Actually there would be more jobs at the legacy carriers if we didn't have the guys wiling to be mercenaries to get that coveted job at a company like VX. See the guys going to VX are looking for a short cut. They don't want to start at the bottom of a legacy list. They are willing to take what they think is the fast track. The inevitable ending is their company tanks and they are on the street wondering why their company didn't survive. In the meantime had they not taken that job the legacy would perhaps added flying and grown. Instead the legacy had to cut wages and abandon routes because there are carriers like VX willing to throw seats in a market at ridiculous cost to attempt to gain market share.

If the pilots were indeed professionals as the moderator requested everyone to be. Then they would say no thank you to companies like VX, Skybus, National etc. They would have the cajones to resist temptation to take a short term job.

Finally, getting a pilots license doesn't give you a god given right to a job. The training academies pumped out too many pilots a few years ago and too many with more money than skills made it through. A thinning of herd needed to take place.

L

 

Nope, it's because of stupid management not being able to change with the times that mis-managed those airlines into bankruptcy in the first place. Not to mention pilot groups that thought they could make unreasonable demands with no consequences. Don't blame other airlines for the inadequateness that brought about bankruptcy. More shades of grey.

 

From this article, it appears that VX is working at raising yields, at least to the level of AA. I highly doubt that a 39 ac domestic operation would drive AA's yields down across the board. Seems to be a pretty detailed and unbiased article covering both aspects of the costs and revenues of both legacy and lcc carriers.

Low-cost carriers: growth expectations


...So as low-cost carriers add product, and with it some cost, and network carriers strip out frills and costs on short-haul, the line between the models blurs further. Almost everyone can lay claim to being a hybrid.
Oliver Wyman's recent Airline Economic Analysis shows the cost per available seat kilometre between network and what it calls value carriers in the USA has narrowed to its smallest since the study began seven years ago. And there is a similar blurring on the revenue side. "One of the things that really stood out in the study is the US unit revenue - American and Virgin America are virtually identical," says Pomeroy. He notes that JetBlue is not much further behind.
"I view it as converging in all directions," he adds. "For example, American has lots of ancillaries, it has added 12 more seats [in the aircraft], while at the other end value carriers are selling through the GDS and have a frequent flyer programme."... (my emphasis added).

 

And the thinning is exactly what is happening now! Ask any TWA pilot... or ExpressJet, or so many others I lose count... and the highest paid Pax airline in the U.S., Southwest, started out paying for sh&% and everyone lambasted them at the time. We make our decisions, we live with them... as long as pilots are busy attacking each other, unions are useless, because management will always be able to find you a new scape-goat. When ALPA and my "brothers" offer to pay my mortgage, I will be more willing to pay attention to their attack dogs.

 

Talk about dumping seats into a market....

UNITED boosting Chicago – San Francisco service to 16 Daily by late-May 2011 | AIRLINE ROUTE

UNITED boosting Chicago – San Francisco service to 16 Daily by late-May 2011

UNITED from May 2011 is increasing Chicago – San Francisco service. From first week of May, service increase from 10 to 11-12 Daily. From 25MAY11, service further increases to 16 Daily, which 1 – 2 of 16 Daily flights operates with Continental. Overall frequencies increases by up to 40% as a result.

 

Hey, I used to commute that route and was in the J/S 90% of the time: we could use the seats!

 

Interesting that you say UA is dumping seats. That is what I was trying to relate in a previous thread. If UA or one of the other legacy carriers adds seats to a market in competition with an LCC it is considered predatory by the mindless. When VX adds service to a market that is saturated it is them establishing a market share. You guys can't have it both ways. Personally I hope UA and any other legacy carrier crushes VX in any endeavor it attempts.

 

Not everyone is lucky enough to land a job at a major airline these days. Some get the interview and not the job. Others never get the interview. It's a crapshoot, and you take what you can get.

So if one gets the offer from VX, they should say no thank you, and then go instead to work at the neighborhood McD's, all the while upholding your ideal to not take the short term job. Then their flying currency lapses, and now what are their prospects for getting a flying job in this terrible job market today. Easy to say from your mighty high horse there!

 

It does not matter all that much to me either way. UA is dumping seats to try and protect it's market share. If it works, great for them. SFO originating traffic is the market VA appears to be going after, so all is fair in a free market economy.

The argument that a new entrant carrier is sole to blame for a new pay scale being implemented (ala JB), seriously comes across as deflecting the fact that management seriously screwed up running the business. It is truly right out of some management play book to give the employees another "enemy" (read: cause) to focus on and blame, instead of focusing where it belongs, which is on management themselves.

As a collective group, we as pilots are our own worst enemies, because we allow ourselves to be led to believe (by management no less) that the enemy is us. Because of this, organized labor (pilots) will continue to struggle to make gains, even in the best of times.

S

 

Actually I didn't need management to tell me that carriers like VX, Skybus, Vangaurd, Western Pacific, National etc are BAD for careers. You haven't been on the other end of the equation. It is very apparent the threat to jobs companies like VX present

As I said earlier, I don't care if VX is union or not. They have filled their ranks with guys betting on the come. This is becoming the second "oldest profession" act by pilots with SJS.