You get what you negotiate. Not what you deserve. Omni pilots deserve Delta 18 percent DC, payrates, and work rules. ATSG however does not value pilots or emplyees. If you are considering employment at any airline you can only base your decision on current pay rates and work rules. Never base the decision on managements promise of future airplanes or a new contract. Those false promises seldom if ever actually come to fruition.

rewrite this, make it sound like friends messaging each other on Airline Pilot Central:

Sure I get it, that new people coming to the airline makes it seem harder to negociate, but I'm getting furloughed Sept 1st. I'm looking for a place to go ASAP, don't want to go back to the regionals, airport standby, and commuting with 11 days off a month for the next 2-3 years even though I could make $300k a year plus. I'd rather have crap pay and family time vs good pay and no time off.

You know you are getting a new contract, it will be forced by arbutration at some point, I want to know what the union is trying to fight for, or are your union reps worthless like at my last airline and they sold out to the company or if they are asking for reasonable things that might make this place a good palce to go to. IF you are going on strike when?

The union should have told what they are fighting for to employees. Yes people should use a future contract as a small part of choosing to work for a company. I would not use new aircraft as a basis or expect the entire list of items wanted in the contract, but you'll get some of what your asking for in the contract.

You are wrong on many levels.

1) There is no arbitration clause in Omni's contract.
2) Pilots elect their Union representatives to represent them. That intails trusting their judgment in appointing the negotiating committee and overseeing said committee. Multiple instances of pilot polling have occured. I am positive the Union is well aware of the of the top issues needing to be addressed in a new contact. Ninety five percent of pilots are smart enough to say " The Union speaks for me ".
3) You disparage your last companys Union leaders. I am sure every pilot at Omni wants to be on the flight deck with you.
4) Have you ever seen a Union at any airline post on APC their contract goals? That would be sheer stupidity.

On what basis?

As a rough estimate, Omni accounts for around 30% of ATSG's $2B of revenue in 2023. Spread across 14 aircraft, that amounts to around $44M per aircraft.

Delta had revenues of $58B in 2023. With 958 aircraft, that's over $60M in revenue per aircraft.

Omni is not nearly as productive on a per aircraft basis, so it is unrealistic to claim that Omni pilots "deserve" to be paid like Delta pilots.

Unreasonable expectations lead to protracted negotiations.

Because they don't accede to your unrealistic demands?

Prepare to be roasted by guys who think they deserve double DL pay because they do "the hardest flying in the world" while (98% of the time) really just flying an ILS into an airport dozens of other airlines are at regularly. But to be fair when you look at Gross Profit per aircraft those numbers fall to about 20 million for DL and 38 million for Omni (and about 20-25 for the other ATSG brands) so... who deserves what? At the end of the day with the way these things go at almost every ACMI - when the company runs out of pilots they'll give in to just about every demand from the union; rinse and repeat in a few years. Personally I'd prefer more consistent incremental gains rather than the shock therpy version people get now, but is what it is.

This is a product of APLA’S past failures. A pilot is a pilot. The goal from the beginning was there would be ONE master seniority list. Like the plumbers and the welders have. If you wanted a union 757 pilot it would cost xxxx. Some how some where ALPA decided to go with the ratchet up theory. It worked for a while till deregulation. That being said we all deserve Delta/UPS pay. We’re all pilots. It doesn’t matter how much money your carrier makes. That’s the cost of business ( just like a contractor ) when you hire union pilots. I hope this makes sense.

There is some validity there. The current manline CBA's at American, Delta and United have identcal pay rates for the same/similar equipment. There is no cost advantage. It's just the cost of doing business. ALPA (DL & UA) even got APA (AA) to play along and all three legacies have matching pay rates; regardless of the profit per plane nonsense from another post (it's interesting but irrelevant).

That said, there are three distinct segments of part 121 airline industry. Major/Legacy, Regional and ACMI. There is also a partition creating two types of service, cargo and passenger. Our peers are the other ACMI carriers flying the same equipment. An argument could be made that our peers flying 767/777 are flying cargo, not strictly passengers, making us more like the big three. The end result will be somewhere in the middle I suspect.

