Midex/RAH/Frontier
 

Now that the Frontier pilots have a virtual blueprint in front of them on what will be done to them, what will happen to the Lynx pilots? We all know BB's disdain for turboprops?

depends on list intergration. If F9 and lynx are not integrated according to BBs plan. (highly unlikely due to our 98% strike vote the first time around) T-Props go bye bye and Lynx will be flying 170s for frontier for 63 percent of RW and S5 rates. Thus lowering the low bar even lower.

Oh, Goody!

Let's go again!

Great, another RAH/Frontier thread. This one is sure to evolve into a RAH/Midwest hate fest.

P.S Not to bash the original post as it is a logical question, but we all know where this will eventually go.

I thought the Frontier pilots were going to stay separate? Did something change?

The Frontier pilots do not have a virtual blueprint. The YX/RAH acquisition is completely different than the F9/RAH deal. Midwest is flying planes that have been losing money and will be going away. It presents a very big problem to those pilots in the seniority list merger as most if not all will be furloughed by the time a deal is worked out. The F9 pilots are flying for a PROFITABLE company on airframes RAH will want to keep in service. It gives them a whole lot more bargaining power, as it should. F9's current operations should be fenced off from RAH pilots and vice versa, but the lists need to merged. The danger of not having one list is too great to ignore. I understand F9 pilots may be too proud to be on a "regional" airline seniority list, but the whipsaw possibilities are endless if they are run with two lists, or more with lynx.

Isn't Midwest the company that NEVER filed for bankruptcy in its entire history? Isn't Frontier still operating under bankruptcy protection as we speak? Frontier has not made a profit outside of bankruptcy in quite a while.

Neither have a lot of other airlines. BK isn't the end all of a business. It's simply a way for a business to restructure. Which F9 has done. Midwest was kept afloat by other companies for a while. Frontier was not until once in BK.

No need to get defensive. Its just a discussion. I was just pointing out that the two acquisitions are very different. While YX may not be in bankruptcy, they were certainly on their way out. Frontier has done extremely well while in bankruptcy, and never would have gotten there if the credit wasn't pulled out from underneath them. The biggest difference is F9 bringing airframes into the equation while YX is not.

Thats what I want to know. Nobody ever seems to mention Lynx when talking about this whole deal.

Actually, YX did bring in airframes. Those 717's didn't magically appear. They may not be as many as F9 is bringing, but YX most certainly DID bring airframes which BB has decided to replace with E170/E190's.

That's not true. YX shot themselves in the foot with Boeing who decided to take those aircraft back. In a panic YX needed frames to fill those routes so the 170s stepped in. YX never brought in any additional frames.

I predict the buses will be swapped for LCCs E190s and the Frontier pilots will have to fly for RAH rates and rules or take a hike. Sound familiar?

You think a bus would be swapped for a 190?

******ATTENTION!!! THE FOLLOWING IS PURE SPECULATION!!!! *******

Here is how this will play out:

YX, while integration talks happen, they will lose the last of the 717s. Thus furlough for all their guys. This sucks. This will most likely involve a screw job on the YX pilots when it comes to integration. I hope I am wrong. But don't furloughed people on an integration get usually screwed?

F9 will be different. They will get a relatively better deal in integration than their XY counterparts. Their airline, in my opinion, has/had a better future than XY. XY was in serious danger of being an airline with no planes. We will never really know if the airline would have existed if RAH did not come in and buy them out, since the purchase will occur before the last 717 comes offline.

Lynx, will probably be as close to a staple as you can get if it is not really a staple. This airline did not start flying till, correct me if I am wrong, Dec. 2007. That is really close to the bottom of the RAH seniority list. This may benefit the guys coming from XY if they get integrated before the Lynx group, not that T-Prop flying is something a XY pilot would run to do.

This would all happen(MAYBE, as this speculation on my part), if RAH is the highest bidder for F9 and the Midwest deal does not fall through.

Yep a 318 and a 190 aren't that far apart. They could both cover the same routes.

