Originally Posted by
Carebear
Only reason why I bother responding to drivel like this is because there are people applying to Alaska that do see your bot like FUD and can get nervous. There are also HA pilots probably reading these threads wondering why 3 people on here continuously moan and complain about any news that pops up on here that need to read some facts.
SFO and LAX were predominantly VX pilots and there were a bunch that lived in California before the AS acquisition. You were hired 4 years after the AS/VX announcement and 2 years post SLI, and AS had only an LAX base during that time. After SLI, there were a bunch of 737 CAs who jumped ship from the 737 and came over to the Airbus just to be based in SFO. Then you had the sport bidders who jump around base by base to get their 5 moving days off a month who still do it today.
This entire bid, over two bid cycles, is for 90 CAs and 80 FOs out of 3300 pilots on the current seniority list with more new hires incoming in January to fill any vacancies left over. Per the 05-26 bid, LAX has 14 FO slots unfilled and 44 SFO FO slots unfilled because nobody who comes to AS wants to be based in either base (they're at UA or DL where it's like totally a million times better times a million). That also goes for the SFO CAs who bid down there because SFO is the most junior CA and FO base in the system, and both seats drop all of their trips in SFO to pickup trips in other bases. You can be based in any base in Alaska's system and post your garbage trip for grabs, and 75% of the time a SFO pilot will take it and have it up on the trade board.
What happens during any change, or position bid, or JCBA or CBA or anything in 121 is people get affected. There are 3300 AS pilots and San Diego is coming, and it'll affect 5% of this pilot group. 800 pilots already are based in CA and those who don't commute know how marginal income tax works. Most who want San Diego already live down there or have family or homes coming to them thanks to Prop 13 don't get affected much by taxes. You clearly know nothing about California, but many people don't need 4000sqft homes on 2 acres to buy a "$3-5m" home. I also don't think 95% of this pilot group is going to sit here and fight for the bottom .5% of the pilot group who hate their lives already on reserve as a CA and have other pilots junior to them who want their spot.
Next you're going to tell me that the cheap housing has almost no traffic on the drive to SAN. The comical thing is that I owned a home in the SF Bay and dealt with prop 13. Sure it's better than what I am dealing with in WA but not by as much as you'd think. There are so many add ons to your property tax to pay for schools, open space etc. You can count on your property taxes going up every year. Sure it can't be adjusted to your home's value but it will go up. I'd encourage anyone to open up Zillow and check the housing prices anywhere remotely close to the airport and do some math. The rest of this post is just as false as what I've addressed. Other than the fact that most pilots at AS don't care that a lot of people will be displaced from their bases. Even though some were forced down to SFO on the last reduction bid. It's wild that the pilot group is cheering this on.