rickair7777

Lots of people don't know that DL/UA scope also protects AS pilots.

DL/UA contracts with OO forbid OO from operating any jets for ANY other partner which exceed DL/UA size/weight limits. Don't recall all of the nitty-gritty but that's the gist of it. Possible work arounds exist, but OO has not shown any interest in alter-ego certs, ever, and they are just now extracting themselves from the decade-long XJT/ASA acquisition debacle.

That only applies to DCI/UAX regionals of course, so QX could presumably fly anything? But a wholly owned regional with no competitors (due to DL/UA scope) might not be very cheap in the long run.

AS better get some scope while they still have top cover from from DL/UA. It's not worth quite as much to AAG right now.

echelon

Has there ever even been a fight over it? Have AS pilots ever even asked for it or have they always taken management's word that they didn't need it? Even the arbitrators cited the pilot group's lack of a history of pursuing it in their decision.

Singlecoil

Alaska pilots are in a Catch-22 on scope (you might have to google that reference). Arbitrators have said on two occasions that we should have it, but that it isn’t in their purview to award. At the same time, federal mediators have decided that they won’t release us to strike for that very same issue. So the company can say no, the mediators can say no, and the arbitrators throw up their hands and say no.
If we want to get somewhere on scope, we need to be unified and make it clear in mediation that scope is a must have item for our side. That being said, at some point in this pilot hiring environment, we also need to be able to say, “Go ahead and staff your alter-ego airline when you can’t even staff mainline.” In other words, don’t make concessions for something they can’t achieve anyway. ALK management is, as usual, ten years behind the times about the economic labor issues facing the company they are married to.

conquestdz

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-aviation-shortage-insight/u-s-airlines-tap-army-helicopter-pilots-to-ease-shortage-idUSKCN1PH0CO

The article is mostly about recruiting helicopter pilots for the regionals, but there is a very informative and sobering interactive chart in the middle of the article showing how we are doing compared to our peers. It looks like "Ala5ka" is actually more like "Ala7ka" and trending towards "Ala9ka".

ShyGuy

That chart is very outdated.

rickair7777

The silver lining... scope isn't worth quite as much to them right now because they are limited on what they can do with it due pilot shortage. If they put big planes at QX, QX being WO will very quickly want more than "$80 for 80's". OO can't fly them at all (UA/DL scope).

conquestdz

Are you saying we are better off or worse off?

KnockKnock

Welp, seeing as the 4 airlines on the bottom of that chart don’t have any widebody aircraft and the description of the chart is, “breakdown of pay for widebody jet captains at the 10 largest U.S air carriers” makes this chart a bit inaccurate. Also, pertinent fact, a 1st yr CA at AS is currently paid $219/hr and goes to $225/hr in April, yet the chart shows a 30 yr AS CA earning around $160-$170. This adds to the inaccuracy of this chart. Not sure where they got their information.

Tubby

Embraer Removes 100-unit SkyWest Order from E2 Backlog
by Gregory Polek
- October 30, 2018, 12:23 PM
Sending another signal that hopes for a relaxation of U.S. airline pilot union scope clauses have dimmed, Embraer has removed from its backlog an order for 100 E175-E2s from Utah-based SkyWest, the manufacturer confirmed Tuesday. However, the terms of the order, placed in 2013 upon the program’s launch, have not changed, said Embraer CFO Nelson Salgado during the company’s third-quarter earnings call with investment analysts.

The removal of the 100 aircraft from the order backlog comes soon after the cancellation of an order for 24 E190s by JetBlue, which opted instead to replace its current fleet of E190s with Airbus A220s. The two moves together contributed to a reduction in Embraer’s backlog from $17.4 billion at the end of June to $13.6 billion at the end of September.

The uncertainty about the SkyWest order derives from restrictions written into the pilot contracts of the three major U.S. airlines that effectively limit the maximum takeoff weights of the airplanes flying for their regional affiliates to 86,000 pounds. Although both the E175-E2 and the Mitsubishi MRJ90 can meet the 76-seat capacity limitations in those scope clauses through configuration in a two-class cabin layout, neither airplane can meet the mtow limits, effectively disqualifying them from use by U.S. regional airlines.

Embraer, which claims an 85-percent share of the 76-seat market in the U.S., continues to advertise the current GE CF-34-powered E175 as a cost-effective alternative to the E2 in the U.S. For its part, Mitsubishi has said it believes the smaller of its two MRJ variants, the MRJ70, will fill the need for 76-seat lift in a single-class configuration. It does not expect that airplane to reach the market until 2022, however.

Mitsubishi, in fact, has placed more emphasis on improvements to the smaller variant as pilot unions appear unlikely to relax the weight limitations in the next round of bargaining. “We are operating under the assumption that fundamentally there will be limited change [to scope clauses],” conceded Mitsubishi MRJ chief development officer and head of program management Alex Bellamy in a recent interview with AIN.

ShyGuy

As stated above, these paycharts are inaccurate and not set up properly. It has 10 yr pay, 15, 20, 25, and 30 year pay. Nearly almost all legacy and major carriers have just a 12 year scale. The 12th yr guy and 30th yr guy are capped at the same rate. Anyway, I just glanced at 30th yr AS Capt and it says $171,795. I made more than that as FO.