Know what's funny, that's not even that bad compared to some of the stuff I've herd. I had one guy on the jumpseat (an RAH FO) tell me that AWAC was bringing down the industry. I looked back at him and say, sure buddy, how so? His reason, we took a concessionary contract. I rolled my eyes, and explained to him all the things we have in our CONCESSIONARY, that was missing in RAH's contract. Little things like, trip/duty rigs, much better pay on the FO side of things and captain pay that was within spitting distance of their much larger aircraft, full deadhead pay, vacation trip touching, our 401k match and the list goes on. Funny thing, he didn't have much to say after that.
And to the poster who said deadheading pay isn't a big deal, really? You like doing stuff for the company when your only getting paid for 3/4 of the work you do? Let's see, if that logic follows you shouldn't have to do a walk around, because well, that's about 1/4 of what an FO does during his preflight duties. So, next time your walking around your BIG plane in the pouring rain, just remember the deadheading pay your missing out on!
Honestly, let's bring the bar up to at least our CONCESSIONARY contract, and I hope every single new contract is able to beat it (so far, Mesa has totally failed to live up to that, but that's just the MESA way of doing things! sorry guys that was too easy!). I honestly and sincerely hope that RAH can beat AWAC/Comair/Expressjet in the fight to get what's right!