Originally Posted by
Kilgore Trout
I've come to the conclusion, probably misinformed, that aviation unions are pretty far out of touch with what you are doing in the regional world as far as duty times, length of legs, and well, everything, in that the current "regional" comes close or even surpasses the "major" airline in a lot of ways nowadays. What is the real difference except for size of aircraft?
Specifically, my question is this, has the union system locked in place and kept enforcing the idea of a progression from regional to major as far as that (moving to a major) being the ultimate reward, and in the process neglected the long term, or even short term regional pilot?
Perhaps a better approach to the future would be to focus on where one is, rather than the idea of finally "making the big time" at a major or UPS or Fedex and trying to make sure (somehow) that one's union would pursue that goal of looking out for "regional" pilots the same as "major" pilots?
thats pretty much the conclusion ive come to throughout the course of this thread. its become the perfect crime for ALPA. we pay our dues becuase we pretty much have to, they know it, then they use our money to fund their own agenda. every once in a while they throw some food at us in the crew room and the junior guys think wow thanks ALPA.
we're gonna be staying at these airlines years longer than we all had planned. fact of the matter is we either need to form a watch dog commitee to monitor ALPA or start talking our own regionals union. all we really need is some support from the fellow pilots. its really just that simple.