While I was 100% against this TA from the first time I read it, I also understand why nearly 70% of our pilots voted yes.
We are constantly bombarded with comoany propoganda. Phrases like "Commit to Compete" are plastered all over the company website, daily blast emails, and almost every communication from management. Our crew rooms have little murals of the EMB-175 (with Skywest and Alaska painted on the side), we had an airplane open house for all the employees to "tour" a new E-Jet... The list goes on. Needless to say, all of this propoganda is not a wasted effort by companies auch as Alaska Air Group. They know exactly what they are doing and that is instiling a sense of urgency and fear, even during the most profitable time in the airlines history.
This is a sad day for regional pilots everywhere. While our CBA at Horizon can still be considered decent, the fact remains, we took a LOT of concessions in this deal. There is no doubt. Had this been 5 years ago, I would have a different opinion, but today nearly EVERY other fee for departure carrier is making improvements in thier pilot contracts while we take cuts. Sad indeed.
Some of the concessions for those curious:
-PBS (prefferential biding system). Complicated, industry standard, but it is a far cry from line bidding. I have used both. Not only do we loose a lot of control we had making our schedules, we loose vacation time because of it as well. Huge concession.
-Jet pay. We had payrates for up to 120 seat jets. Those are gone. There is a modest increase for Jet Captains, but nothing for FO's (anual 1.5% increases with baseball arbitration ever few years... Thats it) Whether or not we are now in line with the industry or not, WE TOOK A PAYCUT in this TA.
-We STILL must take the jumpseat while deadheading! Although now this is restricted only to flights of 1 hour or less block time, over 50% of our stage lengths are less than 1 hour of block time.
-Reserves must now "call Crew scheduling" and be available for 30 minutes after blocking in at base. Amazing job AAG negotiators! Of course now we get long call reserve... But so what? We had long call rules in our old CBA as well.
-Newhires will not get our basic, low deductible, health insurance. Current employees can keep what we have now, but the only option for new pilots is now a "high deductible" HSA insurance plan. Cute.
-Theres a few other points, but these are the big ones (PAY and PBS).
Sorry to the rest of the Regional Airlines trying to better thier contracts, I feel we have let you all down and opened up the concesion window during record profitablity and a shortage of pilot labor.