Might want to take another look at that job posting. Even though it is on Mesaba's website, it says Colgan first officer.

As Airsupport pointed out, management is planning on this TA passing and are running this place as if it already has.

I personally believe something drastic would have to happen for this TA not to pass.

No such thing if the TA passes. There is a no furlough clause in one of the LOA's. Nobody additional can be furloughed. So no more chopping block.

I don't get it? What is the difference, Mesaba, Colgan. Won't we all be the same this time next year?

I just hope we get lots of new hires i am sick of being JR manned

It wont matter. You can either refuse it OR get 200% pay and a comp day.

Here's what LOA 2 says:

It basically pushes the company to quickly impliment the 11 days off so they won't have to pay the extra and give a day off.

I expect y'all to get 11 days off around April 1rst (and that's not an April Fools joke)

Sure then they will just juniorman everyone down to 10 without having to give a comp day now.... Any juniorman should have required a comp day like we do now.

That is not true. If you are above min days off and get junior manned they do not have to give you a comp day. That is changing in the next contract if it passes.

actually its anyone who was hired after 6/1/10

With the new contract, they an JR assign me all they want. I'll take the 200% and the comp day. You WILL profit from this. From a road show extreme case...
You get Jr assigned on a day off for 8 hours worth of credit. Thats now worth 16 hours. You pick a comp day later in the month worth 8 hours of flying. You can either sit on your tail and take the extra day off worth 8 hours, or if you want to make some $$, pick something up. Lets say its worth 5 credit hours. You are now making an extra 7.5 hours on top of the 16 + 8 just for one day of work. One less day off for 31.5 hours of pay. Cha-Ching $$$$$

That was a great example of how you can work this contract. Simply take the JM and get a comp day. Pick a comp day with the highest credit and then find a trip in open time worth the highest credit and pick that up and fly it. ALL of it goes above guarantee.

You could even pick a 7 hour day that you have as a comp day and then ask to pick up that EXACT trip out of open time and get paid 10.5 hours.

That does sound like a good deal, almost half a month of pay for working two extra days. I wonder if when all this gets sorted out they will run a properly staffed airline. If they have to junior-man 3 people a month it would be cheaper to hire someone and pay them to sit reserve.

If anyone thinks they're going to be making a goldmine on some line in the contract, you're wrong.

They won't be paying you a huge amount of cash. ALPA is telling you a story that sounds good, but will never happen. It won't be cheaper to hire someone if they have to JA 3 times a month, it will be cheaper to cancel the flights. And everyone knows they're more than willing to cancel a lot more than 3 flights a month (maybe 3 an hour?) before they even think about needing more staffing.

ALPA is trying to sell you a contract by misrepresenting what will happen to you under it. They didn't score anything of major monetary value here, or in many other sections. They can't even get you guys to get paid on the anniversary of when you started even though they're changing your date of hire. From what I've seen of this contract, I definitely would want to make sure I'm not looking at it all through rose colored glasses. It ain't all that great and for a lot of pilots, they're probably going to wish they were under the old agreement once they see what life is like under this new one.

Well......?

Alright Mr. negative, I think people deserve a better representation of this contract, other than just saying it's crappy. I understand there are s few places where we went backwords a little, but there is a lot of good in it also. From what I see, it is by far, a lot better than the current contract of 99 You sir spout off with only negative comments and a lot of assumptions. You must be a real joy to be around

In talking with a friend of mine over at Pinnacle that is pretty in tune with these things.... the new contract contains such items as:

> Reserves going back on reserve after finishing an assignment
> Out of base reserve
> 3x Increase in health insurance costs
> Less sick time accrual
> Seniority awarded training, reserve periods, trip trades (bad if you're on the bottom half of the list)
> No major protections or changes to sick policy
> No major protections or changes to hotels

Completely negligible "increases" that are still subpar including...

> Minuscule 401k increases for bottom half of pilot group
> Minuscule increase in reserve callout time
> 11 days off actually being 10, with "compensatory days" to make up for it - that you can't even use
> Negotiated new corrected DoH not changing your pay, vacation, etc
> Minuscule gains in duty/rest limits


Lots of other sections that are do nothing, laughable, and/or full of holes. I'll try to get more info later. If any of these quoted details are wrong, please let me know, I'll gladly accept my error. I started looking into it to see how good you guys did, since everyone was so happy. It may be better than the old agreement but it is by no means something to be proud of. Your junior guys are getting one bad deal.

Have fun with your higher pay rates, you still won't be home or have the energy to do anything with your money.

Yeah but we get our sick time and vacation accrual printed out on our paychecks. And new hires get auto-enrolled in the 401K plan at 3% of their total earnings (with 0, ZERO, company match the first year). So we have these two huge contract gains.

It is all about perspective, this is a regional contract. What did you expect? I was all in favor of going for 13 min days per month, 5 hours min day but no one would listen to me. I wish they would of at least raised the bar some, maybe 12 days off on long bid months and a bump up to 4.25 for min day. Oh well, it is what it is.

Wow. I really enjoy how you accuse us "ALPA guys" of trying to "sell" the pilots a raw deal, and in the same breath you spout off a bunch of things that are either half-truths or completely wrong. The language is out there to read. Roadshows are everyday. If you have questions, come ask. That is what they are for.

You did in fact point out the lows of the new contract, but this thread is named "Pinnacle Hiring" and someone was trying to get information on the company through this forum. All you provided was a very negative view of Pinnacle without any positives. Since your getting your information from a Pinnacle employee, remember they have fought a tough battle for the last 5+ years, and his view maybe bitter as well. Your tone is reminiscent of the tone of Comair's when they had their GREAT contract. I don't need to tell you what is going on there now. I have a feeling that there may be more of that on the horizon. All I'm saying is there are worse places to work, and you should try to provide a more well rounded view.

