Originally Posted by
Floridaflipper
Not to be a dick, and I can empathize with the TSA pilot's situation, but these were aircraft that were taken from XJT a few years ago. XJT has lost over 70 XR aircraft to TSA and CommutAir over the last 5 years or so. The TSA aircraft are simply coming back to XJT. In exchange, they are losing 175s to SkyWest.
The reason that XJT can't staff what they have is because of the screw job that SkyWest put them through over the last 10 years. The aircraft slowly got whittled away and many senior people, who probably would have made a career at XJT, had no reason to believe there was a future, so they left. Many FOs jumped at the first opportunity to leave - some going to TSA and CommutAir for the quick upgrade.
XJT is hiring street CAs - I'm pretty sure most TSA guys will be OK.
Point of order - TSA was set to get a new United contract back in 09/10ish. Sent out recall letters to our furloughed pilots. My understanding is XJT undercut the bid at the last minute and offered to use the aircraft from their recently mothballed self branded airline and fly at a loss - thereby saving more money than simply parking those aircraft. When that contract ended and XJT/SkyWest no longer wanted to fly for a loss - the contract was awarded to TSA. Also prior to this point XJT had never had an United contract (Continental of course but not United) whereas TSA had an established relationship with United. So from my point of view XJT “stole” the flying in the first place that TSA is now being accused of “stealing”.
My personal feeling is that there is no TSA or XJT or Republic flying - it is all United flying and we can’t bicker between ourselves when United bids us against each other looking for the cheapest operator.
#InUnity