You're funny. We already have the picture. It's you and United who doesn't understand the current pilot environment. It's 2019, not 2009. We've been told for years that we need to be more competitive and we did get competitive and it hasn't netted us anything tangible other than a half assed buyout by United and a hack CEO with worse QOL and morale.

If United wants to run a circus with a bunch of low quality regionals then that's their prerogative. We clearly do have LEVARAGE as you keep getting your panties in a wad on here more and more by the day as the TRUTH comes out.

United gave us terrible hourly pay and supplemented with the little payouts quarterly to whipsaw us against the others. We are their placeholder to cut into all the other companies block hour rates. So if they pay us more it hurts them with the others. Sound about right?

Guess what?!?

That's not our problem. It's theirs.

What part of FUPM do you not understand?

None, why don’t you spell it out for me?

And when you are standing on both ends of the fulcrum, your leverage is against yourself. My panties are fine other than being represented by a bunch of half-wits.

Many of us are fine with watching United try and replace us at this point. In this market I simply don’t see that happening. If it does, it is much easier to move somewhere else and not take a big pay cut.

I love the lateral movers. Awesome. For QOL seniority is everything.

It's only a lateral move if you go to one of the other UAX trash regionals. All the other regionals are a step up at this point. QOL doesn't really mean anything at Xjt when you've been there 15 years and get 11 or 12 days off every month and spend your time working 10 hour 4-day trips swapping between the left and right seat. You can gain seniority a lot faster elsewhere. It's not ideal to go somewhere else but it's not a huge loss if it has to happen.

The more we shrink, the more leverage SkyWest and other large regionals have against United. United has no choice but to grow our airline. We have all the leverage.

Comair thought they had leverage too..

A bunch of complacent, lazy old geezers who don’t believe in standardization, bring nothing but negativity to the cockpit and can’t move out of the way of their own egos bring zero leverage. Every airline out there wants youth and vitality, at least at the regional level.

The top heavy pilot group at XJT weighs down profitability. You have no leverage because to pay more would mean having the highest paid pilot group for very below average quality. To pay a group of super senior pilots industry leading pay, especially under the United whipsaw, is a fast track to bankruptcy. One way or another, you NEED new hires if nothing else to bring down the average pay. You can’t negotiate from your current position.

So why did United invest in XJT. It was well known that XJT was the most top heavy regional. Why didn’t they just keep growing Commutair?

It all revolves around new hires. Everything they have done or said has revolved around trying to bring in new hires. I expect they will soon increase the signing bonus or maybe up the FO pay. No way captains get anything.