Well, we have 17 with no flying, so we furlough 176 pilots. Now we find flying for 12 of those planes, but we're not cancelling the furloughs. = bad. Now, looking at the contract, Midwest Airlines has until June 2010 to convert the ASA to a simple dry lease, where they fly airplanes we own with their pilots. = more bad. Now, to execute that lease, Midwest has to negotiate cheaper labor terms with its pilots. So they're going to go to their pilots while we're flying our planes in their paint and say, "if you want your jobs back you have to accept this cut in your pay, or we'll just let them keep your jobs permanently." Which means the pilots of RAH will be blamed for the recessionary contract of Midwest Airlines. = triple bad. Or, even better, they refuse the concessions and we keep the flying and are then the cause of 300-400 pilots losing their jobs. = yet more bad.

So basically, we've taken the planes and given them away, agreeing to fly them for a short term without any furloughs being reduced, which means worse schedules for us. And in the long run, when Midwest Airlines gets their recessionary contract under duress, we'll still lose the flying, get the furloughs, AND now be the bad guys to blame for Midwest pilots' lower standard of living.

A more prudent question would be, how could this be construed in any way good for RAH???

here's a math problem Wexford + Midwest + Frontier + 4 emb 190s = BB's master plan!

Something is in the works here and its very fishy

i don't understand how we're furloughing, displacing, opening a vacancy, and upgrading...all at the same time. the inner workings of this company are mind-boggling to me.

I had a chat w/ Gary W about this. I'm getting displaced, while there are vacancies listed in my own base. It really comes down to timing. The company is having trouble dealing with what their needs are right now vs what their needs will be in 2 months.

I'm right there with ya, read the tea leaves on that one. FISHY is an understatement yet, I can't quite think of what word to replace fishy.

its incredible how do you possibly furlough, downgrade, upgrade, and displace people all at once while you are bringing 12 airplanes back online. Im in training here in STL and just wondering where I will end up. Its going to be a crazy ride here the next few months.

Bedfords new letter was kinda funny today lol. Two of them in three days. There's a new record. Obviously I have no idea which direction he's going with things but there are plenty of reasonable speculations to be made.

A slight paraphrase: "Don't listen to all the negative reactions"

Lemme get this straight oh great reverend: Midwest pilots go on the street, they either take concessions to fly our planes (violating our CBA) or we continue flying them while they lose their jobs for good and we are forever viewed as a whipsaw. Meanwhile, I'm still furloughed.

Where's the positive in this deal? Oh, I guess it's only positive if I'm a CEO.

At least the IBT/MEC is going about things in the right way. From what I've gathered they(Midwest pilots) completely understand the shell shock as they had the same thing happen to them as us. They know we aren't happy about this flying and we seem to all be on the same side. So far the only pilot group up in arms appears to be XJT for some reason lol.

Because a single anonymous flight attendant speaks for the pilot group.