own fails by your very arguments about the fact that we don't sell our own tickets. The simple fact is it is a lie for management right now to be saying that they need cost-cutting at the regionals. They don't need it, they want it. Big difference. The fact is the airline needs to make a profit on the tickets they sell from departure station to ultimate arrival station. If that includes regionals then so be it. But they don't need to make money on every single leg. If they are making $200 on a mainline leg and losing five dollars on the regional leg is still made $195.
Eagle negotiated at the direction of their pilots. They obtained the best deal they could from management and the eagle pilots voted it down. If you are asserting that the eagle union leadership should have been selling a deal to the pilots that they didn't want then you're suggesting misrepresentation by union officers. No one but management bears blame for negotiating from a standpoint of saying they need something they don't.
John,
You are missing the point. The regionals don't get that ticket price increase or decrease. They are paid a fee for departure. Very little risk and very high reward if the airline has low cost. The regionals are faced with a diminishing demand for their services, surplus aircraft and believe it or not surplus crews when all the shaking out takes place. The cost associated with operating a 50 seat jet in the FFD scheme only works with relatively new labor.
I do believe your negotiating committee failed the eagle pilots. You say they negotiated what the pilots wanted. The negotiating committee needs to get the best deal possible and be the communicator of the reason why the deal they got was the best. If all the eagle pilots wanted a pony and a chaufered Lexus to drive them to and for work would they be the goal of the negotiating team? Setting realistic expectations are key to the negotiations. Even ALPA national has been sending out notices to the regionals about negotiation expectations since last winter. Just look at the post 9-11 Concessionary contracts at the legacy carriers. Not one pilot wanted to take concessions but the majority understood the landscape and situation that dictated those contracts. Overall airframe numbers at regionals are shrinking. That is a less than optimal time to be negotiating increases. Awareness of what is attainable, setting pilot expectations to those things that are attainable is what your negotiations team and MEC should have been doing. Rattling your saber is only good if you are in the power position to which eagle was not.
For what I have read you are no longer at eagle and suffer no consequences. I am sure you need this story to be spun to make your time remaining in the industry one where you can cast blame but take no responsibility. And before you use the "you guys at the majors gave up scope" argument I was opposed to scope relief and felt we should have operated the RJ's in house. I was only one vote.