Originally Posted by
Captain Tony
You're absolutely right. And do you know what caused it? ALPA refusing to push for inclusion, and instead attempting to exclude regional pilots from the Master's table, while throwing out the scraps they didn't want. Well the kids ate those scraps and kept getting bigger until they no longer fit at the kids table. So the Master was faced with either buying them a bigger table or replacing them with new kids. Guess what happened?
ALPA created this mess back in the Babbitt days. If they had allowed the "commuters" to merge with the mainline carriers and held scope at nothing, none of this would have happened. But when they let scope go on 50 seat jets, it set the ball rolling downhill. Now we're in a place where management has used this to virtually eliminate domestic narrow body mainline flying and farm those jobs out to regionals with ever bigger planes, and ever more junior seniority lists. It really hurt the mainline pilots more than the regional pilots. As you said, airline flying is no longer a career, it's just a job. There s no true job security, even at the mainlines, because there's no barriers to entry into this profession, and there's always cheaper pilots willing to do your job.
The only solution is for the mainline pilots to bite the bullet and give concessions to take all of it in house. All RJ flying goes to mainline, and all regional pilots get stapled. But we all know that will never happen.
So we will see this trend continue. "Legacy" regionals like Eagle, ASA, Comair and Mesaba will continue to disappear and upstarts like GoJets will grow. Until they become the "Legacies" in 10 years or so. Then wash, rinse, repeat.
It's an absolute certainty.
The grumbling now of regional pilots whining about pay, schedules, THEIR upgrades, scope this, transfer that, merge here, shutdown there is only the uncomfortable transition (which is steady and unyielding). Same for the common trait among pilots to attack each other while being manipulated from outside, simultaneously being smacked with the right hand by their employers or pickpocketed with the left hand by their supposed protectors.
Once fully in place in 7-10 years, I wouldn't be surprised to see an increase in suicides among all the kids now who thought (and expected) their dreams to come true only to realize then in their 40's, discovering the the reality playing out before them in the past was a product of their own denial and something they helped create.
They'll be the 'senior guys' then, but WITHOUT the benefits the senior ones have today. Stuck at Mesa type regionals as the "lifers" they ridicule today for only very modest income improvements, the same treatment and schedules/staffing, but yes, larger planes. Little hope of improvement, due to the stagnation above at the major level (and their age) and most distressingly, virtually no chance of changing anything in-house because any strike would certainly fail, since ALL the major carriers (actually it looks like eventually only 3) will have successful stables of a few regionals each flying from every hub (even each flying to the same cities) to insure any one regional can never cripple the major and could be easily outlasted in any strike.......that's if they would even be allowed to strike.
I don't see much hope for a good outcome for most any airline pilot of the future, with the exceptions of those senior at the majors waiting for the right time to eject or those who'll make captain there in the next 5 years or so and can at least keep most of the stench below them. ALPA on the other hand will continue to work dilligently to maintain the appearance as a mover and a shaker with a nice magazine displaying supposedly important articles and a lot of impressive picures of the upper elite with their hands up talking like they're actually saying something important, but primarily concerned with their own revenue stream.
Clueless pilots will fall for almost anything nowadays.............