minimwage4

Midwest Airlines to ground 717s in November - The Business Journal of Milwaukee:

Midwest Airlines of Oak Creek will permanently ground its Boeing 717 jets on Nov. 3, leaving the remaining Midwest pilots and flight crews without jobs.
“While there will still be airplanes flying with ‘Midwest’ written on them, there will no longer be any of the pilots who truly provided ‘the best care in the air’ operating them,” said Anthony Freitas, chairman of the Midwest Airlines unit of the Air Line Pilots Association.
“All of the original Midwest flight crews are being outsourced in the final phase of dismantling our airline.”
The remaining Boeing 717 aircraft will be returned to the manufacturer on Nov. 3 and all of the remaining Midwest pilots will no longer fly any Midwest aircraft, according to the union.
“Midwest’s new owner hopes that if they keep the same paint scheme and cookies, no one will notice that the crews who helped build our airline’s well-deserved reputation for award-winning customer service are gone,” Freitas said.
The move to lower-cost pilots will be “devastating” to Midwest pilots and their families, he said.
Midwest is replacing its nine remaining Boeing 717 aircraft with Embraer 190 aircraft. Last October, Midwest entered into an agreement with Indianapolis-based Republic Airways Holdings to replace Midwest's Boeing 717s with Embraer aircraft flown by pilots employed by Republic subsidiary Republic Airlines.
Midwest Airlines, which is now owned by Republic Airways (NASDAQ: RJET), filed an updated mass layoff notice with the state on Sept. 25 indicating that 68 pilots and 52 flight attendants would be furloughed in November as a result of the grounding of the 717 planes.

eaglefly

This was the plan from the beginning.

The larger RJ's flown by regionals will soon sweep the majority of the domestic market. As each new carrier arrives and grows it forces others to join.

Had 2 friends who went there and are now on the streets with outlooks for this industry bleaker by the day.

FlyASA

Going forward ALPA needs to be focused on protecting scope and more importantly doing something about codeshares. What's to stop the majors in Skyteam, One World, and Star Alliance from code sharing with RAH on domestic flights? I doubt Tilton, Arpey, Anderson, Parker, or Smisek (well soon at least) care if RAH operates their domestic flights as long as they get a share of the money. The majors operate the international stuff and regionals do the domestic stuff in ever bigger "RJs" (C-Series anyone?) or just flat out operating A320s (like RAH/F9 will be) or 737s. It's the perfect way for them to whipsaw their own unions and combat the LCCs.

The lack of negative response out of the CEOs of majors against RAH makes me wonder if something is up. RAH is using the money from their lucrative fee for departure contracts to compete against their "partners." Why aren't these CEOs angry, they are funding their own competition!

Dirty Rat

All I know is that DAL/NWA was behind the dismantling of Midwest and continues to be a player in there behind the scenes. This whole "code share" that enabled Republic to come in and take our jobs was a bogus ruling. Even more so was the last ruling by the same judge in clear violation of our contract. To bad we agreed to binding arbitration process. We would have won in Federal Court. Maybe this is the area where ALPA needs to concentrate on and do away with the binding arbitration process. There is no justice when a pilot group can be sacrificed for the share holders to make millions and a cockroach carrier like Republic and its pawns to come in and steal the crumbs.

Scoop

Why should they be? Compensation for U.S. CEO's appears to be totally unrelated to profits these days. They will make milions whether they make a profit or file chapter 11.

Scoop

acl65pilot

I think that there is a little irritation about the moves RJET has made. Privately who knows, but it does work out quite well.

Like I have been saying, not a single change in Section one as it relates to ANY Domestic Code share or SJS. Enough it is enough.
Code Shares intra Europe, Africa and the like make sense, but not domestically. Alaska was OK in intent, but if it continues I am afraid what our Western Front will look like.

On a side note, it is starting to be a good time to acquire Alaska.

johnso29

This thread might not last long.

eaglefly

ALPA is most concerned with protecting their revenue stream. Even if they were to become agressive now, I believe it's far too late.

The more large RJ's that fly outside the control of majors, the more pressure on them to compete. They know the potential of these aircraft, but the lions share of their economics depend on regional scale labor costs, so their choice is join or run.

My guess is they'll have to join.

whaleroast

Well, I will make sure no Republic pilots can jumpseat on my aircraft and I encourage the rest of you that have the balls to do so to do the same. This is complete and utter b.s. and the Midwest guys/gals are in my thoughts.

⌐ AV8OR WANNABE

Not a Republic or MidEx pilot and I too find it apalling that Republic pilots will now be flying all MidEx routes. Having said that, how can you say you'll ban Republic pilots from your jumpseat? How are they guilty of this? They simply do what the management tells them to do. It was a legal aquisition and until they merge their seniority lists unfortunately what you see is what you get.

...if you were a Republic pilot what would you have done differently?