I'm curious what makes you so confident of that. As pilots, we get what we can negotiate for. With no union, you are at the mercy of our employer, who already has you for peanuts. Why should he pay more?

Blind optimism. Actually the things that come to mind are:
1. We are still a very young airline. I have no idea what SWA's payrates were six years in but I doubt they were on top like they are now.
2. There have been a lot of measures taken in 2006 to make the numbers better. These include better route management, ticket pricing, single-engine taxi becoming normal ops, and of course pulling out six seat on the 320s so we only need 3 FAs (I still have mixed feelings on that one).
3. I still hold out a glimmer of hope that if management sees they are about to get a pilot union on the property (not just the b!tching that goes on here and on bluepilots) they may be realize that giving a respectable raise to both seats in both aircraft is a better way to go. I can already hear you guys laughing but everybody's gotta have a dream.

Hypothetical question: Would all the union folks out there still hate us as much if our payrates were the same as yours and we didn't have a union? Just curious. Save the "it doesn't matter cause it will never happen" line.

First off, "Hypothetically" ask yourself why your MGT would pay you those rates (assuming you were lucklily enough to get them)

Traditionally is the UNIONIZED carriers that have raised the bar and set the market rate.Many look at Non union shops as simply riding coat tails.
If you think that your MGT is simply going to offer to give you a substantial pay rate plus other benefits............you will be thinking a long time.

I appreciate your answers to the why question that I asked. As for the union folks hating you, I don't think that is the case across the board. What we hate is that some of you guys seem to take great glee in dancing on our graves as we go through some hard times. The "everyone hates us" attitude that you have smacks of paranoia. Of course, when others are out to get you, paranoia can make sense <G>.

I don't think it has anything at all to do with the $$$ amounts at stake. Through no doing of my own, I now find myself making almost twice as much money as the captains at passenger airlines. I don't hate them over it. Now were they non union and for some reason gloating at me all the time about that fact, or hear them rub my nose in the theory that their business plan was going to trump my company's, I might feel some ill will.

The dollars only amount to a "whose dick is bigger" contest. It's the attitude of superiority from many of your own that rubs people the wrong way. We've see airlines like yours come and go over the years, all with a better plan that was going to destroy the legacy carriers. The legacy airlines are like the Sphynx. They were here before you guys showed up, and they will be here after you are long gone.

Amen, I didn't appreciate the celebrating that was going on when American was giving all of us the walking papers (some of us, like me before I even finished the Medical!).


Likely true.. The LCC thing reminds me a bit of the dot bomb thing.. everyone jumped on the bandwagon, and then everyone jumped off!

I was going to go back and delete the hyptothetical question since it's just going to stir up flame, but since it has already been addressed in replies I won't. I do understand pro-union points of view and recognize the gains unions have made over the years. There are plenty of threads about union issues. I don't want to hijack this one and turn it into another.

just do us and yourself all a favor and when the time come to vote on bringing on ALPA.. VOTE YES!

Naturally I gotta get all the facts first. No promises.

Fins,

If (IF!) B6 had the industry leading contract for both pay and benefits, then you would be welcome on my jumpseat. You would be "jacking the house" in the finest Union tradition.

Reality check...you accepted a job at a non-union carrier that undercut my contract in numerous ways. Pound sand.

I think the reality is that your contract is only as good as your negotiation skills and position. If someone else's contract is a factor in your negotiations, it is only so because your position is too weak to provide a counter-argument.