Originally Posted by
tallpilot
APA has a very simple philosophy, things must be better for senior pilots and worse for junior ones. If something could possibly be construed as a win-win for the pilot group as a whole it must be modified to skew the benefits to the senior. Once one accepts this, then most of their behavior makes sense. (Following this logic, APA also has more age 67 agitators than all of ALPA combined)
On the other hand I would prefer to be furloughed for a time and return to these pay rates than keep my job at 50% as has happened in the past or worse take that cut, get furloughed anyway and have the cut still in effect when recalled. I hope that lesson from the not too distant past has been learned well.
There was never a 50% anything talked about during covid. A temporary 5-10 hour reduction of the LCWs(like everyone else did) and no one would've been furloughed. I was told "LCW has tentacles in too many parts of the contract." That was code for "The vocal minority IMAXers would be upset." That vocal minority along with the "I was furloughed these guys can pay their dues" crowd tipped the scale into letting AA furlough 1500 and ZTL another 1000. Zeeeeeerrroooooo. IYKYK.
The DCA BOD guy mentioned above had an email leaked saying something along the lines of "I'm done expending energy protecting pilots from furloughs. It's time to move on."
O I almost forgot APA's internal grade-school level spat that led to the negotiating committee being dissolved in 2020 during one of the most crucial negotiating environments since probably 9/11. We had no standing negotiating committee for many months and therefore could not engage the company because like 3 dudes at APA HQ were really really mad at eachother.
There are so so so many other examples it could be an entire thread.
I love this job and the seniority that I have makes my life pretty excellent but APA is a complete clown show and needs to go. It's 50% principle and 50% I want ALPA resources, not APA resources, for the next S6.
All that said I'd acknowledge that there are some great pilot and non-pilot people at APA.