Quiet, you e-thug.

 

I can speak for what's going on with the ERJ side as far as hiring.

A lot of people are making it out to be more than what it really is. The facts are that we knew that we were slated to lose a significant amount of aircraft at year's end. With that being said, the company stated recently that hiring and upgrading will continue, just not at the pace we've been seeing the past year (which is at full capacity) as these aircraft come off lease.

Shortly after that announcement was made, an e-mail went out to all of the instructors in the training center stating that the company was going to offer a number of voluntary furloughs for instructors willing to go back to the line. This makes sense, as the demand for training goes down. Whether or not this is the precursor to mandatory furloughs in the training center has yet to be seen. What if it does turn into mandatory furloughs in the training center though? Still, not a big deal. This has happened twice since I've gotten hired (2011) and it never trickled down to line furloughs. On top of that, the numerous times voluntary leaves were offered to line pilots since I've been here have never turned into furloughs. A lot of people also don't mention the fact that the XJT training center is the biggest it's ever been...

It's no secret that XJT needs to get it's sh*t together in the near future in order to start securing it's long term viability. As far as this news in reduction of hiring being the official start of the beginning of the end? Not sure about that just yet. I guess we'll all know 10 years from now...

 

More like 6 months from now.

 

You know what I was talking about. Seriously though, the draw-down is already occurring and with about 10 aircraft already gone for the year, we're still raising the red-flag to cover flying. Not by any means time to hit the panic button.

I totally get that this company is not going where it should, but until they start offering leaves for line pilots, I'm not worried about much. I think there's a reason why United hasn't dished out a lot of their 70 seaters, and I think that reason is because we don't have our crap together yet. We have aircraft coming off lease, and we have PILOTS. Just wait, once we get a contract, we'll magically start getting 170s...

And by contract, I mean in no way, shape or form a concessionary deal.

And if we don't get a contract? Then United will dish out what they can, but will simply cut service to exclusively 50-seater routes. That's so far down the road though...

Prepare for the worst, hope for the best. I don't like what I see, but who knows what's going to happen.

 

You almost seemed like a reasonable person for a while. How about instead of whining about the doom and gloom that will surely fall on your precious regional, you work on moving up to the majors instead.

 

They aren't handing out anymore 70+ seat aircraft because their scope doesn't allow it at this time.

I think you are way too optimistic though.

 

Correct the maximum amount if 70-76 seaters have been allocated until UAL orders a 100 seat jet for mainline. Which IMHO will never happen. They could also park some Q-400's to get more jets.

 

Thanks for that advice. I hadn't thought of that!

How about this... i keep working to ensure this place survives just in case I don't get the brass ring so many pilots think they're entitled to? Ya think?

 

That's great, but as Luis has pointed out so many times, it's going to be nearly impossible to avoid some concessions on the L-XJT contract. The DC Fund, OJI Bank, and 90% PPO are outliers that no other regional, and many larger airlines don't have. I see no way management will agree to move forward with them intact, but there are some mitigating strategies on the table.

The question you need to ask yourselves is what good are these perks if you lose your job?

 

And trust me, I indeed have asked myself that very question.

But the fundamental issue that I stand on here is that we already have those things - Are they really necessary to cut for this company to be successful? You're telling me that the only way for this company to be stable going forward is to take cuts in those areas? Yes, the game has changed; look at what's around us as far as bankruptcies and concessionary deals. But, a very large chunk of the industry, sans PSA, has seemed to take a stand against the gutting of pilot contracts in order for incompetent management groups to keep things afloat. That stand seems to stem from the shortage of qualified applicants across the industry at the regional level. It looks like it's finally starting to take place. We'll see how that works out. I hope it does.

Look, I understand that there is give and take in any reasonable deal. However, and I would love a real answer here - What's been our part in the "take"? What have we, as pilots, in any way shape or form, been offered in terms of gains that hasn't been outweighed significantly by us giving? All that's been offered, to my knowledge, has been "Hey, sign on the dotted line here, and we'll be put in a better position for you to not lose your job. We can't guarantee anything, but it's worth a shot". Thanks, but no thanks. I was fooled once already and voted on fear. Not again.

I really try to not base my argument on emotion here, but looking at all the inefficiencies on a day-to-day basis literally makes my head spin. I have never seen our management group do anything innovative, creative or outside the box to get any of our problems taken care of out on the line. If we hired real talent in our CS department, we would save a ridiculous amount of money. Hell, even in our training scheduling department in ATL... For instance, numerous times this winter I saw 200% day trips with 6 legs and 3 different captains. For sh*ts and giggles, I looked them up on the seniority list and they were all 10+ year CAs. Now, per the ERJ contract, straight open time pickups on a day off are 3.75 hours of pay guaranteed. They were all on days off, so that means the company paid $1200 for 3 different guys to do a CRP turn, a SHV turn, and LFT turn instead of paying 1 captain roughly $500. How much does that add up to over time? What's the problem here? Is it the ERJ contract, or management's lack of foresight with regard to the implementation of 117 that stopped hiring for a year straight in 2012? How about this - The company consistently cancelling students simulator and FTD sessions due to not wanting to pay an instructor 150% or 200% for a short-notice pickup. Instead, the student sits in a hotel room for a week on the companies dime, collecting per diem all while losing their training momentum only to fail their next sim event because the last one they had was a week and a half prior. Whose fault is that? Is it our instructor group's fault for not picking up on their days off? Does being a team player mean you having to deal with someone else's poor planning like it's an emergency? Is that what management is talking about when they say "We need everyone to get on board"?

Like I said, I understand that no contract is going to be perfect. But, I think our pilot group in general has given enough over the past few years and doesn't need to give anything significantly more. Ever since I've been here, I've seen this company do absolutely nothing but p*ss on the pilot group and burden us with their financial and managerial incompetence.

Now if our management group gave their workforce the tools to do their job properly (parts for MX, software that works for CS that allows them to not lose pilots in the middle of pairings etc.), and did not consistently blame the pilots CBA for poor performance and burden them with things they have no control over, I think you'd see more of a willingness to cooperate in terms of a joint deal. But, until then, this company needs to start being run better from the top down. If I were the head of Inc. I would gut the entire managerial structure of XJT and replace it with people who seem to know how to deal with the operational problems we face.

Until our union comes back with something better than "industry average caused us to get a concessionary deal blah blah blah sign this or you'll probably lose your job blah blah blah *industry leading concessionary contract blah blah blah" (and I don't think that's asking much) I don't think the pilots will seriously entertain anything less than what we already have.

*What the h*ll does this mean anyway? That's like saying "These are the nicest cargo pants to buy Wal Mart" or "That is the hottest fat chick I've ever seen...save me a bite." The play on words from the union and management is hilarious!