He was using my water to refill his pool that had a leak. The neighbor on the other side also awoke one Saturday morning to find him in his kitchen making a pot of coffee. His excuse to him was that he didn't want to wake him as he was out of coffee and thought he wouldn't mind. Needless to say we both got our keys back from him after that one. I also made him pay the difference in my water bill, as I told him I would go to the " authorities" if he didn't. Thankfully they moved about a year later.

 

I agree. What I meant was for 125 seats we offer A319 and 737, 150 seats MD88 and A320, 160 seats MD90 or 738, 180 seats 752, 739, A321 and so on. I sure hope we don't try E195 off property and 717 on property.

 

Sorry to hear about your furlough. I feel terrible for the guys who had to endure a furlough this last round. A good buddy of mine was a furlough returnee and we both sat in the same basic indoc class, so I'm very familiar with the sacrifices some had to endure.

I am well familiar of the downside risk in this business. It would be foolish after seeing soo many out of work in the early 2000nds to think otherwise.

It seems you are trying to draw parallels between your experience and mine. So yes, if you strictly compare my career to that of others there are those who's careers took a far worse trajectory than mine.

I'm not looking for anyone's pity. But if you compare the scenarios you mentioned above and what is happening now there is a huge fundamental difference:

• Our company is financially successful, not just a little, a lot, and has been for nearly 4 years...
• We have new aircraft coming, some of which are actually growth aircraft and they are just months away.
• Retirements are starting to pick up and will continue to accelerate.

From a "good news" perspective we should be sitting pretty. Yet somehow my own personal experience doesn't match the trends.
If I chart my career against the companies financial success I fail to find a correlation. In speaking to some of my buddies, that sentiment is shared. The good news always seems "just around the corner." Yet somehow someone keeps moving the cheese...

Don't get me wrong, the evidence is overwhelming things will improve, soon. Still I would be a fool not to use past experience to temper any early enthusiasm.

So when t is overtly optimistic, his perspective is informedd by his experience. When my recent optimism wanes that is similarly directly related to the latest AE...

The downside risk is still here, but the upside rewards keep getting trimmed. More codeshares, new rapidly growing foreign competitors and bigger aircraft will take even more bites going forward.

All of these threats and more will have a negative impact on one of the last remaining promises in this business -- our careers.

It behooves us as a group to aggressively work to reduce and stem any current and future negative impact on our careers...

Cheers
George

 

I guess your neighbor got transferred to MDW?

 

Ding Ding Ding!

And just to put a finer point on it:
I finally decided to do something about it. I set up a recurring pay deduction to the ALPA PAC. Before all y'all start going off on the usual ALPA vs DPA stuff, consider that the only thing that matters to anybody in DC is money. Everything else is secondary.
It's not right, its not good but that's just how it is...

So we can sit on the sidelines and lament an unfair system or we can pool our resources and affect some change.

I finally put on my big-boy pants and will be putting my money where my mouth is...

Cheers
George

 

I want to thank you for doing that.

 

Jack, Unfortunately its a lot more than the senior guys, number wise they are a small percentage...those yes numbers are coming from a junior and mid seniority.

 

I heard a guy in the pilot lounge telling a story about a flight landing at an outstation a few weeks ago with a MX write-up. He said Delta chartered a flight for the replacement parts and a mechanic to fix the bad jet over night.

If it's true...apparently there is plenty of extra cash in the budget. Good thing we let them off with 4/8/3/3.

 

Lots of guys here have the mentality that since things sucked for them it's ok for it to be bad for others. Examples would include newhires still having to pay for a hotel (even though even the regionals will take care of that), and wanting to go back to a seniority only reserve system where the junior guys take a beating while the senior guys have a paid vacation nearly every month. Things will never get better if we don't change this mentality. We should be trying to make things better, not rationalizing things since they were bad in the past. As a side note it seems like our work rules are going more toward that of regional airlines.

 

I'm afraid you might be right That said, in recent years they have definitely found success going after senior guys (less than 10 years left). Then ALPA sells it with catch phrases like "time value of money". A forward thinking union would not go along with this but alas they seem ok trading a minor money grab for scope sales. No long term strategy for the good of all pilots hurts the entire profession forever as David Behncke rolls over in his grave.

For the record the exact same sales job is going on over at Alaska Air Group right now. "Hurry guys take the money...this wont last long...we will worry about tightening scope next contract". It boggles the mind with all the carnage of outsourced flying and what appears to be ripening for more outsourced large RJ flying at Alaska (which could translate into outsourced Delta flying because the union will allow whatever Alaska was doing at Delta in the event of a Delta merger...the precedent has already been established). Still scratching my head how/why a few guys at the top of national and heading these ALPA MEC's continue to make the same mistakes and refuse to implement a long term strategy that would reverse a trend that continues to poison this career.