I don't know if the outgunned, etc is true. From everything I have heard the company is using in-house people (BF, DC, etc) to negotiate. BF has only worked with FAs and has never negotiated a section 6 for pilots. DC is an allegiant quality attorney, take that for what it's worth, but he has never negotiated a pilot contract either. The only real negotiator that the company employed (that I am aware of) was DM and he quit after a few months because of how incompetent the company team was. At least there are a couple of people on our team who have been in negotiations before, albeit none have experience negotiating a contract for a major airline. I tend to lean more towards the company (MG) thinking that we're "different" and refusing to do the things every other airline does. I don't think any union can overcome that. It's going to take a shock to the system that proves that standpoint is incorrect.

Whose tuition are we paying?

100% agree with your last sentence. If that's true, we're screwed. Pilots are greedy and willing to take significantly less than they deserve because 'reasons.'

I think he meant that ALPA only cares about the big players (DAL/UAL) and not that they wouldn't let us in. They would let us in, but speaking from experience, ALPA does not love all of its children equally. They love DAL/UAL a lot more and it shows in the level of support the other carriers receive.

With that being said, I can't argue with the fact that if we were starting fresh, ALPA may be the better choice. I'd even be interested in having that debate AFTER we get a new CBA .

Breeze is now alpa with 200 pilots.

I don't think ALPA has taken on a carrier over 1000 pilots in the last 5 years. Seems they've organized every Canadian micro airline up there. But that's really not the point.

Yes, ALPA has better resources (a huge war chest they aren't afraid to spend) and a turnkey team of financial and legal staff and they understand airlines, but at the end of the day, it will be the same reps wearing different uniforms. ALPA won't solve all our problems but it would be a huge step in the right direction.

And yes, allegiant could go over 2118s heads and negotiate directly with IBT. Can't do that with ALPA.

See below for why i responded the way i did. I wasn't the one that started talking about unstacking and PBS. I was asking questions about AR's video. I only brought it up here and else where after AR went on about it in his video.

My original concern was that unstacking/stacking was going to be the last thing left and it was going to turn into a d*ck measuring contest between AR and MG and we the pilots would lose. I hope i am wrong. that would be terrible for the pilot group. But AR's video and what i'm hearing is that unstack is still hard impasse. If that is true then then we will be the losers. We will never be released if we demand something nobody in the industry has and alternatively if AR digs in his heels then we'll be stuck watching videos til 2026 at least.

Even the union has said that the company keeps upping their retirement/rates each time they send section 3 and 4. Per union whispers, MG is offering DC for retirement (15%), the rates started with Suncountry plus, but are now closer to Alaska with a ULCC discount. That is not going to get it done, but that's a lot of movement from MG in less than 6 months because the market is going to determine the rates. No ULCC discount. Per union whispers MG has stopped telling the union that allegiant gets a discount because we are a ULCC. my crystal ball (and some of this optimistic thinking) is that at some point MG will be forced to pay us, the market is gonna force him to and MG is gonna realize that is the only way this thing gets voted in.

The work rules will have to be standardized with the industry. no more moving raps all over the place and jerking reserves down in FL. even though a lot of reserves have a good gig, the reserves in FL get screwed way way way too often and that has to be fixed. we also need the ability for a pilot to sit long call, so stupid that scheduling doesn't use that today. we should demand that at least some reserves are long call, that could make life a whole lot better for reserves in FL and other big bases (IWA/LAS).

A lot of the other work rules for line holders aren't that different from other carriers on paper. crew services just ignores the work rules that we have, but those work rules are industry standard (extensions, reassignments, open time, trip trades, etc. are all pretty standard crew services just ignores them - not sure we need "better" work rules we just need a lot of our current work rules to be followed).

Just my two cents...

I'm not sure if that is good or bad? it looks like the blind leading blind. I have no idea who's done what on management side except for googling linkedin profiles.

who on our team have been in negotiations before? isn't it just Hegland - and he's the one that negotiated our current contract so that's not very comforting. AR, Kenny, Valenzuela, Jay and Josh haven't - i don't believe - ever been in negotiations before. Maybe i'm wrong. i know our culinary attorney has negotiated contracts just nothing RLA related.

https://www.atlasairworldwide.com/20...bor-relations/

DM was a consultant for F&H and then left to be SVP at Atlas. no idea if he quit first and then went to Atlas or what. maybe you know what he was thinking when he left allegiant high and dry.

This is something we can 100% agree on.

is that really true? why does AR say that cannot happen with our bylaws?

100% agree on this. the access to economists and lawyers that have been doing this stuff for years is the key. ALPA can also call BS when management tries to bluff or say "we're different" so we cannot do x, y , z. the crap about LTD and how we just now hired a consultant to look into it - that doesn't happen with ALPA.

Delta CEO on CNBC today saying profits will be up 100% next year, their only limiting factor being pilots over the next 5 years. If Delta is worried about pilots limiting profits, maybe Maury should be a tad worried too? Is the Allegiant BOD just on autopilot and willing to make losses while everyone else makes profits? The ability for Allegiant to grow and prosper has a direct correlation to how good the next contract is, period.

This is why i'm not as worried about the rates and retirement being there. MG is gonna have no choice but to pay us market rates - no ULCC discount. If he doesn't there aren't enough foreign pilots to grow this place.

The reality is that because of these issues we will likely not have an ‘industry leading’ contract as promised earlier this year by MG and AR. We will have another sh!t sandwich just like we have now only with some new and different sh!t flavor. We NEED to start thinking longer term and taking meaningful action now to ensure we have the resources we need to be more successful next time. ALPA is a great start but nothing like that can or should be done until we finish with the current negotiations.

I know that JK was active in the union at his last carrier, and I thought he had experience in their negotiations. Not 100% sure. TBH, I don't know if any of the others even have union experience at any other carrier.

As far as MU is concerned, from all accounts, he is pretty sharp and at this point, we probably only need someone smarter than the company guys, which isn't too high of a hurdle. I can't imagine that the union wouldn't bring in an actual RLA attorney to assist if we ended up going to the NMB. However, that's all stated using logic and common sense. In reality, I guess we'll have to see.

SH was in at the beginning of the last negotiation, but I thought he was removed in favor of 1224's crack team of negotiators. Not sure how much of the current CBA can be attributed to him or what role he actually plays now other than having the ability to say "HA! We have a more experienced team than you do." I'm pretty sure you can add up all of the negotiations that everyone in the room has been a part of and it's less than the number of negotiations he has been a part of. My only concern with that is, what is the quality of those deals? Quantity is definitely NOT quality. Especially where Teamster airline contracts are concerned.

As far as DM, that's the word I was hearing back when he left. I heard he basically told MG what a cluster his team was and peaced out. I obviously wasn't there, so who knows for sure?