Originally Posted by Darant

I know that sounds good saying it but.... its just NOT realistic. Thats not how capitalism works. I agree it does suck that the industry has gotten to the point where first year pay is what it is but that's life guys and gals. The ONLY thing that will change that is what the market dictates. Pay, if you have notice has made a turn in an upward trend in the form of bonuses because pilots with 1500 hours and background check that go through are becoming a bit on the unavailable side. No company has raised the actual pay yet because the liability of that would create should we experience another downturn economically.

Pointing fingers at what some other pilot group voted for or not is a futile attempt to put yourselves up on some kind of high horse. Educate yourselves on the bigger picture of how these corporations operate. There are few ways you will see better pay and benefits, one of them being created by the shortage of qualified candidates for the regionals brought on by the 1500 hr rule. This is the best thing legislatively that could have happened in both safety and in what the future implications have on pilot pay. You cant really legislate pay unless you're talking about the minimum wage. A little history, benefits offered by a company were created to draw potential employees to work for them. Pay is not the only factor to being an attractive employer. I don't bring this up to discuss benefits but to point out that during the last economic down turn country wide, businesses had an abundance of potential employees with so many people out of work and looking for employment. They had NO need to create incentives to work for them. Just having a position for whatever crap pay was enough. The mainline carriers found more efficient ways to operate during the recession. A big part of that was to look to the regionals and look for bidders in lower contracts. In short, if PSA said no all AAG would have done is found another regional to take the flying and then you would be complaining about them instead. If its not painfully obvious to you, and I dont think it is, but had Envoy said no again to the last contract that AAG wanted them to have they would have been in probably a 2 year shutting down period where aircraft were shipped off and laid off employees just went to work for these other operations you so dearly hate. As we all know, the planes started being send to other operators right after the no votes. Now if that dosent tell you how little bargaining power Envoy had I dont know what else could. PSA said yes and got a mess load of planes and job security for a long time to come.

If you want to truly improve the Airline industry, stop complaining, pay money into your PAC, tell your buddies to pay into their respective PAC's and get pilots taken off the Railroad Act. That is the ONLY true way any of us will have a voice in contract negotiations. (Probably not going to happen though, politically that is) Of course like I said, one other way is if the market dictates it. If the pilot shortage reaches a fever pitch that the regionals have to start offering better and better pay/benefits to draw potential applicants.

As far as the cheerleading you speak of... I dont see that. What I see is people that work for Mesa or PSA or any of the other "bottom feeders" you speak of see opportunity to further their respective careers. And, to an even more obvious point, maybe its just most advantageous for someone to work for a regional that operates out of their home town as others have said.

If you would like to counter, please offer some actual debate other than pointing out the tired talking points that you ***** about day in and out.