Not to start a flame war but why do XJT guys think they're getting our 175s? How is that even lodgical?

 

Don't you think that question is better suited for the xjt forum? Besides, United owns the 175's we operate, and can send them to whoever they want. Try not to think of them as "ours".

 

Denial just ain't a river in Egypt over at XJT.

 

Why take something that's going good and change it?

 

We're 3 airplanes ahead of schedule....

We're still the #1 on-time UAX feed.....

Next month Skywest will say they're taking them.....

Then the following month TSA will say they're taken them.....

Don't be so gullible, line pilots making stuff up is like the telephone game we played in elementary school...

 

That's good to know. Hopefully that will still be the case 10-12months from now.

 

At the end of the day, it really doesn't matter who owns the airplanes. In our FFD game, it really only matters who owns the flying. If they take the flying away but we own the airplanes, now we have a monthly payment to make on airplanes that don't have any flying to do. As a result, Mesa would be under pressure to find something for those airplanes to do, and end up signing even worse CPAs, or getting rid of the airplanes in a hurry. We all know "motivated sellers" don't get the best deal. Better for whoever owns the flying to own the airplanes. Ideally, its better for whoever owns the flying to own the pilots too, and hopefully that is the direction we will be heading in.

A contract is a contract...it's the language in the contract which makes it easier or harder for one party to get out of it....not a matter of who owns the aircraft.

On that note, prior121 is absolutely correct. Why take flying away from a contractor who is performing well? Doesn't make business sense, regardless of what a few jealous pilots may want/think. The performance statistics are right there for all United Express pilots to see.

As far as 10-12 months from now goes, if Mesa is able to continue to hire enough pilots through the end of the summer and doesn't get greedy and sign a bunch more big CPAs and bite off more than it can chew, we will be fine. We're doing well now, for once. Slow, steady growth is a lot more sustainable than the overnight stuff. Employees end up with a much better quality of life with slow, steady growth too. Upgrade times may be slightly longer that way, but trust me, it's better in the long run.

 

Let's say you have a 76 hour line, you overblock and now your around 86 hours. A 3 hour block flight cancels. Your back down to 83 hours pay, you did NOT lose all of your overblock. This is how it works at Mesa.

 

If a cancelled flight brings you from 86 to 83 hours you do not have cancellation pay.

 

This hasn't been my experience.