i dont see a reason to be ****ed off at mesaba pilots. You cant take business personally. If we are downsized, we should be mad at no one except delta because they are the ones dealing the cards out and screwing us when we have not done anything recently to warrant losing flying. More important than bashing other carriers pilots is when do we think we will furlough, if at all?

 

Everyone... I have friends at Mesaba and myself at ASA.
On the ASA side, even if we don't get new planes or whatever ATLEAST we have a job. 900s right now would cause us to loose planes (200s) then we need LESS crew and that means we may have to let ppl go. So it may not be such a bad thing that we don't get these 900s. Wait till more CAPTs move on and ASA not hire. When our pilot pool shrinks a little then giving up planes for 900s maybe worth wild. ASA managment has done a lot to make sure I still have a job. I am well within range to get the big F and yet I am still here.
Mesaba, they have a small fleet so an increase in planes for them is also well deserved. So they become a large 900 fleet big deal, they are in position for it because they do not have to give up any or many planes for them and they are not FAT on pilots. Those 900s was flying for DCI already so it isn't like they ADDED more planes and left the total DCI line numbers the same. (if you get what I mean)
One can say that us not getting these planes may lead to lines taken away but we don't know that right now. Heck during the summer we had almost too many lines to A/C ratio. The one thing I do admit is that we CAN use a few extra planes due to the ATR going away.

If the numbers work the way they do right now and everyone has a job so be it. Next yr is gonna be the yr of DCI WARS. As far as the last press release said about 8 of us will stand, why not just focus on that and when the ones that fall go, the planes and the lines will be divided among the standing. All that matters is that US pilots have a job. If we let our motivation go and our performance drop we will lose. (this goes for ALL DCI carriers)

I have a feeling Imma get my butt chewed off by some of you now.... haha

 

Nice post...........and no I'M not going to chew you out. You hit some good points but I think it is totally beyond that. Here at ASA you have a lot of junior guys that want to fly a bigger airplane (e.g. CR9), and a lot of senior guys that have been here for many years and have seen their paycheck go down the crapper because of a loss in overall flying. So I think it's mostly just a few guys at ASA rooting for the 900's and the rest could care less. All we want to see is a little more respect for what we have done here at ASA to turn things around and really master ATL as a base of ops. You can give whomever all the 900's in the world but at ASA all we have seen in the past 6 or so months is a steady decrease in the amount of flying we do. And it's not like they are just removing these "unprofitable" routes. Someone else is doing them right out of our backyard.

Just two years ago I remember flying some pretty fun legs and overnighters such as Mexico, Dallas, Turks, Cancun, Belize, Cozumel, etc. Now someone else is doing all that flying. Seems like all we do is Montreal, Jackson MS, Ackron OH, Montreal and Jackson MS.

You had mentioned that you were fairly new so you may not have seen the decline in the amount of flying as well as the quality in the past 2 years.

I have no blame for pilots of other airlines and I'm sure alot of guys feel the sameway even though it comes across like we do. It's more of a combination of Big D, Managment of all the regionals, Unions, shareholders, and the new wave of 200 hour wonderpilots.

 

I hate to tell you this, but I have lots of flies on the wall in the GO and all my flies are telling me the furloughable pilots will be furloughed in January or February unless something changes. You may feel differently about this issue, and perhaps even agree wit us come March.

As the guy above said, we literally used to fly coast to coast at ASA. You could fly a 4 day trip and see two oceans, Canada, and the Gulf of Mexico. Now all we see is Des Moines, Fayetteville, and Omaha. All the old routes we used to so have not been dropped... they are being done by other carriers. It is aggravating

 

Don't you guys at ASA realize that you own NO flying? It is all mother Ds flying and she decided who goes where and on what gage of equipment. I stopped taking route changes between XJ, PCL, NWA and CP personally a long time ago. I just show up and fly to wherever big red tells me to fly to. I can't control it, therefore I waste no more energy in toiling over the monthly changes. Sure, I'd love to fly to more exotic destinations, but I know my airplanes place in the network.

 

Really? You're kidding me. I didn't know we don't own the flying.

That's such a lame argument. Usually the ones on the receiving end are the ones who bring that argument. Real easy to say when you are the one growing.

Now for your reading and comprehension skills, I never said we "owned" anything. I said they are replacing us on routes we used to do. I should have added with their SJS pilots, and inferior contracts. Enjoy our "exotic" destinations in the year to come as we continue to shrink because we cost more to operate, even though we put out a higher quality product.

 

Jeez dude, you're as overly sensitive here as you are on flightinfo. I never quoted you as saying OWNED, so don't take offense to it. The whole point is that Delta changes things all the time, so does NWA even when you're NOT growing. The point remains the same - you can't take it personally. People waste too much energy in worrying about the stuff they can't control, like the routes they used to fly.

 

Amen to that.

 

delta talks out of both sides of their mouth. They love to say we want regional carriers that give out a quality experience for passengers and are on time with few customer complaints. Yet new flying and already operated routes are being continually pushed over to companies with lower operating costs and bad contracts. You get what you pay for. Delta has not been an airline of their word since they promised Pan Am money to keep them as a separate carrier, only to pull the rug out from under them and take their routes and airplanes.

 

Elaborate? My sources are telling me opposite. Apparently its too late to furlough in terms of saving money. If we were going to furlough it would have been this fall.