That's why this (PBS) is so desireable to the managers of airlines. It allows THEM more flexibility and thus they can operate with less pilots.

Good for them........not so good for pilots. In the hands of a company like Mesa, the results could be horrifying (and likely will be).

This check-in thing seems like a nice way of making demands of pilots during their off hours (without pay). If you call in on your time off with a cold beer in your hand (24 hours in advance) and they inform you they're junior manning you NOW for flying they need to cover, what'ya gonna do........call Ghostbusters ?

The rationalization of squandering this opportunity now because Mesa pilots will have a better opportunity of piggybacking other carriers with more leverage or guts during a "pattern bargaining" session in the future is flawed.

This agreement didn't offer Mesa pilots better odds in the future. What it did was actually made other carriers future negotiations more difficult, because the "box" of contractual boundaries that will be used by management got larger (i.e., worse and more in their favor). We all can rest assured that this piece of garbage will not only be highlighted in every regional airline bargaining room for the forseeable future, but will likely be on the wall behind the management side framed in gold.

Of course, when one sees ALPA national publicly claiming this as a victory, well........what can you say about a labor union that places self-serving facades used for the benefit of their own appearance vs. accepting the reality that everyone else clearly recognizes ?

Add these two together (ALPA national B.S. and a horrendeously bad agreement) and the future of regional flying is certain to be the extremely profitable sweatshop management wants it to be.