Like I have said, We need to decide as an industry to do this.

I do not see many regulators, unionists, or managers willing. This industry is politically energized and when people under oath state there is not an issue with the set up, we have a long way to go.

We are moving a few steps at a time, and that is progress. If the regulations that are proposed to not get watered down, the cost of Connection flying will go up exponentially. Cost and money is the ultimate motivator.

We as pilots need to stop pointing fingers at each other. I have been on both sides of the fence, and the blame game serves none of us well.

It seems that many of them have given most of theirs up anyway through paycuts loss of pension etc... Maybe if we all played on the same team we would get something productive done. I can dream right.:cool:

The catch 22 is that the WB guys and unions are not trying to save the top pay for the FAE figures for the pensions. That will ultimately bite em.

True, but now it's a matter of holding on to what little they've go left. Of course you can dream.

But how would you deal with this problem? You know as well as anybody else, there's only so much negotiation capitol to go around. Do you spend in on the top guys trying to ensure the FAE for retirement? If you did, who's to say it'll be there for the junior guys that got sacrificed on the process? Or, spread it around so that every pilot on property gets a piece of the pie? Like I said, there's only been a very brief period of time where both of those occurred recently.

And yep, I agree with you, this industry, and more specifically this career needs so much overhaul that accomplishing ANY of it will be a miracle.

Just a question, how many hours do you think the avg, F-16 pilot has before he graduates from flight school? Do you know what the screening process is for fighter school is today for USAF?
CO ANG F-16 Squadron just had a young pilot fly his 200th hour as PIC in his F-16 and 100th hour in an F-16. So you and your 200 hour wonder wings is bologna just like your last posting. Get over it!

This is where the real problem lies: one would think they have the best intentions with what they do, especially in the union, however reality paints a much different picture. I'm sure the pilots that gave away scope didn't expect it to become what it is today; hindsight is always 20/20. Everyone is screaming for regional reform but no one is willing to take the difficult steps required to do this. This is completely an internal problem that is between pilots and our respective airline managements. Dragging the news media, the public, and especially congress into this is going to have unforeseen consequences that are negative.

Requiring 1500hr and an ATP is not going to raise pay....since when has experience ever been the case for or basis of pilot pay? It has always been years of service with your airline. People thinking this is going to change is absurd. Other pilots are not going to shoulder the burden of future pilots for the benefit of the public's safety. Our pay is what the union has bargained on our behalf. The top w2 at DAL mainline is over $300K, the bottom at one of its regional carriers is just above $16K. $125K is the average pay for all pilots from DCI and DAL mainline together.

If current pilots aren't willing to sacrifice their compensation to raise the entry level salaries then management has two options: 1) Hire people who meet the time requirements and are willing to make those salaries, but do not fit other categories of a desirable candidate(violations, DUI's, etc) or 2) Lower the minimums to fill the positions. You are exchanging option 2 for option 1 with the ATP requirement.

Be careful what we wish for........

Do RJ's hurt Major airlines?

No, they made the modern hub and spoke airline. Pre deregulation flying MD-80's to Bakersfield days are far behind us. The only successful airline models are Southwest point to point (and getting less point to point everyday) and the hub and spoke. This is what the market demanded and that is what the flying public got.

Why don't you get all the jet flying at mainline?

Because the airlines, the pilot unions and the pilot's flying at the mainline don't really want it. The guy who said that the regionals is the new B scale is right on. Why would a guy flying at the mainline invest any bargaining capital in bring back the smaller jets? He has a job. The only reason we are talking about this is because the "seniority treadmill" has stopped (because of the economy and age 65). ALPA gets paid on both ends, so why fight it. In two or three years, it will fade into the background.

Refuse to hire RJ pilots?

