Rudderbias

As seen as an EGL driver:
Not that I'm condoning this option, but has ALPA looked into taking the wind out of the AMR/AAG wholly owned whipsaw sails...? The airline we formerly knew as American Eagle was created by a lawsuit and determined by the DOJ that multiple Wholly owned airlines operating as "American Eagle" were ONE airline. What is different from today?

Their are less qualified individuals taking my seat! They are whipsawing 3 companies, all wholly owned subsidiaries, with essentially the same contract, all unionized by the same "union". Shuffling airplanes between the partitions of one holding company.

The fact that we are not already operating as one airline is semantics. They fly under our old name, flying some of our old routes, soon to be in our old airplanes. Yet we are closing down bases, giving airplanes to other airlines/wholly owned, and displacing due to staffing and yet they are hiring like gangbusters and soon to be opening new bases due to new aircraft orders and old Eagle planes coming their way. Its disgusting....

MORE NEEDS TO BE DONE...(not little nothings such as OT and Hotel incentives that honestly should have been in our contract from the get go and still aren't even to par with our portion of the industry)

Get to work alpa, make me feel that the money you TOOK from my bribe bonus on a contract I voted no on actually going towards something!

snippercr

Too busy with #DenyNAI and celebrating the newest KCM opening.

rickair7777

Big ALPA has the same motivations that management does...keep regional scum from diverting money before it reaches the top.

You'd need a coalition of current eagle MECs, ie an "Eagle ALPA".

wareagle

They feel it's more important to protect The Industry, and the best thing for The Industry is that regional pilots continue to get trampled so that the airlines can continue making big profits at your expense. That way everybody wins. Wait...

azcz10

A union that represents both the legacy carrier and the regional carrier is like an attorney who represents both parties in a law suit. No matter what the outcome, the attorney wins. BUT wait, that's not allowed....the attorney would have a conflict of interest.

450knotOffice

APA actually filed and supported that "Single Carrier" filing, which simply argued that the multiple wholly owned carriers that made up the American Eagle network were homogeneous enough to constitute a Single Carrier for representational purposes. All employees at the time were hired by AMR. All were trained in the same facilities, and usually in combined classes (at least pilots, dispatchers, and FA's). The manuals were all identical. And, all were headed up by ONE Executive management team (of course, each individual division had its own management team, but they were neutered by AMR Eagle Executive level decisions).

AMR made a habit of using the staggered contract negotiations at each carrier to put pressure on whichever carrier might be negotiating a pilot contract at any given time. They'd move airplanes from the carrier in negotiations to one that might have just finished negotiations, resulting in displacements, furloughs, and then offers to the furloughed pilots to come fly the same airplanes at the same bases for the carrier that just got the planes, but as new hires, of course.

It was a total sham.

The NMB ruled that the system was, in fact, a single carrier for representational purposes, which led to the pilots voting in ALPA, rather than APA as the bargaining agent (by then, APA's new leadership had taken on a much tougher stance toward Eagle, and had no interest in representing them, understandably).

Once ALPA was voted in, work to combine all contracts into one began - which would neutralize AMR's ability to whipsaw the groups against each other. The only way AMR would agree to that was the infamous 16 year contract with merely Industry Average yearly pay increases, and periodic arbitrated adjustments about every four years or so - and those adjustments were VERY limited in number and scope. This contract gave AMR steady, dependable, predictable feed costs that they directly controlled, so they were fine with it.

Once that was done, AMR really saw no need to continue with separate divisions, and decided to combine them all and create American Eagle Airlines.

Once the 16 year contract was up, AAG decided that they were going to go with the same model that the other Majors had been using for some time, which was the old multiple carrier whipsaw model. So began the teardown of American Eagle Airlines, brick by brick.

I'm not sure that a Single Carrier petition would be ruled favorably on this time, simply due to the more separate operating nature of the individual carriers this time around. Yes, they are wholly owned, but they are not really combined in any meaningful way, other than through the network name.

air101

NineGturn

Good perspectives. Remember that back then, Eagle was flying 19-30 seat turboprops and represented a much smaller percentage of total departures for the mainline.

Back then Eagle was one of the higher paid regionals and you typically only had to work there for a few years before being picked up by a major. Back then you needed a lot more time to be considered for being hired...typically you needed multi and turbine and many Eagle pilots came from other commuter airlines.

Now you are paid less (on average adjusting for inflation) and can expect to spend half your career there before maybe getting in at a major. And you're flying large jets.

The only way to really break this cycle is to vote out the unions at all the regionals. Some regional pilots may lose some lousy jobs but all that flying will be picked up by someone. The problem is that you have all those regional pilots that are terrified to stand up to ALPA for fear of being blacklisted.

Yes it's a scam.

CloudShredder

Pretty much expect whipsawing to continue as long as they continue to find pilots to fly at the cheap regionals with promises of low upgrade times. It is a never ending cycle at this point. I am amazed each day that goes by that attrition continues to go through the roof at carriers, and the bandaids continue to be wound up thicker and thicker as the whipsaw continues to cut into more and more pilot's lives.

Some bandaids we're seeing:

- Offering ATP courses.
- Offering bonuses ranging from $5,000-$80,000 with a LOT of strings attached.
- Offering a "Pipeline" to a "Guaranteed Job" flying a "Large Advanced Jet" with a "Guaranteed job at a mainline."
- "Quick upgrades" (which are just a snapshot in time, better hope you get in and get your upgrade before the music stops...)
- "Desirable bases"
- "Best regional airline pay"
- "Best benefits"
- "Best company atmosphere."



Sadly, what needs to be done, and what isn't being done, and won't be done anytime soon is a large across the scale pay bump at the regionals... That's all the discussion is, and we're just going to continue to beat up that poor old dead horse until things legitimately change...