Originally Posted by
BE24pilot
I hope you guys can do it! and I am a regional pilot that will probably get furlowed because of it. I know you CAL/UAL guys could care less about that but in all honesty what do you think you will have to give up to do it. Has your union even given any idea of what it will take. I am just curious because I think there is a whole lot more than just flying at regional pay rates involved. If you have ever looked at a regional contract work rules there is a night and day difference. The bottom line is that crapping on us for both pay and work rules saves a lot of money. Are CAL and UAL guys willing to drop the QOL of their airline just to get all the flying in house. Like I said I hope it will happen, I just am affraid that when the pilot group really sees what they will have to give up to do it that they will start to give up that scope even further.
Been there, been crapped on. Many of us are keenly aware to what life is like at the regionals, having survived it before going to mainline companies.
As far as "what are we willing to give up" goes, I think you'd be surprised how close the work rules are in the post Ch11 world. Flying at UAL is no picnic. It's gotten a little better over the past couple of years with incremental improvements, but right after Ch11 we were flying 95 hours, 11 days off per month, and duty/flight times basically at FAR's. I don't know, but THINK that CAL pilots are mostly right at the FAR's. Throw in a bunch of all-nighters, and it was a real picnic. Last winter over Christmas, here was my schedule. 6 on, 1 off, 4 on, 1 off, 6 on. (I called in fatigued for the last 4 days of that sequence). In that time, I had 3 all-nighters and 4 east coast departures before 6am body-clock time. It was legal because they would put a 25 hour layover after the all-nighters and then depart me early off the east coast the day following the arrival. Try getting your body to figure THAT out 3 times in a 2 week period.
That being said, the goal is not to accept the current state of regional work rules. The goal is to raise the standard of what is acceptable. It's all about leverage. If UAL wants a single operating certificate, they need a single list. If they want a single list, they need a JCBA. If they want a JCBA, they are going to have to address the Scope issue to some degree. How much is what the negotiations are about.
We shouldn't negotiate in public, as management has and does use these forums to "make their case" regarding contract issues, so I'll stick to a few general ideas.
The 50 seater market is much more limited than the number of airframes currently in the market with oil above a certain value. I think that Comair's announcement yesterday will support that theory. So the fight is MOSTLY about what happens above 50 seats. jetBlue has successfully brought the E190 in-house at a VERY competitive wage. The E170 common type would make it a reasonable assertion that it could be incorporated into the mainline fleet as well.
It's easy to think with the success of companies like Skywest and Republic is because of their cheap labor and horrible working conditions. You have to remember that their results are shielded from the prevailing economic realities because they are guaranteed a profit by their mainline partners. The two attempts to operate a regional fleet independently were miserable failures (Indy Air and XJET) for a reason... without someone taking all the risk out of the uber-risky airline market, those 50 seaters suddenly don't look so good - regardless of how cheap you can find people to fly them.
What will happen? Who knows. I, like everyone else, have a guess, but I'm not going to state it on a public forum. What I DO know is that I like the direction that the UAL/CAL pilot groups are heading on this. Despite the opinions of some of this forum, my perception is that we are more unified on this issue than any other.
Good luck to us all. Job losses are never fun, and while the regionals have been growing at ridiculous levels for the last decade, we have lost almost half our pilots. For the sake of the piloting profession, here's to hoping that this tide turns, and turns hard.