Originally Posted by
saab2000
As someone whose life and career were majorly affected by a furlough from a large European airline in 2003, I wish my airline and my representatives had been as creative and flexible as my current employer and representatives. The devil is ALWAYS in the details and language. Had they been as creative and flexible I’d probably be a widebody captain right now, as my contemporaries are. That door closed for me when I left Europe. It wouldn’t have had to with more creative thinking. Creative doesn’t have to be the same as caving to concessions. It is more about defining common ground and figuring how how to best serve the most people. Sometimes, yes, that can require compromise.
As it is, I spent 13 years in RJ purgatory before landing at SWA in early 2017 as a 50-year old new hire. Very, very happy to be here (and enjoying my ExTO in Florida at the moment!) and hoping for the best. I think we need to avoid a few things.
1. Playing our hand on a public forum.
2. Using divisive rhetoric against our own pilot group.
3. Speaking in absolutes. The world, including ours, doesn’t exist in just black and white. There are a million shades of gray.
Let’s see where we are before we end up painting ourselves into a corner.
For the record, I’m also opposed to concessions. But I’m also always willing to be creative. Not the same thing.
Amen. I am not for rolling over, but I am for smart, out of the box thinking that is going to enrich both sides in the end. It's give and take, and we have given plenty already in the form of a conscious decision to overman the pilot group by middle management.
I do not want to see anyone on the street and I do not want to see us giving the company a deal where we are exploited for an outsized chunk of the pie. They already started shrinking our piece a couple of years ago and took the cherry and the whipped cream when they continued hiring into 2020 with no max.
I recognize that it takes a village to run a low cost airline, but our house has already made a pretty big offering. If we are forced to give more, I want to see how, in the end, I am going to be enriched by my sacrifice.