Mesa is having significant problems. There is a point to which being miserly with your employee groups ceases to impact the bottom line in a positive way and insteads affects it negatively. In this age of "consolidation", "Synergy", and "Economies of scale" it is largely ignored that sometimes making sure your employees are paid ENOUGH is just as important as "not overpaying for labor". The economic cycle will take care of this. An interesting analysis to go through would be to compare what Mesa spends on training due to their extreme turnover, compared to what they would spend if they had normal attrition but a good contract. Training expenses and turnover hit the bottom line too - and in a financial statement numbers are numbers - doesn't matter if expenses are "salary and wages" or "training expenses". Finding a regional that can balance these needs on the balance sheet is a tricky thing - not sure if any really make it work? Would be interested in discussing "What regionals make this work and how do they do it" rather that "Mesa or xyz Regional sucks".

 

There needs to be a sticky thread at the top of this forum explaining about Mesa. These types of threads are getting old. It would take 5 minutes to search any aviation forum or google to find out this information.

 

True, yet incredibly narrow-minded in the grand scheme of things. Answer this question: Who disrespects the Mesa pilot group the most?

 

That's simple.........................Mgmnt!

 

As long as we're on the subject, perhaps somebody can explain why Mesa's pilot group is unable to improve QOL, work rules, and wages through:
* enforcement of their existing contract (it gets violated every day, doesn't it?)
* collective bargaining
* legal actions against the company

I'll admit that I don't know much about labor organizations (I'm only halfway through Flying the Line), but isn't being organized supposed to provide power to the pilots to prevent such abuse?

I seriously do not understand why they (the pilots) just bend over and take it..... especially when they have the resources of their labor organization available.

 

IM SO SICK OF READING POSTS ABOUT HOW BAD MESA IS!!!!

Can't this company just go under!!! I tell you that the day it happens will be a day to celebrate.

 

It's not the company it's the upper level Mgmnt team that they’re unable to get rid of. Wishing for the company to go under is wish "ill will" on over 5000 pilots, FA's, dispatchers, support staff, ground crew, admin, Mx, etc.

But hey, as long as you get to stop reading about it.

 

Wow, where do we start with this one?
* enforcement: we have iron-clad scope language. IRON-CLAD. Some have said it is the best in any ALPA contract (I couldn't say). We gave up EVERYTHING... EV-UH-REY-THANG on our last contract negotiations to get it and kill Freedom A. WHY, I say, why is it that our scope keeps getting violated then??? Why?
* collective bargaining... bwahhahahaha! You can only bargain when you have leverage. You'd think we would have leverage with the 800 pilots who quit last year. Heck, it was like a gradual strike against the company. Naw. It wasn't even a blip on mgts radar as far as contract talks go.
* legal actions... OK, this is the one I wanted to get into. We (ALPA) have taken I don't know how many issues to court to NO AVAIL. I don't care what they say, we lost the Harris deal. We lost the 700-900 base pay deal. We will lose the ERJ holdback deal (or simply get pennies on the dollar). After you have your tukus handed to you time and again for valid arguments you begin to not really care any longer.

So, there you have it.

 

Some of it has to do with circumstances, some of it with demographics.

JO always seems to arrange for some bad news when negotiation time rolls around...this puts labor on the defensive.

Many mesa pilots are less-then-enthusiastic about upsetting the apple-cart...

Junior FO's are often super-low time, which means they have little industry knowledge or experience. They are afraid for their jobs because they don't have the time to get another one.

Senior FO's/Junior CA's are more likley to stand up for themselves, but they have also invested a significant amount of time at mesa and would really like to get their 1300 hours TPIC and move on before the company implodes.

Super-senior CA's (who usually run the union) actually make pretty good money by regional standards...they sure don't want to start over, so they will be reluctant to strike when the company is on the rocks. Plus JO is always willing to throw a few bucks at the top of the pay scale (wink, wink).

Industry Rejects: Mesa hires folks nobody else would touch due to background or other issues...these people really don't want mesa to fold.

Also I hate to say it, but I have met quite a few characters over there who don't have the same level of initiative or self-respect as the typical pilot you run into. A lot of the good people leave mesa early, especially lately. Of course there are good folks in the pilot group, but not as many as there might be at other companies.

When I left I had concluded that there was no way in heck the pilot group as a whole would muster the nads to walk...I'm still hoping to be proved wrong, but I wasn't going to stick around for 6 years just to find out.

 

YES IT IS A MANAGMENT ISSUE!!! You think all of a sudden the managment wil go "OHHHH Sorry we didnt realize that we were doing bad things..."

No Im sorry but people CHOOSE to work for this airline and I have no sympathy if they lose thier jobs and struggle. Companies like MESA deserve it, not companies like ALOHA. People that get a job working for an airline like this enable it to continue to do what it does.

No airline is perfect but I cannot think of another one with such a total disregard for ethics.