Re: RAH
 

After reading these silly forums for years, it is safe to say that almost everyone agrees that the outsourcing of "regional" flying has been single most detrimental and destructive action towards the quality of our careers. Most wish that we could go back in time and NOT allow outsourcing. If it's an airplane with a specific brand/paint job, it should be flown by flight crews under one seniority list. No matter the size, number of seats, or distance flown. This provides the most protection to the unionized labor at the company.

Now look at RAH. A low cost major airline has become one with a regional airline. A major airline and regional airline will become one seniority list, represented by the same union, and protected by the same contract. This is a good thing.

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The down side of that is the pilot against pilot, union against union fighting will take years to smooth out. I doubt we will all see eye to eye before the company fails.

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I do think this company will fail. There is little hope that this company will survive more than a few years.

Every day that I go to work, I am amazed that any of us actually work here. It is an incredibly negative work environment, and it is due to our companies inability to run itself effectively and efficiently.

I could go on for pages about how poorly this place is managed, but everyone has read it before. It is turning into a blend of mesa and trans states holdings. From the crews on the line, mx, or the folks on the other end of the phone.....everyone is unhappy and looking to get out. Turnover in every department will be huge, moral will only get worse, and the company will hemorrhage money due to ineffective upper/middle management, training costs, and the mistakes of the under qualified ill and ill trained.

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The next few years should be interesting.

Mod Edit: wrong graph deleted


Looks like their management is doing ok to me. Much to my chagrin...

I think you are looking at the wrong stock. Try RJET, the chart is exactly opposite to the chart you posted.

Yeah but most of that graph is cushy guaranteed profits with free fuel. SKYW is flush with cash and their profitibility graph is probably similar. All either means is that they have experienced pant splitting growth in the guaranteed profit free fuel market segment with ever larger airplanes. The question will be is that sustainable. Indy Air tanked pretty quick once truly on their own and even dirt cheap Mesa had trouble in the guaranteed profit free fuel sector.

IMO the only thing that will keep the "Indy Air Group" in question in business for a sustainable timeline is the continued increase of outsourcing quantity and gauge and some kind of domestic code sharing windfall loophole to continue to subsidize their "independant" operation.

Really, I just need this place to survive for the next few years. By then, EVERYONE will be hiring.

Oh, and here's the stock. Once $24, today $5.88
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/chart?...bw.xml&img=png

+1 to that

I and some others are afraid that is exactly what he is banking on. I think his strategy is to continue to siphon more and more flying from legacy carriers by undercutting the competition and thus gaining more guaranteed FFD contracts until his independent operation can obtain a feed contract to one of the big alliances. Imagine if Skyteam, Oneworld, or Star signed a contract with Republic holdings for feed and code sharing with their foreign carriers, thus bypassing Delta, American, and UCAL. That would be Armageddon for us.

What if he snags contracts with Emirates et al? Every pilot that has aspirations of every flying for a major and making more than regional wages has a stake in this. Republic must be quashed. This flying across certificates to bypass scope clauses must be quashed.

I think this is the chart you meant. http://chart.finance.yahoo.com/z?s=R...n-US&region=USAlthough many airline stocks have tanked, I'd be a little annoyed as a stockholder if my stock had gone from 20 to 6 in two years.

Not necessarily. Thanks to you, the majors very well could continue to downsize outsourcing flying 100 seat jets to regionals. Better plan RAH being your career destination. That way you won't be disappointed, especially since your willingness to fly for peanuts reinforces management's perception that pilots are cheap.

Yes, I stand corrected. I searched using the wrong code. But if you look at the trend line it was still upward until the middle of 08 when the entire market took a dump. Maybe some technical analysis guy could weigh in.?.

I wouldn't be so sure, UA plans for dealing with increased in retirements, is to outsource as many block hours as they can to regionals operating bigger A/Cs. Not a good sign.

Thanks to ME??? I won't even go there with you. That horse is dead. As far as disappointed, not quite. My goal isn't a US airline anyway. Oh, and by the way, in case you didn't realize, we ALL work for peanuts.

that's why scope is so important. this industry is in for a fight over the next 10 years. United can have the plans they want but if this 1500 hour thing goes down and these duty rules don't get messed with there may not be much left to outsource too.

