Originally Posted by
Audi2000
You are dead on Window Seat, as a Spirit captain and a proud no voter on the last concessionary contract, I feel like I am beating my head against a wall with this regional mentality. Just look at our last LOA giving up training conflicts for shiny iPads?!? That costs me almost 50 hours in pay for a recurrent month, ugh, trust me, these guys will never get it. The same pilots who claim our QOL is so amazing, have no idea what other airline QOL is. I have friends at practically every other airline out there, guess what? They are FO's making more than me and still getting 17-23 days off a month depending on the aircraft. So yea, its embarrassing listening to to justifications of the pilots here of why its so amazing to make as a Captain less than most FO's at any other legacy. My favorite line "we get four days off"! They truly think we have something no one else gets, lol.
I voted no on the LOA as well. What was sad wasn't the vote margin, it was the participation. The apathy of this group is alarmingly pathetic. I've talked to people who complain about how much this cost them yet they didn't vote.
Our pay has become ridiculously substandard with the change in climate during the duration of our contract. C2010 was also to a certain extent, backloaded with pay raises. let's consider a few things here objectively-
1- how JetBlue captain rates became the benchmark for failure/success is beyond me. Look at the totality of the scale. We do a lot of "4th year captain pay is ___." What good does it do us to put a lions share of negotiating capital into a transient pay grade that in another year or two will never be seen by junior captains? We do need large raises in the junior captain scale, but to purely measure the success/failure scale on that is short sighted at best. Condensing the scale to 12 years and achieve linear raises across the board with a healthy top end scale benefits all who want to make this company a career.
2- we will not get AA rates or better at DOS. If we do, we need to accept essentially 117 as our work rules. The survey data doesn't show that is the priority of the pilot group. The majority of the pilots want to see a balance of raises/ preservation of our work rules. It's entirely fine to say no to another less than our current contract with AA rates at our DOS but it'll never happen. If we say no to a deal it will go through mediation, likely be held up for at a minimum 2-3 years and we will then eventually get similar rates with a gutting of our work rules. Factor in the lost wages in our wait for a new contract in the raises we would eventually get. It'll amount to a 5-6 figure sum for most. How long can we wait? The pay, profit sharing etc at Delta can afford them to say no and wait. At $130 an hour for junior captains that gap will only increase with a lengthy delay
3- we will see improvements in retirement with a preservation of the vast majority of our work rules. Calculate that into your overall decision. Also, not to get political but the NMB hasn't been pilot friendly during the Obama administration, so don't expect much to change moving forward.
The question we all have to ask once TA is reached is does it meet our standards? are we willing to say no the offer for a possible alternative? How long are you willing to wait and for how much? How much are you willing to give up in the mean time? To purely pile on the NC before we even have something to vote on is stupid. To change the tone of our groups desires from what we all put on the survey details is even worse.
I will surely vote no for anything substandard but to solely make your argument that is. "Doesn't meet_____ at DOS" is a careless approach to your career and the overall health of the pilot group.