Not to sound like a broken record, but the unions don't hire pilots. Why would an airline not hire someone who is doing the same job for years and thousands of hours? Who else? The military guys already go to the front of the line and there are fewer every day. Do you want a UAV pilot instead of a RJ pilot. Remember that all of the RJ pilots are union paying members. If I were flying at a regional and ALPA said don't hire me, how long will ALPA be at my regional? Even if I got on, would I all of sudden become the rah rah union guy knowing that you tried to stick it to me?

Start hiring turboprop guys and FAR 135?

Let's see, I could choose someone who is doing the very same job for me or one of my competitors or I could go out on a limb and hire an "unknown quantity". Maybe the guy's great, maybe not. Will I invest the money to find out? No.

Minimum time requirements?

Sounds good on paper. First, the only reason why total times were low was because we ran low on pilots. That won't be a problem for awhile, until the numbers drop. I believe in the almighty buck and those universities need to draw in people, so I think there will always be that exception to the rule. It may not be Gulfstream, but it may be Purdue or UND. Worse case, there will be someone with a C-172 or PA28 running 1000 hr time builder specials.

You all make a lot of points, and I agree with many of them. The latter threads seem to be very accurate and would be better seen to EVERYONE out there - especially customers! It bothers me to see that some of the earlier threads in this conversation pit pilots against pilots, and we all know that's not fair. As an outsider (merely an aviation buff and commercial aviation customer) who lurks on these boards, I see what looks to be a major management problem, as well as a major regulatory problem. The FAA doesn't have the balls to state the real underlying problems, management wants the cheapest labor no matter what (they are more concerned about maximizing short-term shareholder value over long-term value), and customers are too blind to realize that they're getting contracted flights from who-knows-who. The guys running the contracted carriers are doing their best and so are the pilots, so they can't be totally blamed (unless they're RAH, because they blew midwest :-) don't get too offended unless you're an RAH manager - if you are, have a nice day). I work for a marginal local non-profit that routinely hires less-than-optimal people. My salary is less than even that of the bottom-of-the-rung regional pilot so I can't blame ambitious people for taking the work, but at the same time, no lives are really at stake as a result of my work. If regional pilots are recruited with less than optimal training at less than optimal salaries, they're not to blame - they just want a job and are willing to take one up the ### to get there! Regardless of my little side-track and whatever our opinions are of regional pilots and aircraft, let's not forget that most of these problems originate with customers (and their search for the lowest possible fares, yet still expecting f__ing caviar and free hookers), management (their lust for making the best possible bottom line for future promotions - at any cost), and regulators who scratch backs with management and screw the licensed professionals who have the burden of getting everyone where they want to be on time safely. So what comes next? Instead of blaming regional pilots for taking the jobs, and instead of just b""""ing about all of the problems, what's it going to take? Customer awareness? Customer revolt? I might have a few ideas, but in any case it has to come from the customers. Big companies have a tendency not to listen to employees. Money talks.

Really there isn't much else to say.

Congratulations BlueMoon!

...on to something else....

As have said on another thread, a company is only as good as it's weakest link. In flying on some of DAL contract carriers, the level of service and performance leaves a lot to be desired. The customer still blames DELTA at the end of the day. I do not blame the regional pilot for this because much of this is out of his control. I blame DAL management for the relationships they establish with the regionals. SWA and AT do not have regionals therefore they do not have the problems tied to them that other mainline carriers do. Where is the motivation to do well when the regional guys are guranteed the bucks for the trip wheather the seats are full or not??? It seems as if there is a general attitude of not really giving a hoot about the operation and running a good operation. Not everyone concerned but a general kind of don't care attitude. Just my observation.

As for what the regional guys make -buck up and pound the pavement and get some more bucks.Many of alpa pilots have marched the picket lines for the mainline pay that we have today although it has been reversed somewhat with the recent spat of bankrupcy.

My take is that regionals were supposed to build markets and feed from smaller cities to the mainline hub. I think a good solution is to get back to this in that city size determine where the regional jets fly.

