Phteven

Leverage and saving money go hand-in-hand. If we did 100% of Alaska's regional flying then we would have ground to stand on negotiating pay and QOL improvements (a la Comair). If Skywest did all of it, there wouldn't be a clear and present risk of losing the contract, even if there theoretically are other regionals to contract to. Have two different companies flying the same airplane on the same routes going to the same gates...different story.

We are wholly-owned, but that doesn't matter as far as direct competition goes (look at what American had set up for internal competition for their own flying). We are the most expensive but that's what they're trying to change. Our airplane does suck but I think they're finally realizing that.

I agree entirely, we have no cards to play! We can't say that they need us and give them a list of demands. If we bury our heads in the sand they might just think we are worth closing down, but leverage is the long game in keeping regional pay depressingly low. There's something to gain long term in creating direct competition even if our final costs are not cheaper, and there is certainly a lot to lose by telling us we'll shrink by close to half if we don't win the bid. Who else contracts out regional flying and doesn't do this? It's just how the industry works now.


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lowflying

Most of AAG couldn't care less if QX or OO gets the flying. Your reading way too much into what's on the surface; the sociopaths making these decisions are going to get paid no matter what. You can tell yourself that they're transparent morons all you want but they don't have to be smart to screw us over.

snackysmores

Scenario 1: Qx tells mgt to **** off and refuses concessions. Jets go to skywest, junior FOs quit, no new hires come, airline shrinks and dies.

Scenario 2: Qx takes concessions for jets. Qx becomes equal with skywest. Junior FOs quit because they will never fly the jet and the Q flying will be atrocious. No new hires come because if Qx = everyone else and everyone else already has jets, why go to Qx?

Scenario 3: Qx gets jets at current contract. Not even gonna bother entertaining this one.

lowflying

Check your contract.. If they get jets The new hires will be placed into either plane as needed. Only captains can bid different aircraft. There could be a 2015 hire bidding number one in the jet while somebody two years senior is sitting on the bottom of the Q list...

alaskadrifter

Anyone know what life is like being junior in the ANC base?

Phteven

What's so unrealistic about scenario 3? Almost everywhere right now there are improvements to signing/retention bonuses, pay and benefits boosts, etc. and our best case scenario is maintaining status quo? They want a mile and maybe we give an inch, we're going to call that a win even though a first year FO here right now makes less and they would at Skywest. I agree entirely this is ****ty news no matter what the outcome is, but what I'm saying admist all the doom and gloom is our absolute best case scenario is to come out of this with no opportunity to ask for more, only to stand our ground and not take less. In the current landscape, that is already a loss for us! We're not even entertaining the idea of asking for more. There is no way AAG can lose.

Klsytakesit

Sympathy is involved if the outsourcing is to a wholly owned carrier.....Outsourcing ran away with at least american and delta(and continental / northwest....)easier to take back flying when there is no connection.....Horizon has shown their true colors over and over.....Best to get what you can and move on

snackysmores

The Supreme Leader has already spoken. Alaska pilots took their medicine, now it's time for Horizon pilots to bend over during a period of record profits.

Phteven

I think few regional pilots hope to see the regional industry flourish and grow. "Get what you can and move on" is what everyone starts out trying to do at the regionals. Some aren't as successful as others, especially when mainline carriers are farming out their flying to cheap regionals and there become fewer and fewer seats at the table for regional pilots hoping to move on to the majors. In a perfect world their would be no two-tiered system and regional flying will just be done by junior mainline pilots, but I think it is a little ambitious to think that the regionals will never exist.

Where there is hope in this industry is to have the regional airlines function at a more consolidated level than they are now, and under the same roof as their mainline counterparts. The "race to the bottom" is due to multiple regionals bidding for the same flying - it does nothing good for the industry to feed that concept by moving regional flying away from WO carriers and to independent FFD carriers. It has already been said a million times - Alaska needs to get scope to keep this from getting out of hand. However, what is good for all pilots is for this FFD regional contract system to die and regional flying to be reclaimed by the mainlines to the greatest extent possible, and the rest be covered by single, WO regionals. Pick your favorite mainline, work for the WO regional that is the sole regional operator for that mainline and therefore has the negotiating power to get a livable wage, and eventually flow to that mainline - sure not what the industry looks like today but I don't think this is out of the realm of possibility.

It just goes to show that even in the best of times, there is always an excuse for a fresh round of BOHICA. Nothing to take personally here, he's not a friend ****ing us over. He'd get a round of applause from the shareholders and an end of year bonus for getting a concessionary contract during their most profitable year ever. That's like the airline management equivalent of deadsticking an A320 onto the Hudson.

Easy, vote no. Seems to be working everywhere else right now.