Originally Posted by Typhoonpilot

Interesting thread to see develop. Some good thoughtful posts on both sides of the debate.

A thoughtful article here that some should consider.

I'm certainly not a big proponent of NAI. Their pay kind of sucks and they treat crews poorly so they get a thumbs down for that. That said, the anti-NAI crowd need to look at reality a little. The above linked article does a good job at some reality checking.

The emotional, "Flag of Convenience" and "we're all doomed like merchant seamen" is a little hysterical in my opinion. You can crew a boat with the hundreds of thousands of uneducated Philippino, Indonesian, Eastern European; etc workers since they are positions that require little training. Exceptions being for ship's captain and perhaps engineer. I'm just not seeing a hundred thousand qualified Philippino, Indonesian, etc qualified airline pilots who are going to steal your jobs with this "flag of convenience model". I also don't see that many being able to be trained since the cost to do so is so high.

Western Europe has too much trouble with rich English kids spending over a 100,000 Euros to get a commercial-instrument-multi then throwing another 35,000 Euros at an EASA B737 or A320 type rating so they can take a job at Ryanair and EasyJet. Asian airlines use expats or have ab-initio programs because their population just does not have all those rich kids like the UK or USA. Nor do their militaries pump out enough qualified pilots on a yearly basis to fulfill the demand from airlines.

Another article worth looking at, and perhaps a much larger threat to U.S. airline pilot jobs that at least DAL pilots might have a chance of countering, yet it doesn't even warrant a whisper here in APC: China Eastern expansion.

As usual ALPA is way off target as to what the threat is and they are mis-directing the membership's energy on battles they have little hope of winning.


Typhoonpilot

Originally Posted by full of luv

This is the difference:

China Eastern seeks to serve the US from China using the Chinese laws, regulations, and labor. Your right, under current laws, there isn't much to do but lament the Chinese competition.

For better or worse, the US believes in absolute free trade (except for sugar) even if it means giving away our markets in exchange for very little.

NAI is seeking to set up a shell company in Ireland, use labor from Asia contracting companies and basically skirt as much regulation and taxes that they can get away with and still do business in the worlds best aviation markets.

Originally Posted by full of luv

This is the difference:

China Eastern seeks to serve the US from China using the Chinese laws, regulations, and labor. Your right, under current laws, there isn't much to do but lament the Chinese competition.

For better or worse, the US believes in absolute free trade (except for sugar) even if it means giving away our markets in exchange for very little.

NAI is seeking to set up a shell company in Ireland, use labor from Asia contracting companies and basically skirt as much regulation and taxes that they can get away with and still do business in the worlds best aviation markets.

Originally Posted by Typhoonpilot

Two out of the three non-stops that Delta sells for the LAX-PVG route are not operated by Delta. That trend, to include numerous long haul city pairs will only increase. That is the biggest danger to the pilots at all of the established legacy carriers over the long run. Your management is outsourcing what could, and should be, your flying. Yet ALPA is worried about an international competitor that they realistically have no control over.





TP

Originally Posted by flyallnite

the best way to put a dent in nais scheme, in my opinion, is for someone to buy jetblue. I've every reason to believe that they will be the ones to step up and offer feed to their tatl ops. Without feed in the us, nai will find it difficult to attract anything but the lowest fares. Even with exim financed jets, low paid crew, and favorable oversight there's still a big hill to climb.

Originally Posted by Stringfellow

The NAI concerns are understandable, but isn't it slightly hypocritical of ALPA major carriers to worry about this supposed outsourcing when they have turned their back on US regionals all these years? They have allowed the regional guys and gals to eat dirt and live like dogs relative to the majors