Everyone has paid his dues to get to where he is today. Everyone knows the game. If you don't like the starting pay, regional pay, or mainline pay find a new job. It is not the job it used to be. As i told a friend the other day "it's a sh--ty job now not a career.":(

So do RJs hurt main line??? Yes in the way the managements run them not because of the pilots.

Maybe I didnt specify....but are you telling me 200 hour military pilots are equal to 200 hour fight pilots??? I am pretty sure that is not accurate. I was speaking specifically about civillian pilots. Building a foundation on zero to hero, going straight to an airline, and becoming a captain after a year or two builds a very weak foundation. In fact that resume matches the captain of Colgan 3407.

You sure about that? AirTran is jumping back into the regional business. I believe it's with Skywest. Guess they forgot the first time.

With the joint ventures being attempted additional mainline jobs are now threatened from the upper end now. At what point will all outsourcing be taken seriously. The only thing outsourcing does is allow management to put more money in their pockets and shift blame to the subcontractor when something is not right.

.........................Great post !

If he is he is correct and dead wrong.

Stick and Rudder wise, both have complete basic flight school. The military guy can think geometrically, where the civvie generally has no close. There you go. Military guys are better, yeah! Lets stop that crud.


What they both lack the the ability and experience to operate in the 121 world. The Regional guys that come to mainline work in the system every day, understand RNAV RNP, CATI II III etc. They know the radios and FMC stuff. There are some military guys that have never seen it. It takes some spool up for that.

Military guys and gals are better employees. They follow orders, the are pro company and skeptical of unions when they are hired. Regional guys know the game and are not going to be sold on anything.

In the end if you make it to a major your flying abilities match. We are both rough around the edges on some level. Really who cares?

Some of the biggest pro scope restoration pilots are former military guys.

Many ppl want pin the failures on the unions. That is where part of the blame game should start. We should have never started pitting RJ union houses against mainline. Score one for the Labor Relations teams.

We are where we are. To fix it either we need to work together.

As to a previous question, I see pay and bennies taking priority over scope restoration in this round of contracts. Next contracts when there is a 100 seat jet on mainline property we may see further maturation of the regional world.
Mainline guys will get as much pay as they can without selling a seat, pound or jet. 100 seat jets are off limits. IMO even in 1113C I do not see unions budging on this one.

kinda late to this thread and if it's already been said, forgive me. RJs don't hurt the majors, subcontracting RJs hurt the mainline. It may be good on a balance sheet but the intangibles aren't counted by accountants.

Very true.

They see ppl buying tickets, but can not measure the cost of that jets being an RJ, or someone not coming back.....

I have to take exception to a couple of things here, ACL. RNAV RNP is taught in pilot training. Any multi place airplane in the USAF now does Cat II and they all have FMC/FMS. Fighter guys, while not as well versed in weather landings, operate in weather using synthetic vision at low level at night in wx at 500Kts. Military guys routinely operate multiple radios on multiple frequencies both encrypted and not.

You're right, we don't know the specifics of ATL or ORD or JFK operations. I've often said the hardest part of learning this job was getting from the gate to the runway at ATL.

What the 500 hour military pilot has over the 500 hour civilian is depth and breadth of experience, command experience and weight of responsibility. Neither of the two are qualified for a Part 121 job however. By the time the two reach a Major interview, they are pretty much equal.

SAT, that is great, I just randomly picked things that military guys in my flight err calss got wrapped around the axle in. Put a A-10 guy in a 88 and there is a lot he has never seen.

I totally agree that 500 hrs in the military equals about 2500 civvie. It is because military guys do not fly as much. 1000 hrs in a 16 is about 10 years of experience and about 1.3 years of civilian flying. I do not argue that.

I also agree that working the radios on ground is the most difficult part of 121 flying for an FO and taxiing for a CA.

Trust me Sat, I was not picking on military guys, I was illustrating that the flying done to defend our freedom is vastly different that motoring around for Mama Delta.

So IAH-ORD is transporting people between small communities? Check your facts.