100 seat flying can only be outsourced to regionals if mainline pilots allow for it to happen.

Kinda like 76 seat jets...

And 70 seat jets...

And 50 seat jets...

Not all want to work for ANY regional but like me and MANY other fellow pilots who don't have a job and have a house and kids and so on and so on we have to do what we have to do to pay the bills.....yes I agree working for any regional is not going to make you rich but it will at least give those of us out of a job and some kind of since of worth. I am a 4700 TT pilot with 4000+ jet/Turbine 2 types and a clean record and cannot get a interview with any respectable Major airline.. So if all I can get right now is peanuts then so be it... SO what if I get more TT and another type the way I see it is I am increasing my worth when I do get a call from a Major... just my .02 worth

Yup, keep plugg'n along. This is a race of endurance. Many are falling behind and falling out of formation.

Pay attention here ace. Airline managements can do whatever they think they can get away with. If unionized employees don't agree, they can ask their union reps to file a grievance. If the union doesn't want to because they have ulterior motives that they do not want to discuss with their members, said employees have little recourse outside of replacing their union. Many of us are attempting to do just that.

Your post above may have been true a decade ago, but times have changed. A320 flying has been outsourced at Delta Air Lines. We didn't "allow" for that, we negotiated specific language against that. But our union will not fight to defend it. Understand now?

Carl

This is illustrative of a HUGE problem for the pilot profession. "We have to do what we have to do to pay the bills..." Really? Even if it means your actions are shrinking the very companies that you hope to join one day? How do you justify your actions that keep food on your table, but require furloughs from the majors? Don't the food on THOSE guys tables count?

I had been furloughed 4 times by 1982 when American Airlines sent me a note to come and interview for a pilot slot under their all new "B scale." When I found out what a B scale meant, I turned down the interview. I REALLY needed the work, but I found a corporate job instead. If you're not prepared to do that, you're probably dooming yourself to be a regional lifer. But more importantly, your work is destroying a once proud profession by agreeing to work under any terms.

Even if it means furloughing a major guy whose flying you accepted as outsourced flying? Will you really do anything for money?

When you get a call from a major? Don't you see that your current actions are all but preventing that from ever happening?

Carl

Or mgmt takes it during bk

Says the 747 Captain :rolleyes: Just saying...

None of us start out as 747 captains. I started out as a happy new hire, and ended up furloughed and flat broke. Yet I still wouldn't work under any terms and especially not if it ruins my chosen profession. If you actually read what I've posted...you'd have known that.

Carl

The mainline-regional pilot situation today is nothing more than a multi-headed monster wielding a lot of double edged swords.

We had a discussion about this on L&G., not every RJ pilot wants to be a lifer nor was every one of them hired when there were RJs around. Not every mainline pilot condoned scope erosion for pay or size-of-jet pride. Some RJ pilots want to be lifers, some mainline pilots would rather slit their wrist then flying a non-Boeing.

All of that said, RAH pilots can't scope themselves. Even if they could, someone would replace them before midnight. RAH and BB are going to do what is in their self interest and if that includes gaming the system on the whole multi-certificate stuff then more power to them for trying.

It's our job, as mainline pilots, to scope our flying and catch RAH/BB in violation of our scope. No hard feelings and really don't expect an apology either but it is what is in our self-interest and probably in the interest of a vast majority of pilots, including RAH pilots.

But will that mean these jets and the flying go back to mainline? Nope. But one avenue of circumventing the contract dies and that's the goal here for those who are in it for the long term and who don't want to work the fields but own the farm.

Unfortunately, that means fighting against BOD's who push for more outsourcing, unions who push for more outsourcing for political and financial gain and pilots who hope for more outsourcing or would sign off on it.

Join the Carl Spackler Political Action Committee, fight em' all. :D

A 747 Captain that is involved on the low end scope fight. Something that is truly vital to have as everyone assumes that only new hires care about scope stuff, after they get senior or on the big equipment all they want is pay.

Good to have as many WB pilots we can get for such a fight and truth is, a lot are involved.

