If it's a great concept, surely there are issues. I like what Capn has to say, and I'd rather we discuss how we make it happen, or how we improve on the theme, than why we can't.

My concept of ALPA is that it would be an exclusive crew-leasing company, with one common exclusive contract with the carriers it now has multiple exclusive contracts with.

I would envison training to be administered by ALPA, and not by companies. We would own and operate one/several training facility(ies), the funding for which would come from the standard cost paid by the companies. The companies would only provide a few check airmen to ensure standards are met, and they would thus get out out of the pilot training business. This would shift liabilities away from companies in accidents involving pilot error (a big incentive), and the funding for proper insurance to protect ALPA also would be baked into the contract rates. All ALPA cockpits would be standardized, since there is no logical reason an A320 at United needs to be flown differently than an A320 at DAL. If you can say the right airline name on the PA, you've made the CEO happy, and the passengers comfortable. They don't care that you call your manuals FOM, POM, what color they are, whether you do or don't use memory items, and whether or not your heading bug is normally centered or not.

So if you could have, say a five year "company-lock" to develop some sort of brand identity, you would get one week of basic company indoc at the new airline, and off you go. If a company didn't like a pilot, for whatever reason, they could call ALPA, and ask for a replacement. That would help solve any fears over losing control of hiring. We could have internal procedures for dealing with such a person. Obviously, if multiple companies have a problem with an individual, that's a red flag. But again, since we would essentially be a big exclusive crew-leasing company, we would have procedures in place to police our own. It's no different than having a chief pilot.

The standards used by ALPA in training would be significantly higher. Since companies would not compete based on pilot costs, we could go back to having actual, you know... "training", with "instructors" etc. We would be the major partner is setting standards with the FAA, and we could thus ensure ALPA pilots are much, much better trained than anyone else out there. We could more effectively lobby for stricter and stricter standards, and make it more and more cost-prohibitive for non-ALPA companies that try to insource training to compete with our economies of scale.

It would be tough to become an ALPA pilot, and Pro-Strandards would play a bigger role in policing our own. Probation periods would be extended. But it would be far, far more stable and rewarding.

The main benefit of the scheme I propose is that would no longer be married to an airline. Alomst every concessionnary decision pilot groups have ever made are linked to the fear their company might not survive, which is a direct result of the current seniority system. If we had a NSL, we wouldn't have that problem. If a company gets close to dying, it's healthier for the industry that it dies, and it would beneficial to the pilots to turn in their wings for another set of wings, and go fly somewhere else in a healthy industry.

Another area that would yield great personal satisfaction is that we could almost eliminate commuting. If you live in Houston, it would be nice to fly for UCAL. The only reason you wouldn't under today's system is if you expected a better career somewhere else. With a common contract, there would be no incentive to go fly for anyone but UCAL. But still, if your wife got a new job in Atlanta, and Atlanta positions were available for bidding, and you were of your "company-lock"... off you go to DAL.

There are many economic benefits to such a scheme. One of the most obvious is that you can more easily agree on a "baseline" compensation package, and simply adjust for inflation. If pilots had simply been able to hang on to what we once had, with cost of living adjsutments, we would be doing back-flips every morning. The scheme I propose might take contract negotiations down to arguing over a paragraph here and there, and fighting like hell over a tenth of a percent in inflation figures. Add some profit-sharing to capture economic upside, and you could have a decent, predictable contract.

At the end of the day, we don't have the same amount of face-to-face interraction with the customer as F/A's. It's more important for other groups to be immersed in the culture. We provided a technical product that doesn't actually need to be differentiated across brands. A greaser is a greaser, a crash is a crash. A minimum amount of company-specific indoc is all we would need. That makes us almost like fuel. We could be a common, predictable expense across the industry. We could negotitae one contract, as one block, against the ATA as ablock. They would get predictable costs, a much more predictable labor environment, deferred/reduced liabilities. We would stop having to give a kidney every time the company we're married to has a hickup, and we wouldn't have to be burried with it if it died.