Here we go again. That "kid" in the f-16 went through a hell of a lot more stringent screening and training process than any POS regional pilot. A regional pilot just needs a pulse and a checkbook to qualify for their job.

Like I said, quite going after each other. I do not care what you background is. It is about working together to deal with the issue. That does not mean a give me on a seniority number or whatever.
It means accept what is, and try to raise the bar.

Spoken like a true person that never had to fly at the regional level! "POS regional pilot", come on man....... Do you think that majority of us want to be at this level? WE have all had to do what we had to do to get that "job" with a major, wether it be the military route or the civilian route. The majority of us have all worked hard to get there. I know of guys at SW that had a whole bunch of "parker pen" time to get there, so save your ranting about regional pilots for someplace else. I dont think my interview with my regional was very easy, hell we had to do an AA medical just to get through and fly a 707 sim.... Now that was years ago but do you really think I still want to be here? No a little thing called 9/11 happened and then in our case, a little thing called "flow-back" happened. Lets not lump all the regionals together....

This is insanity!

Reading these RJ vs. Majors threads are a repeated reminder that Airline Pilots are simply not the best and brightest of our nations citizens. One shouldn't be surprised that we find ourselves without pensions, declining pay, and endless contractual negotiations. It always amazes me that a group can be so fond of eating its young, but yet expecting to thrive in the long term. Let's be honest with ourselves, over the past 25 odd years those in this profession have been out manuevered, out negotiated, and out thought by the very management that we are so fond of referring to as "foolish", "stupid","incompetent".

RJs are the organic outgrowth of what was once the A scale-B scale. It came about because a senior group of pilots were willing to sacrifice the new hires to enrich themselves. Many of those pilots are now retired, collecting their pensions, or made the final western journey. Many of those junior pilots, now senior, having been once sold out are now struggling to reach that quality of life and income levels that they had always anticipated, and deserved! They find themselves constantly threatened by this RJ (37-99 seats) that fly routes that they once flew on 737s, DC-9s, F28, BAC 111s. However, unfortunately the airlines having tasted blood and will only expand RJ flying going forward not contract it. Hence the reason that E-190s and C-300s are being referred to as "Regional Jets". The current crop of mainline pilots AND the current crop of B scalers (read regional pilots) were sold out long ago. Don't be fools and believe that by taking the same actions (i.e. throwing each other under the bus) that the end result will somehow be better!

One of our pilots at my regional came up with this:

ONE BRAND, ONE STANDARD, ONE CONTRACT

Let's stop the insanity!

Scope is always for sale, ALWAYS!

For your 18th post on these forums, you sure posted a doozy. :mad:

ANYTHING with over 4 seats should be flown, MX'd, catered, and purchased by the MainLine carrier. We would not have any of the problems that the industry currently faces..........It was a race to the bottom and hopefully we have reached the LOW point.....:(

An ATP should be required for 121......no waiver.....no exceptions.....you either have it or you don't.

I do not have all the answers here still being one of those regional guys, but we really must end this who is to blame for our current situation argument.
Here is an idea to fix things, take it or leave it.

While a quick look thru UAL's contract there are pay rate for these aircraft only.
B747-400 B777 B767/757 A320/319 B737-300
Why should they have more when that is all they operate?
How about adding negotiated pay rate for the regional aircraft that the want back to mainline. All the way down to the Dash of even a 1900. If your mainline company can save money by keeping the flying in house, they will. They are greedy SOB's after all. This will also help recall the furloughed pilots you currently have.
I understand that the pay to be competitive is pathetically low, but some one is going to have the flying, and we might as well get it back to the mainline instead of shifting it all away to Regionals.
Over time, we can slowly re capture scope to ensure that no aircraft will be flown without brand X pilots at the helm, and then work on getting pay back up.
If some has a better Idea or disagrees, Flame away...

Read all of his...they're all strangely similar. Lost of "pulse and a checkbook" references to RJ pilots. Just another flame-baiting d00shbag. Good think we have the ability to ignore posts.

