Originally Posted by
rickair7777
It's no coincidence that four decades coincides with deregulation. That was the whole point, to break the non-competitive entitlement of established airlines, and that included the entitlement of their unions.
No coincidence, correct, however SWA seems to have 4 decades of consistent, measurable contract improvements in the same time period, which is also no coincidence. SWA has guppy captains earning what legacy wide-body captains do without having to wait 25-30 years to get to it.
It will have to happen at mainline, regionals (by design) have no leverage.
Agreed, but it will never happen because of what you say below.
But it's a very steep uphill battle... mainline pilots who came from regionals sympathize, but after slogging our way up the ladder we're not in any mood to make concessions so other people don't have to pay dues. I don't mind if you somehow skip your dues, as long as I'm not the one paying for it (I already paid). Make no mistake, any move to bring regional flying -in-house would require heavy concessions on the part of major pilots.
It would be an epic uphill battle, but the amount of job security it would provide would be significant. In situations like this Wu-Flu scenario the guys getting furloughed would be the new fresh-out-of-flight-instructing, small-jet-driving, pilot at the bottom who are less likely to have kids, less likely to have a house payment, more likely to still be living in mom's basement, etc instead of the guys right now who are about to get dumped from mainline who are now in their late 30s, their 40s, or older who are more likely to have kids in school, mortgages, debt incurred from jumping from regional to mainline, etc etc.
As for people not paying dues, for the most part every kid getting hired at XYZ regional has paid some dues to get there, even if their legacy-captain parent paid for their ratings, they've still busted their butt and put in the work. Do their dues outweigh yours or mine? probably not, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't make this career better for pilots.
Major pilots who didn't come from regionals have no sympathy at all.
Which is why major pilots who did pay dues ought to educate these direct entry major pilots (but won't) and fixing this system would fix the apathy/ego problem as well (idealistic scenario, but unrealistic).
But as you said, few mainline pilots have a desire to fix the issue if it will cost them a single cent to extend the ladder to help out the guys below them or to stand in solidarity with them. And because unions without solidarity are weak, that tells you all you need to know about ALPA. The only people with the power to change the way it works, have already "gotten theirs," so they won't lift a finger.
Ultimately I'm wasting my keystrokes here, as this industry will continue to eat its young until there are no young left before it considers a change.