For anybody considering Omni, things have changed here over the past several years since ATSG took over, and all of it has been for the worse. This past year has seen monumental management changes. Again, none of it for the better.

This is no longer the industry best kept secret in 121 like it used to be. We're the frog in the pot, and the water's being turned up, and so far only the smart ones have left.

It's still a good job, but it's no longer a great job, and if ATSG has it's way, it will never be a great job again. It will remain a middle to lower end career and it is rapidly becoming that already under their ownership and direction.

I was holding out hope. Listening to the union teleconference, that hope is gone. If you have other options, don't come here; not even as a lifeboat from a furlough since we look to be headed towards an unpaid strike by the looks of it once released by the NMB. Safer waters elsewhere.

Boy, sure hate to say I told you so. Look back to my posts when ATSG bought OMNI. I said you would get your eyes watered. As far as the best kept secret in 121..that was ABX pre DHL. When OMNI was paying 100k and ABX was paying 200k. Home everyday and every weekend no troop or hot zones A good friend of mine ended up at OMNI while on furlough due to the DHL meltdown. He spent 2 yrs there, he said he would not go back for twice the pay, hated every minute of it. Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder.

It makes sense, but that's not how it works. We have to live and work in the real world. Negotiating on the basis of pie in the sky gets you nowhere fast.

ALPA never represented Omni, which makes what ALPA wants irrelevant.

There are many airlines not represented by ALPA; ALPA does not speak for those operations, either. The only possiblity for such an idiotic scheme to work would be if all carriers and all pilot bodies belonged to the same union, which will never happen. Further, the notion that a company A should be bound by a CBA that company B has with it's pilots and their union, is ridiculous. Such entitlement, by the pilots of Company B.

Pilots at a given company get what their collective bargaining agreement with their employer allows, period. Omni is not obligated by what Delta pays. American is not obligated by what United pays, ad infinitum. It's not a failure on the part of ALPA: it was never within the capability or reach of ALPA to create such a hairbrained, bull **** system, and it's pure arrogance to argue otherwise. An industry-wide seniority list is an idiotic notion, to say nothing of the impossiblity of integrating the career military pilot, foreign carrier pilots who work for US carriers, etc. The difficulty of merging seniority lists when two companies marry is a nightmare; to do so across the board with companies that are not merged is an utter impossiblity to negotiate, to implement and to carry forward. Merely establishing seniority, the fundamental start date, would be a no-go. Date of solo? Private? First pilot certificate? Completion of Undergraduate Pilot Training? First 121 carrier? What about 135? Military? Utility pilots? Twenty-year pilot bids new equipment? P8 pilot leaves the USN and goes 121, with years of 737 experience; where does (s)he fit in? ALPA never had the power to solve these problems, let alone create a universal seniority list, or incorporate all pilots. It was never going to happen, and it won't.

Further, there is a big difference between what one operator does with their aircraft, and what another operator does. No, we don't all "fly the same ILS approach." Operators such as Atlas, Omni, Kalitta, etc, have long operated into places that American, United, SWA, etc, do not go; such places bring with them increased hazards, and a valid argument is to be made to pay commensurate with such hazards.

When the issue of contracts are raised, given that the contract is between the company and the pilot body that works there (not another company and their workforce), the company must look closely at the resolve of the pilot body. Were the senior management to make a statement (today, for example) that they're losing experienced pilots and desire to stop the bleed "sooner than later," a workforce that's united in a 100% strike vote, and that continues to assert their position by attrition to other ccarriers with better schedule, pay, etc, then it behooves the senior company management to resolve those differences and bargain in good faith.

Omni is not bound, nor obligated by what Delta pays. However, Omni needs to accept loss to other carriers at a continuing high rate, or adapt to become competitive. That may mean considering what other carriers are paying, and negotating in good faith to be a place where attrition is low and satisfaction is high. With that in mind, it IS worth considering what other carriers pay and mete out in retirement (etc) as a competitive value. Omni needs to consider industry standards and the options its pilots have, when determining a collective bargaining agreement. Nobody is integrating a seniority list with Delta, but if an Omni pilot can be persuaded to remain at Omni, instead of moving to Delta (et al), then that's significant savings in recruitment and training to Omni.