Why settle for middle of the pack? Shouldn't you want to be closer towards the top? Why isn't that everyone's goal? Especially in light of projected retirements coming down the pipeline. There is a once in a generation opportunity that puts the leverage in regional pilots' hands. Every regional pilot group should seize it and say no to concessions. Instead regional pilot groups are getting picked off one by one because of a tunnel vision for the quick upgrade and shiny jets.

All of those upgrades and new jets are going to occur on their own with out any need of concessions from regional pilots. It is managements job to retool the airlines with new aircraft. It isn't your job to pay for it. The fact that these aircraft add more seats and a whole bunch of premium seats means that the additional revenue will shrink the pilot costs naturally. It is economies of scale.

Do mainline pilots take concessions to fly larger aircraft? No, so why should regional pilots?

Your pilot group recently voted in a brand new TA after years of hard work and negotiations. Now you take steps backward, outside of bankruptcy, and for what? New aircraft, the promise of them being growth (despite a lack of pilots everywhere), and 12 additional interviews at mainline per year. The potential upside does not objectively match the potential downside.

What changed in the industry to prompt this need for concessions? The only trends I've observed suggest regional pilots should be getting raises not concessions. There are less qualified pilots to choose from and the requirements to become a pilot are more difficult. It would literally take an act of congress to undo the ATP rule. Given how effective they have been I doubt a reversal will happen any time soon.

Look at the timing for all the demand for concessions. It is at the very front end of the retirement wave. Management knows that their leverage over regional pilots is evaporating. They are quickly trying to push the bar as low as they can before Pilot's collectively realize what is going on. Why do you think your TA is effective for 10 years instead of the typical 5 years?

They want to be able to tell you and future pilots that follow you to pound sand and wait for the amendment date for any talks of raises.

Your deal is akin to Eagle pilots voting for their bankruptcy TA because it had furlough protection. It was an easy give for management because they knew that they would never have to furlough pilots because of the projected attrition due to mainline hiring and AA flow through. That was a hallow victory that looks great in an ALPA press release

12 additional interviews for mainline a year is much the same. You'll likely be losing 12 guys a month (if not much, much more) when mainline hiring gets into full swing. It is projected to be so fast that they will have no choice but to park the CRJ-200s becuase they won't have enough warm bodies to fill the seats. Don't believe me. Look at the retirement numbers and look at what is happening to RAH and look at what Bedford said he might have to do in order to preserve the more important 70 and 76 seater. Every regional will have this problem. So really you gained nothing.

That is a great projection and a great thing to hope for, but as I stated before something could happen that slams the door shut at mainline. If that happens will the pay caps have been worth it? Will being perpetually stuck at 4 year pay be with it? Ask a RAH FO how they feel about that.

 

The above post is correct. And that's how many of the PSA guys and gals felt and thus voted no. Unfortunately there weren't enough no voters.

If the retirement continues at the majors and the regionals are hurting for pilots (which they are not at the moment), then the cap won't matter to 80% of us. But If we have another 9/11, recession or oil spiking again, I can see many of us regretting greatly. As a gambling man, the odds are that the planes will come and the stagnation will cease and honestly if eagle MEC hadn't voted it down, I would've voted yes as well.

 

And thats why I'm happy the MEC did vote it down.

 

I think you all are beating a dead horse.
The TA is done. The question is: should people go to PSA.

Those pilots need to flip back 50 pages and see if they would be ok starting out at the bottom here under the new 10 year contract.
I, nor pagey or people mover can make that decision for you.

 

My insurance will increase by $8 a month You can't sit there and tell me you would make a decision on which airline to go to over 8 bucks a month.

An entire contract cannot be judged based on pay rates. We have other things to(somewhat) offset the rates.

My point this ENTIRE time has simply been: I know our contract isn't the best one out there, and I know the concessions sucked but we don't have even close to the worst contract and all you people looking to blame PSA for every single future bad contract are wrong.

I voted no for this thing I really don't even know why I continue to feed all of you stuff to chastise me about.

 

If you voted no then you should be as upset with the yes voters as every other regional pilot that hears these words from management: "we need to cut costs to compete with PSA and pinnacle". Just think about how many regional pilots have to hear that phrase thanks to the few number of guys at PSA that voted yes. These other management teams wouldn't be saying this if your contract was one of the best. I know I've heard it at SkyWest. I'm sure others can chime in and confirm they have heard the same words. Y'all went backwards when you should've gone forward. I don't blame any no voter (that's you if you indeed did vote no) but I don't understand why you are defending your company. You should be as upset as anyone else on here that vocalizes their frustration. Would you recommend pilots to go work for PSA? Do you want to show PSA management that they can ask for concessions during record profits and still maintain a strong operation? I hope PSA doesn't get a single new pilot from here on out so that PSA's and other management teams will realize they can't ask for concessions during record profits and still find pilots willing to work for them. It'd be amazing to see all the no voters leave and throw it right back at management. It's a disgrace and slap in the face to you and your coworkers that they did what they did. Do you not realize that????

$400,000,000 net profit in the quarter you voted to give money back to management. Take a second to let that number sink in. That's over a measly 3 months. You should be getting more money. We all should. Please, for the sake of humanity, acknowledge that. Please help us stop going backward!

 

Ok, so I should go to work every day bitter and angry?

People here made the decision they thought was best for themselves. I respect their decision and refuse to make going to work a living hell.

So I'm dealing with it.

 

I never said anything about going to work angry and making work a living hell. I don't know why you confuse trying to improve contracts and pay scales with that. You can calmly and rationally make arguments for your position. The idea is to make any future concessionary yes voter realize the impacts of their decision. For themselves as well as others. It's not good or necessary. In a friendly and rational manner, ask the yes voters why they think they needed to give up money to a group of people that are making gobs of money just so they can make more. I have never heard a good answer to that question.

 

Do y'all get financial or performance rewards from the company?

 

I've answered a lot.....a lot of questions calmly and rationally and all I get in return from most save one or two has been OMG SCABS SELLOUTS BACKSTABBERS SPINELESS etc. When I ask questions I expect to get the same calm, rational response and never ever get one, or any answer at all.