Well, I re-read your post and this is what I got out of it:

1: By working for a regional, you are running this profession into ruins.
2: It's better to feed your family by working anywhere else other than a regional. Can't get the corporate job, how about Taco Bell. Anywhere but a regional.
3: It's better to struggle, be hungry and possibly homeless than to take a job at a regional because god forbid you cause the major airline pilot guy his job.

Am I close?

Just went to the Frontier website and looks like their hiring FO's.. but when you click on the link, you wind up applying at RAH... what's the deal, and more importantly, what's the pay?? lol

The one thing I would wish for, if I was a regional pilot, was that there was a regional turboprop operation worth going to. Get paid to fly, upgrade, run away asap. But now regionals are years and years to upgrade while flying mainline equipment and turboprop pay. In a way I see the merits of Great Lakes, pay sucks but hey its not replacement flying, it's turboprops doing nothing but hard core flying and it used to be at least quick upgrades and thus quick exits.

That's correct. It may not have been the case decades ago, but it damn sure is now. You'll understand it when your pay is seen as too high, and your job is outsourced to the next guy from another pilot puppy mill who will do your job to gain experience. Experience needed so he can hire on with a big regional some day. Then you'll get it...maybe.

Not always true. But it IS true if your hope is to get to a major some day. The work you're doing is slowing the growth of the majors, and as such, your chances of ever working for a major. Do you not see that?

That is exactly correct. It's what I did when I was furloughed. I actually worked a construction job in California for a while and made pretty good money. It never caused another pilot to get furloughed. Yes...God forbid I would ever have done something like that.

Carl

Don't fool yourself FTB. Carl and his ilk don't give a wit about scope at our end. He is just using the issue to bludgeon ALPA in their power grab masquerading as DPA. Remember it was his demographic that voted to create Compas in order to save their pensions. I'd trust Jimmy Hoffa before I'd trust him.

My posts on the importance of scope defense go way back before DPA was even thought about. But I know facts like that won't disuade you from an adamant opinion. Maybe you can post another stock chart of RAH and tell us how much the stock has appreciated.

That contract was (sadly) voted in by a large percentage. A large percentage means by definition that it cannot be just one demographic. Many votes were gained from very junior people because of the no-furlough clause.

You're just mad at me because I'm always turning the hose on you or trying to blow you up. Nothing personal. ;)

Carl

Bedford....no more Delta flying for you
 

Bedford will have to choose. No more Delta flying or reverse everything he just did with Frontier and Midwest. It will take a while but one or the other will occur.

Hidden camera video of why Carl is fighting the scope battle.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3lYm0...yer_detailpage

Just remember the closing scene...


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Pobj...yer_detailpage

Lol, OK Cap! Good luck with your cause. Seeing how i'm not that good with a nailgun, i'll stick with flying to put food on MY family's plate.

Ramen noodles

Na, to much sodium :D

Correct me if I am wrong, but almost every regional out there tells their pilots that they make too much money. In fact over the past 5 years many have taken pay cuts, "because they make too much money." They ARE whipsawed against other regionals with puppy mill pilots that also need to build time.

Pretty sure if anyone gets IT, it's the guy who's making 20K a year and still has his pay cut. Guys are applying for food stamps. Try it sometime. It's HUMBLING.

Why would he have to choose? S5 and chq do all the dal flying. What does this have to do with repub airlines and f9? No scope violation as far as I can see.

Too late, the flying will not be a CPA. It will be a codeshare. Scope has been rendered meaningless. Sigh.

Problem is that regional pilots have been applying for food stamps since the inception of regional airlines. Was it Coex back in 1999 or 2000 that sent letters out warning pilots not to wear their uniforms again in the welfare lines?

I met a FAA inspector once who was just the nicest guy, but up there in years. We got to talking and he told me that he had just gotten his commercial in the mid to late 60s when TWA asked him to interview. He got a job flying sideways on the Connie I believe and upgraded to Captain in a time span that made me say wow and that's when coex had 1 year ATR/120 and 2.5 year E145 upgrades. but that's when regional flying was in house and not every flight was nonstop to a hub.