Sorry, I'm mostly familiar with AA's WO's, I thought the main 3 legacy airlines all had WO's. I did some research and see Delta has 3 Regionals, but only one is WO and UAL has 6 Regionals none of whom are WO.

This was a pretty good move by AA since only Endeavor can quickly ask Dad to increase their allowance. It's going to be interesting to see what the non-WO regionals do to stay competitive.

Looking at Wikipedia AA has 288 jets with the 3 wholly owned, then 236 with contractors Mesa, Republic and Skywest;

Delta has 187 jets with Endeavor, then 205 with Republic and Skywest;

UAL has 555 jets with contractors Air Wisconsin, CommutAir, GoJet, Mesa, Republic, and Skywest.

Playing with numbers and assuming Wikipedia is anywhere near correct then there's a total of 1471 jets among those Regional Airlines. The AA WO have 288. That's 14% of the total RJ fleet. So 14% will have pay way above the others. The question is can they cause serious staffing issues with those other airlines.

 

No: pilot polling again for why it was voted down to set direction. Then it’ll be renegotiated taking months to years.

Yes. Effective at next pay cycle.

Alternative no: Mesa keeps current contract in effect. Pays 200% for ALL flying to retain pilots during renegotiation. Unlikely because Of bad blood via a no vote. Lotz hates pilots. But it might be necessary to save the airline and would quite possibly work.

 

I don’t see it going the same way as you. Mesa has a problem, a couple of big ones. The first one is the pay, no one with any other options would choose to come here based on the pay alone.

The second issue is the training. It’s so backed up on the ERJ side that they just now are getting September hires through initial.

combine those two with the hemorrhaging pilots and there is a huge issue with staffing.

In every base we have more CAs than FOs. IAD is starting July with no reserves and over 500 hours of open time on the FO side. For a base with only 20 active FOs that’s a ton of time.

Mesa needs to work both retention and new hire issues, and quickly.

Obviously mesa is not a career destination, but a pay bump to the pilot group could keep them hanging out here and jumping to a legacy instead of the jumps to ATI/ABX that I’m seeing.

I think a second round of bargaining would go much more quickly than the initial round because it has to for the company.

This is my take on the issue, and merely my opinion. Also, why the eff kick the can on section 13 and give up all leverage in the word to JO. That’s just laughable.

 

mesa scheduling rules are actually among the best in the industry. Properly staffed our sap and trip trading are superior even to the vaunted swa trip trade ability. The company has asks in section 13 we are not willing to give. Jr assignment being one. It would have just slowed things down tremendously. Pilots wanted fast. They got it. They wanted money. They got it. Absent the AA insanity I think this would have been an easy yes vote.

 

Completely disagree that we got money. We got rates worse than contracts negotiated five years ago. They get even worse when you consider inflationary pressures. $55 should have been the lowest we took as a starting point. AW rates were out before our contract, GoJet pilots are getting paid better to fly our own freaking aircraft. And the biggest thing for me is that union due paying members will be passed over for new hires in the 73. There’s no excuse for that. None.

SAP, you’re kidding, right?!? When was the last time you were able to see a green grid and utilize SAP?

The only good section 13 thing we have is junior available. Which the company never uses contract language and tries to bully pilots by using UJA coding and holding it against you. Unless that’s inconvenient for them.

 

The sidestep of seniority is the biggest thing for me. It is a HUGE concession - seniority one of the fundamentals of the Association. That concession alone should have commanded better rates (not AA WO rates, I don’t think Mesa can afford close to those), but certainly better rates, and better insurance rates for everyone.

Why did we make any concessions?

 

Serious question. Why should 737 be internal hire only? When you show up a Indoc you bid your new hire aircraft. Same thing happens at any airline. 777 vs 737 at AA for example.

 

I said PROPERLY STAFFED those things are better than other airlines. I stand by that assertion.

 

So, I can jump people who have seniority when I get to AA/DAL/UA and go straight 777 without the rest of the pilot group getting a chance to bid for it? Give me a freaking break. You’re either being obtuse or an idiot. Which is it?

 

When has Mesa ever been PROPERLY STAFFED? The only time I've been able to use SAP is when we're flying 30hrs a month in the beginning of covid.