I'm hoping it will be a generational change. Our C44 Rep just wrote a pretty good article for our ROAR publication about the history of scope and he had a front row seat for most of it.

He left out the fact that we sold jobs for other things we wanted during concessionary negotiations, but the old negotiators notepads and ziplines fill in that part of the history.

Anyway - back to generational change ... my Dad's generation made nearly a million a year flying a 747, if you correct for inflation. Delta pilots made nearly the same. Inflation ate about half of that earning power and post deregulation concessionary bargaining ate another half. The guys in power now barely witnessed the big money (they only thought they did in 2001) but they've certainly seen a lot of loss. They now realize they will not retire anywhere near what their previous generation did. They are trying to balance making as much as they can during the years they have left with other concepts, like unity.

... and I'm not completely against their thought process. After all if they make more and retire better, so do I.

But the next generation of pilots will be mostly guys from the regional ranks who have seen their career progression decimated by outsourcing. They know first hand what the effects of whipsaw are on pay and job security. The major job that many pilots started in their 20's is now pushed all the way back to our late 30's and early 40's. I mean, who ever heard of a Delta hiring pool with an average age of 37, a Master's degree or better, a couple of major airlines, 5 Type ratings and 6,000+ hours of flight time, most int he left seat? But those were the numbers back in 2007.

One of my favorite quotes from XXXX was his asking "why are you former regional guys always such scope hawks?" ACL65 answered the question beautifully by saying - "because all this outsourcing stuck us at a regional for nearly a decade."

I'm hopeful that as the battle weary veterans of deregulation retire their seize mentality retires with them. We can do this without burning our furniture to stay warm... and truthfully, the next generation has different expectations and understandings.

There will be little skirmishes, like this Compass vote which the young bucks lost. But, the trend is fairly obvious. Things are changing.