I think they keep one or two planes on it to keep it warm. An used cert will lapse.

protect junior pilots from furlough and hold the line against the company:

Keep full pay to last day. ALPA increases dues to 20% of paychecks. Junior pilots get furloughed. Senior pilots are paid the full amount by the company. ALPA gives the extra 18% to furloughed pilots.

Endgame is that the payrates never went down, but pilots are taking home what they would if they had given in to severe concessions. Furloughs allow the company to survive, pay rates are not compromised, and instead of forcing the junior pilots to act in self-interest at the expense of the industry, they are taken care of by their bretheren in unity and fraternal sacrifice.

"quit acting in your self-interest, you're hurting the industry" is a lot easier to swallow if the people saying it are making up the difference out of their own paychecks.

No amount of willpower, solidarity, or dogma can change macroeconomic forces. Face it, regional feed has been a commodity for quite a while now. The same thing will be true of majors some day, and they'll eventually face similar pressures. If the all-important road warriors have permanently changed their travel behaviors, then of course it'll happen sooner.
By far the industry's best days are behind her. In my view all us little people are arguing with each other about how to delay the inevitable. And yes, I've been planning my exit for years. I was waiting for the perfect shot before I took it, so COVID is just helping me along.

I disagree...every 10-12 years something happens to upset this industry. Nobody knew it would be a pandemic or that it was going to be this dramatic, but anyone that’s been in this business for more two minutes knew something was going to happen. This is how we end up with lifers at the regionals - **** happens, and suddenly years pass.

This business is affected by everything. It has always been volatile and always will be. One more thing - there never was a real pilot shortage and there never will be. That’s what I think anyway.

The FAA pulled it. Doesn't exist anymore.

Yes. Most folks didn't expect the next cycle to be this bad, the retirements would have absorbed a routine downturn.

Maybe not for the top jobs. Came close this time, ULCCs were starting to hurt... and that's a good living long-term by any standard.

Only slightly correct. He knows what we know, he simply has made a value judgment that he’d rather accept ANYTHING to keep his job than to stand in solidarity with the profession. It’s not a matter of knowing something profound, it’s about seeing the bigger picture and being willing to move the profession forward. But hey, if stagnant and/or declining wages for decades is what you are aiming for, by all means.

Major carriers have cartelized the industry, if you let them force you into a race to the bottom you get what you deserve, and they will cash the checks. A cartelized industry deserves cartelized labor, quit selling yourself and everyone else short.

9/11 was unforseen. So was the housing collapse to many except an astute few. The point being is you never really see the next down turn coming so always be prepared and don't be so oblivious.

Thats true, but neither 9/11 or 2008 came even close to having a sudden and sustained 75-90% drop in air travel, 4 months after the fact.

$10 TRILLION dollar hit to our nation to save 200,000 lives. Sorry if it sounds cold, but $50 million per life isn’t worth the economic destruction of our nation. History will not be kind to how we reacted to this event.

So out of interest, what is the value, as disgusting as this is to say, in good ole American dollars of a human life for you. For an 80 year old? For a 5 year old? Because I’m willing to bet if you then had to answer that about yourself that answer would be priceless. You don’t want to die. What makes you think anyone else would? So go on, what’s the price of your life?