Earliest date of hire at Lynx is either June or July of 07 I believe (cert was issued in Dec 07). With the junior person being in a class going through right now. With those new pilots there will be 140-150ish on property.

Earliest Lynx Hire class is April or March 2007

You don't know that Midwest was on its way out. That is opinion. I thought US Airways was on its way out a few years ago also. Never happened. Midwest management decided to park 24 MD-80's and replace them with 170's flown by Republic. Don't even start that sh!t about The Midwest pilots are not bringing airframes. Anything flown with Midwest painted on the side bigger than 50 seats is brought by a Midwest pilot whether you want to believe it or not. That being said, I think the Midwest pilots will get screwed and the Republic pilots will justify it with your above opinion. Then you guys wonder why everyone hates you. The 190's are straight replacement aircraft for every aircraft in the Midwest fleet. They are flown by the Republic pilots because a judge ruled that anything painted "Connect" on the side is not Midwest. Republic is being chosen because Republic pilots make so little. It seems you guys are proud of that fact. Then you act surprised when the remaining Midwest pilots have nothing good to say about your pilot group.

i could easily see a percentile integration similar to delta/northwest going down for F9. Lynx who knows DOH would execept for the top 40%-50% would in essence be a staple maybe? it would depend on what the hire dates are obviously. Either way since both groups are bringing airplanes into the equation as long as a fence is put up around those operations and the present RAH operation both groups should be content for the most part.

As far as merging the lists in one way or another that must be done. We all have seen how bedford has gone through unions and scope issues and does what he wants so it is a protection that all three groups need.

What's gonna happen with Lynx? Rumor has it that BB is already in talks for more flying for Q's to compete with "another" Q operator, so this "disdain for turbo props" that the local Internet Studs speak of will be wrong. Assuming this deal goes through (which I hope someone else comes in and outbids us) more TP's will be on property flying for Frontier as well as other majors.

The Q400 is budgeted at 260 Gallons per hour and the E170 is 480. Sure the jet is faster but only by 5-10 minutes on the average DEN leg. If BB does hate TP's I am sure they will grow on him when his company is paying the fuel bill. I have been flying the plane since 12/07 and have only bumped PAX once and that was in ASE. The Q is a workhorse in DEN and it would cost him a ton of money to replace them.

I'm curious as to why you think the Frontier pilots should be merged percentile and the Lynx pilots should be stapled. The Lynx pay is closer to Republics than Frontier's. If anything thing the Frontier pilots should be stapled at the top and the Lynx pilots merged in a percentile fashion.

The one thing I wonder about the Frontier Pilots Union is if they are in communication with the Midwest Pilots Union to figure out if there's a way to block republic from scabbing the Frontier flying with republic E-190 jets. It's only taken republic a short time to run all the Midwest guys out of a proper airline job in favor of regional wages on republic (mainline-sized) regional jets. I fear the same fate for the Frontier pilot corp.

If this is allowed to continue, the happy-for-now republic pilots will also be replaced in a few short years by a lower paid pilot group as the precedent has been set here by management. (beautiful for them)

The management's will all blow sunshine until the deals are done with the courts and their bonuses are paid out, just to keep the troops docile.

Wait until about six months from now when that first E-190 starts flying that F9 route out of DEN.

What's the Frontier Pilot Union going to do then? Negociate? What leverage did the Midwest guys have or not have?

Also as an aside, the Frontier Flight Attendents had better vote in a union in the next month or so or IMO they'll all be on the street post-merger. It's amazing how that group has been convinced all these years that they don't need a union. Their relative bargaining weakness has benefited the pilots and mechanics, so I guess it's good for pilots.

-Chief Ouray.........

you miss understood what i said or i didnt make it clear enough. If the most senior guy at lynx is April/May 07 and they have been hiring through to the present time than giving them date of hire would be stapeling most of them since the most junior guy on furlogh at RW is march 08 and most junior working is either january of febuary of 08. DOH would basically be stapeling the lynx guys. once again this is based on the assumtion that most of them have been hired past march 08.