So, I'm a POS pilot? Dude I wish we were face to face. You have no clue what some of us had to do to get here.

I agree....however to work together, we need to treat each other as equals...I still see a lot of patronizing "we are superior" attitude from many of your colleagues.

The Colgan incident is the exception, not the rule. As you know better than most, at ASA, many pilots are more experienced than many at the majors. We have a great safety record...better than some majors. I have had more than one former ASA pilot tell me that the ASA training department is better than what they experience at the majors...including Delta and Southwest.

Mutual respect as equals is the first step...

Joe, as you know that is a two way street.

I could get in to the difference of training and the different needs, but yes, ASA is a top notch operation, no doubt about that.

In the end we safely fly pax around in our respective aircraft with big widgets or wavy gravy on the tail. We are equals on that regard.

The two companies though are different on many different levels. The biggest ones being the paycheck, work rules, and scope of operation...

It is indeed a two way street...Has there been much effort to treat us as equals? It is you who is giving the "Rodney King - we all need to get along" speech"....The past doesn't say that is something your side really believes....I can accept it if I believe it is real....If not, we can continue with the status quo...The choice is one for your side to decide...

Yes you could, but the facts say that mistakes can be made at ALL levels and not all regionals are the same....given that, why are regionals being lumped into the same group?

I agree.

1. Paycheck has betting getting closer...That's no surprise. That was the goal.

2. Work rules have been getting closer..That's no surprise...I wouldn't trade my QOL for yours for any price.

2. "Scope of operation"...Can you clarify that one?

I agree with you that that was the goal. But paychecks getting closer has more to do with the hit the majors took bringing them down. My current concessionary rate at an "industry leading CBA" is STILL less than my last carriers, and that rate was concessionary as well.

True, but see the above. My last carriers "regional" work rules were better than many legacies, till UAL/DAL's set a new standard. When UAL took concessions, we STILL had better rules than UAL (and some others) had.

I'm just using CAL here as an example, can't really measure DAL (high end) and not UAL (bottom end) in this comparison.

This ties into another thread where I said the same thing. But of the guys I know that have gone to CAL, NONE of them regret it. They are glad they made that choice, although the first six months completely sucked due to the substandard treatment. The first year or two may have sucked as well while they waited for their pay to catch up to what they left. They make that all too common statement that their "worst day at CAL will ALWAYS be better than than their best day at XJT". I'll take their word for it. But the one big thing they miss, and the one thing they wish they had was the work rules they had at XJT.

That's true....that's a result of the analogy of pay and workrules being like water...They seek out the same level. Regional pay and workrules came up, and mainline came down.


Help me understand this....They wish they had the XJT workrules, they hated the first 6 months, and they gave up all of the seniority and longevity....Why is it better than what they had at XJT? I really don't understand what is better...

Well, sort of, in some cases. The point I was getting at was that regionals have gained while the majors lost. But not always the case. Like I said, I'm making less now than I did for the year 2002 for the same seat and I'm on a larger aircraft, about 7K less a year. AND having to spend more time away from home/in the cockpit to do it. Crap flows downhill in this thing.

The classic case of breaking the golden handcuffs. You've been in this long to know this one principle. You can have it pretty good at a regional. You can make good money at a regional, etc. But at the end of the day, it's STILL a regional. You're the whipping boy of your management, who is in turn the whipping boy of the management(s) your company feeds for. And all the market force crap that goes along with it. OR, in you're specific case, you're the whipping boy of your management, who is the whipping boy of the company that owns your company, that is the whipping boy of the managements your company feeds for. That makes you the whipping boy thrice removed. But to answer you question of what makes it better? As we all know, money can be a great equalizer.

I'd preferably be the number one whipping boy.

food for thought .
 

Regionals were created by the majors in order to do an end run around mainline,so good luck getting that genie back in the bottle.
They know exactly what they are doing so the question is how do you beat them at their own game ?

Fred