Margaritaville

Tom, you're a smart guy and I've often valued your opinion but you're off in left field here. 10 years? The ULCC model is failing across the industry. Bottom line customers are sick of it. Channeling the late great Gordon Bethune they finally made the pizza so cheap that nobody wants to eat it. Allegiant is way above F9 and NK in terms of product and still has the travel company and its package deals to help, but all of the ULCCs are losing ground because people are sick of being nickel and dimed to death with poor on time performance and without enough flight frequency to get you there when things go wrong (you're now booked on the next flight out 3 days from now! Need help finding a room in town?)

What I'm getting at is if you want a complete rewrite to give G4 a legacy airline contract you should leave for a legacy. I had been at Allegiant a lot longer than you. I am now on 3rd year FO pay at my legacy, senior in my FL base, and making more than I did as a 50 percentile CA in SFB with unreal quality of life. My boat leaves the dock more now than it ever did. I've been fishing so much that I'm almost tired of it. Maybe you've got some skeleton in your closet that prevents you from leaving or maybe the golden handcuffs feel a little too tight, but I'm telling you it's worth it.

As for Andrew you guys are fools if you put him back in. Right now he'll say whatever he has to say to keep this sweet gig. He's the highest paid pilot at allegiant and he doesn't turn a wheel. He'd be junior as hell in PHX. Maybe he'd actually set foot in PGD who knows. He's obviously gotten drunk on the power too like some midget mob boss. He feeds off conflict with the company because that's his job security. He will keep lying to all of you but really the longer negotiations drag out the better because his gravy train keeps rolling and he can keep telling you not to change leadership in the middle of negotiations. As someone else said there will always be conflict and negotiations. It's time for you guys to put someone in there who hasn't been profiting personally off it. The economy is about to tailspin and if you don't get a contract in the next year you're going to lose the opportunity. You've already missed a contract cycle. Don't make it two. Put someone in there who will deliver, not make excuses and profit off your misfortune.

tom11011

I just can’t agree with you. It takes as long as it takes. I’m not going anywhere.

Margaritaville

Well good luck. It seems after reading this thread that you and your golden boy are in the minority opinion. I hope the Allegiant pilots vote wisely. There won't be another chance if you let AR climb back up the ivory tower he's built himself.

And I know you don't believe it but there's life ouside G4. You can have an even better QOL for more money and still drive to work. Stop selling yourself out.

tom11011

AR not going anywhere. Your info is out of date.

Margaritaville

You're funny. How can you be so sure? Is the election rigged? Hell, why bother having an election just put a crown on Andrew's head and declare him führer for life. Lol.

The pilot group at G4 deserves much better. But that's not my fight any more. I just finished gassing up the boat and it's time to shove off. Best of luck to all of you.

Be Realistic

Its interesting that I used to agree with Marg on pretty much everything with the exception of bashing AR. I thought he was the right man for the job. So I voted for his slate and his articles.

But that changed when he started making some serious mistakes. I even thought about running a slate against him in the event no new contract was signed by the 12 month mark before his slate was up. His mistakes have cost the pilot group dearly. I could see there was to be no new improvement and I left. I was sorry to leave as G4 wsa a great group of folks and a decent job. It just lacked the effort from the company to make it a destination for me. And I think AR is slow rolling it now for his own benefit.

So now I find that I agree with Marg even more. I hope you guys vote him out. He needs to go back to flying a plane and realize what being on the list means.

Not sure what Toms angle is. but from friends that I still talk to there, they are not on the same page. Most that I talk to want AR gone.

rdneckpilot

This right here.

There will not be a contract until management wants a contract.

I mean. Union leadership could have a contract tomorrow if they gave concessions. But getting a better deal for pilots happens only when management decides they need it to happen. No one can make management sign.

tom11011

I wish people could see this. There is a process to follow no matter how hard one stomps their feet or clicks their heels together.

pipercub

This election will only do one thing, convince the company that the pilot group is divided and can easily be pushed around to get a better deal. I hope the losing party and all the pilots come together behind whoever is in power. To make sure the company understands that they need to Neg with the union to get a deal done. Everyone needs to vote.

captnate702

It’s not just “when management decides it needs to happen.” Management has to be pushed from somewhere. It’s always about leverage. Sometimes the leverage comes from the NMB and the threat of a release. Sometimes the leverage is market driven (like the deals post covid and the obvious pilot shortage/hiring spree). Sometimes it’s about the leverage of not losing the appearance of good labor-management relations (think the old Southwest management and swapa) so the leverage would be not wanting to completely p*SS off the union and create an adversarial relationships (I think this is why DL was the first legacy to get a deal post covid).

Right now the only leverage to apply against this management is the threat from the NMB of release. I don’t think anybody is getting released anytime soon. APFA asked to be released and the NMB denied the self release as soon as they could. But the threat from NMB would be the leverage for this management group. The market driven leverage is gone. The hiring as slowed at the legacies and cargo carriers. F9 and NK hiring has slowed or stopped entirely. Attrition here has ended with the retention bonus. Management has never been afraid to have an adversarial relationship with the pilots so that will never be leverage. Maybe a media campaign from Tampa Bay Times or 60 min would apply leverage but management already blitzed through that riff raff with industry leading margins so I doubt they’re afraid of bad press (I might be wrong, it is a different media environment these days).

By far the most likely leverage should come from the NMB, especially if management is negotiating in bad faith like AR said up until the election got sprung on him. But I have zero faith that AR and his culinary attorney can navigate the NMB to apply that pressure. NMB mediation requires years of planting the seeds and showing the mediators that management is slow rolling negotiations, not prepared, and not working towards a deal. But by all accounts, AR is the one slow rolling negotiations. AR had the debacle in LAX where they left early (even if it was only a few hours early the mediators are not gonna look favorably on that). Union has showed up to multiple sessions without having completed their “homework” from the mediators.

One union source passed along that the mediators had a little tutorial about negotiations and how interest based bargaining (IBB) is supposed to work; AR flat out told the mediators that he thought the tutorial was a waste of time because he is already a “Harvard trained negotiator” based on the 4 hour online course he took. Mind you, Jerry Glass played along with the mediators and told them the tutorial is always a good refresher when starting mediation. You think the mediators are gonna take AR seriously when he acts like that? Mediators cannot make management agree to deal, but they can exert by far the most pressure of any other entity. A pilot strike would cripple any airline, especially Allegiant. NMB could certainly force management’s hand and get us to a contract we deserve. But you have to know how to play that game and AR and his attorney have no clue how to play this game because they don’t even know the rules of NMB mediation.

AR had a chance to exert some serious leverage against management when he was negotiating directly with Maury and we were losing two pilots a day (now we are losing two pilots a month). He didn’t take advantage of that leverage. And I have zero trust he knows how to navigate the complicated political and legal process with the NMB.