frmrdashtrash

Training there has always been very tough. You have to be well prepared or you will find yourself getting pink slipped. Very limited autopilot use during sim events and you're flying an old style six pack. I went through nearly 10 years ago coming out of a Lear 25 and other assorted non-glass / FMS bizjets and found the training to be very challenging. When I bailed from the company I went back to FMS / glass bizjets. Training was a cakewalk compared to Piedmont. If you go to work for Piedmont, understand you're tied to the books for the duration of training and that you will bust if you don't work your tail off, or if your instrument skills are weak.

Bozo the pilot

Agreed- I was only there for 11months and in that time i heard of 10 recurrent training failures-ca and fo. I never had to do pdt recurrent tg.
Dont go to piedmont-better options out there with a future. Good luck to the pdt guys.

FixTheMess

Oh, I'm sorry, I thought you asked "what should we do?" I guess you meant what would I do . . . Well, I voted against a new contract, which continued the "B" scale that we already have. IMO the contract was still concessionary. What we gave up, in no way shape or form made up for what little we got out of the new agreement. This was a strong shout to management that we will take whatever they give us, and do whatever they want, just to survive. If the 78% were on board with this, then they should be on board with begging to fly jets for "B" scale wages.

I also thought there was some sort of alliance between all US Airways express carriers? I am very much in support of that. However, why does PSA have a TA, with no other US Express carrier having any information about it? That doesn't sound like much of an alliance. Considering PSA's past practice of how they do business, our MEC should be beating down their MEC's door to get to the bottom of what is going on. Otherwise, like I said, if our MEC is content with sitting back with popcorn and watching the movie, our pilot group should get ready to BOHICA. We've seen this movie before, and know what the ending is.

I think voting our MEC out of office would be a good start. They failed us with our current contract, and they are failing us now. Unfortunately, 78% of the pilot group failed us also. I definitely do not sugar-coat this $@#! sandwich that is Piedmont to pilots interested in coming here. It is a disservice to them, and to our pilot group to tell them "oh, its not that bad." Our management should be lying awake at night, mind racing, desperately trying to think of how to staff this place. But 78% of us make it easy for them.

What would I do? If your a cliffs notes sort of guy,

1. I voted down the pathetic contract we have
2. I have voiced my opinions to my fellow coworkers, my MEC, and my reps. With regard to the MEC, its always been on a deaf ear.
3. I make sure I tell prospective new hires exactly how it is at Piedmont, not sugar coat it, which makes finding new suckers easier for management.
4. I support an alliance with open communication between all US Airways Express carriers. True, I can't do anything more than voice my support, or vote my MEC out, which brings me to probably the most beneficial action I'm prepared to take
5. Vote to remove our MEC from office. I'm not saying everyone needs to go necessarily, but its time to cut the fat from the hog. Or, in this case, the ticks from the rat.

We are an extremely weak pilot union, and until we start becoming extremely confrontational, we're going to continue to get walked all over, by management, and by our competitors. Our contract negotiation was the time to do this, and we blew it. Now, we continue to blow it, and watch everyone pass us by. For the upper 1/3 of the seniority list who are going to retire in the next 3-5 years, this strategy might work, but for the other 2/3 of the list . . . we're screwed.

PDTpilotXX

Most of this^^^. I'd disagree with the B scale of our current agreement, I believe we are about to see what a REAL B scale looks like with PSA's TA... just a hunch but I bet they wouldn't offer PSA anything they didn't offer Eagle. I'd also say if our contract was such a POS then LCC would know we'd fly the jets CHEAP and would have come to us. (lets not forget our recent deal was far better than PSA's.)

I believe there is coordination within the WO'd MEC's but if a group goes 'rouge' there isn't much we as a pilot group can do.

Most importantly I think new hires and perspective new hires need to know what's going on here with our crummy mgmt and airplanes.

fullflank

Wait wait wait.....im not a big psa supporter or anything, but what exactly is better about pdts contract? The payscales alone say volumes. As far as going rouge, that hasn't happened. Us airways came to us, not the other way around. What's the union supposed to do? "we refuse to talk, go talk to pdt"? With that said, concessions shouldn't even be considered, and I will be voting no on anything that resembles a concession.

PDTpilotXX

The two most obvious examples are vacation and even more glaring is health care costs and contributions. Also you have airport rsv.

I agree 100% if airways knocks on your door and wants to talk, you talk. I'm jumping the gun... need to wait and see what comes out at your road shows.

fullflank

Airport rsv is horrible I agree. What about vacation though? We get 7 days year one, 14 after that, and 21 at year 7. Dont remember when week 4 kicks in. Healthcare? I pay about 160 per month. What do you guys pay? Our fo's top out at 41, you guys? And yes there are plenty who are topped out now days. Captains? I think our 7-8 years guys make your top of scale on the big dash. Earlier if you compare the little dash scale.

PDTpilotXX

We drop touching trips which dramaticaly increases the number of days off our blocks get.

We currently pay less than 10% of our costs and you guys are frozen at 27% and your out of pocket costs doubled in your last deal and ours didn't change.

Pay... yup you top off higher than us thankfully both of our upgrade times are right around the same and neither of us have to see top fo pay if we don't want to. We also fly smaller aircraft but I wasn't suggesting our pay was better.

I am sorry my post came off as an attack on PSA. We are all in this together and hopefully you can understand why we'd be wary of your deal we haven't seen

fullflank

Yea I wasn't trying to start some sort of petty "my regional is better than yours" argument. I'll be the first to say that there are many improvements needed in our cba. I too am very wary of what's in this TA. Even worse, I'm wary of this pilot group's resolve lately, and am concerned that concessions will get accepted for that quick upgrade. More info will be released next week and I'm anxious to see it.

FixTheMess

This most likely will not happen, because it is much more difficult to transition our airline and pilot group to a new airframe, especially a jet. I'm not saying its not possible, but there are better options out there for management. [That] is why we haven't been approached. I think this is a possibility after all other options of theirs are exhausted, but it won't get that far. It'll be settled with PSA, Chautauqua, Mesa, Trans States, or Skywest. There's no reason to go to Piedmont.

Has our MEC approached PSA's and asked for details about their TA? (since we have coordination?)

Agreed.