irrelevant

A grievance hearing usually takes over a year to be resolved. In the meantime the company continues violations of the contract.

To Zenbio and others who are relatively new at the airline industry, this is tough, to be certain. While the Union can make efforts to protect some jobs, there are limits to what it can accomplish. In your contract there are requirements for the company to operate a certain number of airframes in revenue service. That at present is probably the best job protection we have...and it was the best our negotiators were able to get during the bankruptcy induced contract negotiations. As with a number of things, I wouldn't be surprised to see this minimum number of aircraft operated to be violated as well.

I am no cheerleader for the union, but I do understand where the majority of my angst should be placed.

The union is even more limited in what it is able to accomplish as managements' actions over the last several years has destroyed the good working relationship we had for a couple of years after the strike. When someone agrees to do something, in writing, then repeatedly doesn't, it doesn't instill a tremendous amount of trust. After you've negotiated a solution to a problem in good faith, then they continue to stretch the agreement beyond it's limitations, how comfortable would you feel sitting down with them again to negotiate another issue?

We are professionals who are expected to operate within limitations every time we perform our job. Why shouldn't we expect the same from our management? All this angst directed toward the union is misplaced, in my opinion, and should be directed toward the entity that made an agreement with us, then failed to carry out their commitments....and Delta, who has seventeen regional carriers (at last count ) to split what used to be two or three airline's worth of flying between. Management wants to create a divide in the pilot group, and they have been successful to some degree, judging by some of the posts I read here. Why were there only the equivalent of twelve month-long COLA's offered for 50-seat pilots in Cincinnati if the company intended furloughing 90 during that month?

We are employed in an industry that, at it's core, does nothing more than convert energy into money. Until alternative energy sources are created and produced economically, or global demand for energy falls dramatically, the airline industry is not going to be a great place to be employed. No union will be able to protect its workers' quality of life, earning potential, and number of jobs. If First Officers were willing to have a payscale that tops out at $10/hr., and Captains willing to have a payscale that tops out at $16/hr. there would likely be a few more jobs available, and fewer furloughs. I suspect support for a third pay cut at Comair would only generate more anger among the workforce.

I suspect most of us who will be furloughed eventually were hired after the bankruptcy...though there may be a handful who hired in during the bankruptcy process. I don't understand how in today's world with as much information as is available about Comair, their style of management, and increasing global demand for energy, a pilot at the bottom of a seniority list would be surprised to find they're facing a furlough. It still sucks, but it can't be unexpected.

Comair has been operating in moderate to severe turbulence for most of the last eight years. Unless it was to maintain currency while looking for something better, why would any informed pilot have chosen to pursue employment at Comair? Perhaps to build time to get qualified for a job at a fractional or freight operator? Did they just blindly hope all would be perfect after they got hired? Surely we don't have pilots in this day and age who really think they're going to get hired by a regional, upgrade in a year or two, then move on to a legacy airline a couple of years later to make $250,000 / yr.?

The airline industry and pilot profession has never been a stable one. Macroeconomic developments in the global economy over the last seven years or so are going to dictate the industry operate differently. We're caught in the middle, and it's going to suck for all of us. The best we can do is save, invest, keep our eyes open for better opportunities - both inside and outside the airline industry, and continue developing skills and abilities that will have value in a changing world.

The airline industry as we've known it over the last decade or two is likely not the airline industry we'll know five years from now. I may well be wrong, but we can't afford to not plan for the worst.

Those who will be furloughed have two choices ahead...sit around and mope about it, or view it as an opportunity to pursue something else more worthwhile. After surviving a year or so of the reserve experience at Comair, I suspect some will select choice number two, and will probably in the long run end up better off than many who weren't furloughed.

Those who've hired in during the last year or so are probably faced with a maximum earning potential of $40,000 - $50,000 for the next seven years or more. If and when the opportunity to upgrade finally comes, they'll find themselves away from home 300 hours a month or more to tack on an additional $20,000/yr. to their incomes.

The average starting salary for a new MBA is $92,000.

Again, best wishes to all affected by this (nearly all of us are to some degree or another...even senior Captains are seeing their schedules deteriorate from what they once were as a result of Delta's decision to place flying with other operators). If you feel you're being used as a bargaining chip, it is only because the company has a long, well known history of failing to address issues it has created.