Originally Posted by
89Pistons
Andy, I know you don't mean any malice but to your first point.....that's the same rationale that you and I heard from some of the 1995 hire Captains telling us 2000 hires as we were getting furloughed in January 2003. I heard exactly what you wrote and it really got under my skin. They usually followed it with "don't worry, we'll make this a better place by the time you come back" or "we'll be a lean, mean fighting machine when you get back."
We came back after two rounds of concession under the bankruptcy contract flying for the LCO. Remember the LCO that took us down to 10 days off and 95 hours a month? That was lean. As lean as you can get. And we still got furloughed again.
Your point seems disingenuous to me. I think I know enough about you to think that isn't your intent. But that's how it comes across.
To your second point, Southwest hasn't needed to furlough simply because they are a better run company that historically maintains a good relationship with their employees and doesn't feel the need to blame those employees when things don't go well. They also don't have hundreds of RJ's doing a lot of their flying.
Our contract doesn't cause furloughs. A bad economy mixed with bad management does.
SWA never furloughed..BUT they did! Notices went out in 2008
But they never REALLY furloughed because SWAPA stepped in and said they’d reduce hours to keep people on property.
You think United pilots would do that?
Their management is better-but somehow they’ve convinced their pilot group to stay at cheaper hotels, and fly the same number of block hours as us with only 8500 pilots.
Their pilots do a lot that we just won’t do...that’s not better management, that’s the pilots.
Their pilots are incentived to WORK. And the culture there is to maximize their pay by picking up trips and working over vacation...and they’re compensated for it.
Our guys want to have flight hour caps to get more people on property...just because.