Quote from lolwut, "In talking with a friend of mine over at Pinnacle that is pretty in tune with these things.... the new contract contains such items as"

I don't think lolwut works for Pinnacle, Messaba, or Colgan

I don't, but I do care a lot about this industry and its improvement.

And there was. This contract does not lower the bar.

I'm guessing "Assey".

I am going to do my best to reply to a few of the thing that lolwut had in his post. Here it goes:

> Reserves going back on reserve after finishing an assignment

True and it sucks. We have a pretty good system in place at Pinnacle from the current agreement, but we get screwed constantly anyway. I only spent 2 months on reserve though, so I can't say much about the current system. At least the TA has a last day provision though. On the last day of reserve before days off, we have to be released by a given local time. Depends on what reserve period you were on.

> Out of base reserve

This goes to volunteers first. As a commuter, I like the idea of it. If I'm going to be gone from home anyway, may as well have a company paid for hotel room and be getting per diem. What do I care which city they put me in?

> 3x Increase in health insurance costs

This is true, but only for Pinnacle pilots, and only if you are single. That said, do you know anything about our current insurance??? It is by far the best insurance I have had since I started working. It is also the cheapest. I paid a total of $290 last year for health, vision, and dental. That is only $24 a month. There is no way anybody could have expected that to not go up. My new rates are estimated at $88 a month. That is still cheaper than any other insurance I have had. How much do you pay for yours???


> Less sick time accrual

True, but not the whole story. We currently accrue 3.75 hours of sick time each month. The new contract has us accruing 2.5 hours per month. Sounds like we get less, but the new contract has an Extended Sick Leave policy where the company pays us after the third day of sick time taken. I don't fully understand how it works, but it is apparently out of Mesaba's current book so hopefully an XJ guy could help explain.

> Seniority awarded training, reserve periods, trip trades (bad if you're on the bottom half of the list)

As for the trip trades being in Seniority order, you are referring to what is in the contract as the "Line Improvement Period." This is the first 48 hours after lines are published where all pilots are allowed to submit 5 trades a piece. The trades are then dealt with in seniority order. After the first 48 hours, all requests are done on a first come first serve basis.

> Minuscule increase in reserve callout time

Seriously, how much do you need? It's called "short call reserve". It's 1:45 at most bases and 2:00 in ATL, EWR, IAD, JFK, and LGA.

> 11 days off actually being 10, with "compensatory days" to make up for it - that you can't even use

Minimum days off is 11. The misconception is coming from the following provision in the Transition Agreement (LOA-2).

"Beginning April 1, 2011 and until such time as Pinnacle and Colgan are able to
implement the requirement of Section 12.E., a Pinnacle or Colgan Pilot who is
awarded one less than the minimum contractual days off in Domicile in a Bid Period
shall receive either a Compensatory Day or an additional vacation day, at the Pilot’s
option, for that Bid Period. In addition, the Pilot shall receive 8 hours of Pay Credit,
paid above guarantee."The next paragraph says that we can start asking for the comp days after September of 2011. There are provisions that the company must award them.Basically this comes down to the fact that we don't have the staffing to automatically require the 11 days off. We know it, and the company knows it so we put this in there to allow for some hiring. We will be given 11 days off eventually.

> Negotiated new corrected DoH not changing your pay, vacation, etc

Yeah, that one sucked. At Pinnacle, we are currently considered employed after passing our checkride. It is being adjusted to the date we started training, but the new date will only affect the SLI. Our pay will still be based off the old DOH. It sucks, but is only worth about 7 weeks of the pay difference a year. I'll assume that is about $1.50/hr for about 130 hours. Hardly something to vote no about.

That's funny, I never had any issue with my 18 days + holidays, weekends off and 90+ credit, and that's with this current contract and no pick ups. Dont' worry I will have fun with my new higher pay rates and work rules.

The day pilots don't complain is the first day I will begin to worry.

your awesome! keep drinking the kool-aid.

amen :D I like your style...

how is it kool-aid it it is true?? :rolleyes: I have the same schedule he does and am as snug as a bug in a rug.

as opposed to you trying to nullify the gains by misrepresenting what will happen to us under it??

If we vote this down as you think we should, for the betterment of all regionals, then in 3 months it will be forgotten all about "taking one for the team" and you and your "acey" gang will just complain that we are undercutting you by working under the '99 contract.....and still not say hi or make eye contact in the airport...

You got alot of cohones! I care about my friend Bubbles and the state of the Titty Bar Industry but I keep my nose out of the affairs of other people.

If you don't work for Pinnacle, Mesaba or Colgan you should keep your two cents out of the debate. If you want to be an activist for the improvement of the airline industry go lay in front of a CEO's Mercedes.

which side of pinnacle is seeing the most hiring, and which has the lowest mins.

On feb 18th it will all be the same company.

mins are 1500/200

I have applied to both Colgan and Pinnacle via the airline apps website.
Is there an adress and or fax number for one or both of these companies to directly submit a resume? Is that taboo now?

airline apps is sufficient. If you want to call and follow up use the 800# listed on the website

Pinnacle side hasn't interviewed since Dec. 9th. Supposedly Mesasba(Colgan) is trying to fill class all the way through April. Good Luck!

Pinnacle just interviewed a group on Feb 1st. a buddy of mine was offered a slot on the 200 however his class isn't until august

Cool, thanks for the update. Glad to hear they are interviewing again!