Mike, if your manager was doing his job, the customers would not be angry. Are they angry about the products or the service? Don't forget that those 'jackass customers' are putting you through school and putting food on your table.
I went to Tony Romas for dinner the other night with my wife. They were very busy with a 30 min. wait for a table. We decided to eat at the bar as there were two open seats. After 12 mins sitting there without being acknowledged by the bartender, I decided to leave. On the way out, I asked the hostess to pass to the manager that he just lost my business do to poor service. She politely asked me if I would please tell him directly as he would really want to know why I was displeased. I told my story to the manager who was very apologetic and asked if I would please reconsider and that he would seat me immediately. He personally seated us, brought over a waitress and personally introduced her and instructed her to comp our first round of drinks and a free appetizer of our choice. Do to his superior management skills in turning a disappointing situation into a great dining experience, I will continue to frequent this restaurant. Studies have shown that a customer that has a poor experience will tell an average of 9 people whereas a customer with a positive experience will tell 3 people about it.

 

Here's something for everyone. Mesaba Mgt wants to throw out the pilot contract and force terms on them. One of them is the pilots will take a 19.4% paycut! &%#%$!@*! that! It really is a race to the bottom........

 

NWA has taken close to 40 % and DAL is at 49%...what's another 19.4% between friends?

Management can suck bypass....

Baja.

 

Just for your info.. 39% cut in salary, 41% total cut in overall pay and benefits at NWA. Will be voting today!

 

Dogpilot and baja are the only people in the world who thinks he ought to be paid for the 100hrs a month he spends SLEEPING in a hotel and spending time checking out the layover city. That is not working! Everyone knows airline pilots spend time away from home (just like military folks), but they spend a lot less time away from home and the pay usually makes up for it.

I think regional pay is fine as long as you are young and you only spend about 5 years there at max. I am 22 and I plan to be at a regional in under 6 months. By the time I am 27 that means I would potentially make $65,000 a year. That's plently for me at 27!

For people who think regional pay is low, think of it as your "starting job" as everyone else in the non-aviation world does.
EXAMPLES:
Baseball players in the minor leagues (Less than $1000 a month)
Airline management that starts out as CSR's or flight attendents. (Low pay)
Store managers that start out as minimum wage clerks. (Minimum wage)
ETC...

I mean, I have an aerospace engineering degree and I am making the same as a CFII as many of my friends in the industry. My work is fewer hours, easier, and I downright LOVE my job.

My point is you need to "learn to walk before you can learn to fly." A few years at a regional is ok if the result is a major airline career at $150-$200K a year later on in my career. As long as all flying does not switch to regionals, this is ok.
This is where USAir took the right course on making the EMB-190 a mainline jet.
This is where Mesa took the WRONG course. Anything 75+ or so belongs at a major. No more 90-100 seat jets at regionals.

 

BAJA,
You did misunderstand and got your posters mixed up. I am neither a journalist or a meteorologist. What I said was I have a Degree in Journalism. I never said thats what I did for a living. I am a police officer and I am also in the army national guard. I have a commercial single engine land lisence with about 400 hours. When I return rom military duty, I am going to get my multi engine and my CFI

 

I'm not one to start a fued but have you seen the movie "Waiting". Cardinal rule here, "Never mess with people who handle your food". Trust me after you see that movie you will never pull that crap again!

 

My point is you need to "learn to walk before you can learn to fly." A few years at a regional is ok if the result is a major airline career at $150-$200K a year later on in my career. As long as all flying does not switch to regionals, this is ok.
This is where USAir took the right course on making the EMB-190 a mainline jet.
This is where Mesa took the WRONG course. Anything 75+ or so belongs at a major. No more 90-100 seat jets at regionals.[/QUOTE]


I totally agree with the last statement that anything above 75 seats belong at majors. NWA used to fly the DC-9-10 with 78 seats. Now Steel'in wants to give the 100 seater to NewCo, the so called new regional airline of NWA, Inc


Good luck spending only 5-6 yrs at a regional. There are guys who said that 15+ yrs ago and are still at regionals

 

I've had mostly great experiences working with the customers at my store, it's just those few people who drive you up the wall. Alot of it seems to stem from my store's return policy. We give you a 60 day trial period with each product (90 days for certen items). In order to get a your money back you need to bring your origional reciept (and origional credit card, if applicable). If you don't have those we'll still be happy to give you a store credit thats good at any of our 300 nation-wide locations. I've seen lots of people get really mad when they don't have the reciept, etc., and aren't satisfied with the store credit.

As for the question about broadcast, it's a wide and varied thing. You need to have good stage presence and, lets not kid ourselve, look and sound appealing. You must have personality. The TV Weatherman job used to be sort of a joke, but it's become more serious, and more and more broadcasting companies want real degreed meteorologists to do their weathercasts. I think you can still do it with a journalism or communications degree, but it may be harder to get.

You start out in small markets; local affiliates of the big stations. It could also be radio. You may start at as little as 20K-25K. After gaining experience and a good reputation you can start to move up to bigger markets and higher salary. The goal would be to become weathercasters at major big-name stationswill make in excess of $100K, but it is very difficult to get to that level. An example is to be the primary weathercaster for the ABC News affiliate in a major city. Al Rokers are celebreties, few and far between, and make ALOT of money.

 

You hit the nail on the head there...the majors long term ideal plan is for ALL flying to be performed by subcontractors like mesa...each major would have 5 or 6 subs and could play them off against each other, almost totally removing the power of the strike.

If you think you will EVER get to a major, to say nothing of 5 years down the road (LMAO) ...the mainline guys need to grab their scope by the b@lls ...they should be flying everything >50 seats (which includes MY airplane).

MESA didn't take the wrong course...they're making money hand over fist, and in case you didn't get the word pilot welfare is not on mesa's agenda in any way, shape, or form. The AWA ALPA guys went wrong by letting their company outsource airplanes the size of DC-9's and F-100's. It's gotta start at mainline and those boyz gotta realize it...

BTW, the kind of manager who starts out as a CSR is a chump..he'll be a middle manager (maybe) his whole life and not have much to show for it...the big-time airline managers whom everybody loves to hate don't come from the CSRs or the ramp, they are high-end B-school grads with a whole different perspective on life...