So what's your opinion on ALPA airlines voting in concessionary contracts to take airplanes from other carriers for growth? That kind of pattern bargaining is like, totally ok, but only because they are fellow union bros?

I'm actually a hardcore pro-union guy, but it's sad seeing all of the new guys in this industry get brainwashed by ALPA. ALPA has accomplished very little when it comes to improving pilot compensation and career stability in the past four decades. They have a laundry list of pay scale losses, pension program losses, and scope erosions that outweigh any "hard fought gains" they may have had on their resume at one time. Merger policy for seniority integration is also fairly weak.

Until ALPA mainline and regional pilots stand side by side and demand 1 contract and 1 seniority list for all pilots, few will treat them like the "super union" that they self-proclaim to be.

Hahaha! I have to thank you for that one. Zing!

How does it go? If ignorance is bliss, you must be down right euphoric.....

I often see the popular opinion that PSA’s contract was concessionary. It gave us SAP. The absolute best quality of life tool in the entire industry, bar none. And it gave us our critical pay language which at the time (pre-company reserve grid manipulation and pre-arbitration) allowed line-holding pilots to regularly credit 125-145 hours /month. Effectively making our airline some of the highest paid regional pilots anywhere at that time. But hey, let’s not have details that matter get in the way.

Regarding SkyWest, they are a scourge to unionized labor. You don’t really even have a contract per se. Can’t your company change your compensation without it even going to the pilots for a vote?

Getting schedule flexibility and premium pay rules in exchange for lower pay rates and more jets from another carrier is not leading the industry forward. When the **** hits the fan, the premium pay dries up, and the good schedules go away, that still leaves you with the lower pay rates. And nothing else to show for it. Spin it how ever you want, PSA took concessions.

This sounds like some mindless ALPA rhetoric being regurgitated without a fact check. SkyWest has a legally recognized pilot agreement. Any reduction in pay rates must go to a vote.

I wonder what’s going to happen to Mesa through all of this? United loves them. They can be so proud that they have ALPA on the property. It has done very little for them.

It's no coincidence that four decades coincides with deregulation. That was the whole point, to break the non-competitive entitlement of established airlines, and that included the entitlement of their unions.


It will have to happen at mainline, regionals (by design) have no leverage.

But it's a very steep uphill battle... mainline pilots who came from regionals sympathize, but after slogging our way up the ladder we're not in any mood to make concessions so other people don't have to pay dues. I don't mind if you somehow skip your dues, as long as I'm not the one paying for it (I already paid). Make no mistake, any move to bring regional flying -in-house would require heavy concessions on the part of major pilots.

Major pilots who didn't come from regionals have no sympathy at all.

I heard United didn't like them bc of performance metrics...hard to say who they do or don't like. Although I'm most inclined to think it will come down to who can fly for the cheapest.

No coincidence, correct, however SWA seems to have 4 decades of consistent, measurable contract improvements in the same time period, which is also no coincidence. SWA has guppy captains earning what legacy wide-body captains do without having to wait 25-30 years to get to it.

Agreed, but it will never happen because of what you say below.

It would be an epic uphill battle, but the amount of job security it would provide would be significant. In situations like this Wu-Flu scenario the guys getting furloughed would be the new fresh-out-of-flight-instructing, small-jet-driving, pilot at the bottom who are less likely to have kids, less likely to have a house payment, more likely to still be living in mom's basement, etc instead of the guys right now who are about to get dumped from mainline who are now in their late 30s, their 40s, or older who are more likely to have kids in school, mortgages, debt incurred from jumping from regional to mainline, etc etc.

As for people not paying dues, for the most part every kid getting hired at XYZ regional has paid some dues to get there, even if their legacy-captain parent paid for their ratings, they've still busted their butt and put in the work. Do their dues outweigh yours or mine? probably not, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't make this career better for pilots.

Which is why major pilots who did pay dues ought to educate these direct entry major pilots (but won't) and fixing this system would fix the apathy/ego problem as well (idealistic scenario, but unrealistic).

But as you said, few mainline pilots have a desire to fix the issue if it will cost them a single cent to extend the ladder to help out the guys below them or to stand in solidarity with them. And because unions without solidarity are weak, that tells you all you need to know about ALPA. The only people with the power to change the way it works, have already "gotten theirs," so they won't lift a finger.

Ultimately I'm wasting my keystrokes here, as this industry will continue to eat its young until there are no young left before it considers a change.

Unique business model at the time (since copied), and they were well-prepared to grow post de-regulation because they were already up and operating.

Their model took off, and they capitalized after every down-turn so they could never plausibly ask their pilots for concessions (for a long time their corporate culture would have made that unpalatable anyway).

But I remember when SWA was not the preferred career-destination, that came about after 9/11 when the big boys went BK or suffered heavy concessions. Last man standing.

SWA is the poster-child for why de-regulation was a success.