Everyone needs to stop worrying about the dam Q400s ... YES, it is a great aircraft, and YES it is VERY fuel efficient and can take on a CRJ-700 up to 300-400 miles before the CRJ starts becoming more economically sensible with it's faster cruise speed and almost equal pax capacity.

Management is going to tell you EXACTLY what you don't want to hear regarding the new bright and shiny aircraft to get you to take their side.

It was circulated MONTHS ago that we wouldn't get the additional aircraft until 2010, so I really have no idea why people are wondering why an announcement hasn't been made. How are they going to tell the public they are getting new aircraft when we don't know where they're going to go or what codeshare they're going to fly for?! It wouldn't make sense to announce anything right now.

As for the new hiring boom that will take place when they come along ... seriously, why would we start that anytime in the near future?! There would be absolutely no point in starting to train pilots to fly those new planes until the time came to actually fly them ... or at max maybe a few months before we were scheduled to get them.

Right now the ONLY training that is going on is getting the Beech guys into the Saab, upgrading the guys that got screwed back in June, and upgrading the guys that are getting captain pay for being overlooked so many times. I couldn't care less about the FOs getting captain pay ... good for them But I think it's a load of poo that the company is transitioning Beech street captains into the Saab as captains when we have so many FOs now ready to upgrade. The excuse we got was "we feel they would quit if we downgraded them.." YA THINK?!?! Most anyone that wasn't desperate for a job would quit if they got hired to be a captain, and had to be demoted and make half the money they were promised. We have several FOs that have put in their time and effort and deserve that promotion that are being denied it right now because of this.. it's not right.

This is quite possibly the most volatile industry on the planet, and things can change from black to white overnight. NOTHING is for certain until it actually happens.

I've had to use our commuter policy once, and it worked just fine (it may have something to do with the crew schedulers liking me, but I doubt it). Never spoke with Honan, only Klipp (and that lasted all of 2 min). As long as you can prove that you were at the gate and listed on 2 flights that had seats open (policy doesn't specify any given amount), you should be good to go!

As for Santa's brother getting pass privileges ... um, dude, Santa makes it clear around the world in a single night while delivering presents ... I think his brother's got his own set of pretty sweet privileges