Originally Posted by
oldmako
Oh barf.
I spent a few years, well over a decade actually toiling as a commuter dog for American (Pre-merge) Piedmont (pre-merge) and then Usair. They all sucked. Any commuter dog with a bad attitude has likely earned it. The mainlines used regional feed to squash ALPA and for little else. Yes, it allowed them to suck up fares from cities like Kinston, Ithaca, Lynchburg, Moline, Baton Rouge, and Groton. But, feed was more of a cudgel than anything else. At least, that's how it looked to me. And after I took my eye off of that ball, it was shoved up my evac tube shortly after 911, just so I could reacquaint myself with reality and go back to being a commuter dog. Well, Foxtrot that.
Bad attitudes prevail because thousands of pilots who have spent a TON of money and time to get the quals are jammed into lousy spots, making lousy wages, with lousy support. And, they get treated like a big bag of offal! I cannot imagine that there is any real difference at any of them. You're there to build time and they know it. That will be used against you.
You pay a guy slave wages to fly a multi-million RJ a ton of hours over the course of a year and you think he's going to show up GQ spiffy every day? You're delusional. We used to have rolling mandatory junior man... they'd nail you at the end of a trip to fly tomorrow on your day off, your vacation even. Well, what attitude shall I bring to work on my vacation? Shall I press my slacks? I'm not talking once or twice annually, try most of the summer at the least. WHY should they care about how it reflects on U? They don't work for U. They work for peanuts.
Top-quality costs money. And money flows uphill in this industry, not down.
True Dat!
Lots of dudes and dudets paid some serious dues at the minors waiting to be called up to the majors. The farm leagues that provide real-time service for the major airlines need to be shown a little love. The carrot and stick (mostly stick) of the 90's and the post 9-11 era isn't understood by management. It's not properly understood and to make my point, I introduced Oscar to my FO one day. I said, have you met "Bob"? He's 43 years old and has spent 17 years at the regionals. If we can't provide a reasonable return on Bob's investment into his career then how can we expect Bob to have any love and loyalty to UAL? Any more than 4 years at a commuter is cruel and unusual punishment and should go down as unnecessary pain and suffering.
Oscar didn't get it. Oscar... This dude is 2 years younger than me, and I've been a Captain here for over 10 years. Hello.... You can't complain about a so-called pilot shortage when you're doing everything possible to de-incentivize the profession and the career path.