No it's not. Midwest said in public statements that it would not have been able to survive without the additional financing.

Well if Midwest pilots are out of a job with mainline pay/seniority, then it HASN'T survived has it. What has survived is a LOGO, and CEO's inflated paychecks. What's left is nothing. Nothing good or worthwhile will be left. BB will be remembered as Lorenzo's protege'.

Other airlines' CEO's have said the same thing and those airlines are still here. It is a move to try and get labor unions to agree to concessions. In the Midwest case, it did not work. Are you by Chance a first officer making less than $37/hour?


If you give the Midwest pilots straight DOH, the most junior Midwest pilot still working will be about number 20 on the Republic list. DOH is not used anymore. If an arbitrator decides that Lynx is a lesser company than Republic, then he has to consider Republic a lesser company than the other two.

That is true. For some reason this excites the Republic pilots. They think their airline will be the next major. It will never happen. They will never make as much money as the former Midwest pilots. If they did, it would defeat the purpose of replacing the Midwest employees with cheaper labor.

I am a RAH pilot and I am anything but excited.

Hockeypilot, I admire your passion. Truly. Just not your venom. While the RAH group is not exempt from the 5% rule, you have no basis to justify the sweeping and all inclusive statements you make such as that above. It detracts from your credibility.

I think what you're saying is true. Frontier is clearly the "Major" while RAH is a giant compared to Lynx. In a perfect merger it would probably be a staple like Frontier\RAH\Lynx.

Unfortunatly, this situation is not a "perfect merger". In fact it's not a merger at all. RAH is buying Frontier out of bankruptcy. So most likely we'll see a percentage based seniority intigration where RAH pilots make out better than they otherwise would have.

Of course this whole discussion is silly if SouthWest comes in at the last minute and buys Frontier. But if that happens, that might not be a good thing for Lynx or Frontier pilots.

Good luck to everyone.

Hockeypilot is ex-RAH; he spent about 3.5 years on property, got some PIC and escaped to NW. Since then he has spent his time on the forums throwing bombs at his former co-workers. The ones trying to do what he did are in-experienced pimple-faced kids, and the lifers are inferior airline pilots.

aewanabe, I admire your passion. Truly. Just not your venom. While the RAH group is not exempt from the 5% rule, you have no basis to justify the sweeping and all inclusive statements you make such as that above. It detracts from your credibility.

That's exactly how its going to go. RAH will replace the 'Bus with the E-190 as the leases come due. F9 guys will be furloughed. Until the SLI is finalized, every furloughed F9 pilot will go BEHIND the RAH furloughs and the Midwest furloughs.

That's precedent.

And there will be NO DoH. Its not a feature of Allegheny/Mohawk, the current law applicable to diverse union or non-union pilot SLIs.

I fear you are correct with the replacements. The only hope is an improved contract. Although there is very little incentive on the part of MGT to expedite the Section 6 process, perhaps there will be more pressure from the integrated group in combination with the new leadership at the 747, provided of course that the group is willing to work together. That is a big if. Time will tell

And that's really too bad about DOH; that is how it should go, even though most, if not all of the F9 and YX guys would go above me. I would like to see DOH and fenced by paint and have made that suggestion to the guys working the integration, but I don't see it happening.

If the F9 and YX guys get hosed in the SLI, (a lot of them getting stapled) it will create an extremely toxic environment in the cockpit at RAH for decades. This upside down seniority list will have a negative effect on the operations.

So, you want DOH at RAH even though our contract clearly states that's not how it would go down? Aye aye aye. Unbelievable.

No it wouldn't. Hard to happen when no YX pilots will go there. Even in a ratio integration most pilots will losing between 6-14 years of seniority plus the nice 60% pay cut. They will be losing more years of seniority than the pilots they are merging with have years flying. Nevermind the fact that they are back at a commuter being treated like trash.

Bingo... the Republic/Teamsters way of doing business.

By "our contract" do you mean the RAH contract? Sorry, serious question. I don't know who you work for. Regardless, do you have the cite? Chapter and verse, please.