Nothing is wrong with Mesaba. Many of us would LOVE to work for Mesaba, but got the "thanks but no-thanks" letter and we need SOMETHING...

 

If your going to one of the subcontractor companies all you're doing is enabling managements to continue to whipsaw and destroy the profession. If more people had intestinal foritude and refused to accept those types of jobs, the owned companies would HAVE to grow to fill the need. Better jobs for everybody in the end... sadly, most people can't see the forrest through the trees and will accept ANY flying job....

Better off to grab a Govt job or something else with decent pay (and there are plenty out there right now) for the short term, keep doing what your doing (instructing, flying traffic reporting, corp, or 135) and hold out for a good job, at a good company... preferably one with a base near where you live. Commuting gets old very very quickly and limits you to multi day trips... Hold your head up high, refuse to work for scum companies, be proud of yourself, and your profession and refuse to give away your knowledge and skills for what those places offer.

Avoid lateral job transfers (IE - Regional to Regional) in this market you will be going to the bottom of both the pay scales and seniority lists.

The regionals used to be a place where you did your time, upgraded and then moved onto a major. Along came the regional jet.... which now does much longer routes than what used to be considered "regional" flying. Mainlines have stagnated, and in many case shrunk. The days of going from a regional to a major are almost gone.... sure, some will make the jump, but most will be trapped at regionals their ENTIRE career. So, look very very very carefully at where you want to work, and who you are willing to work for. Managements know the do your time and move on days are gone, but they continue to prey upon new pilots who think it's still true. They use this to their advantage to get you to accept a job at a grossly underpaid rate, with horrible working conditions, and few benefits.

Look at it this way, the United Auto Workers in Detroit are getting an average over $80 per hour in pay/benefits to build cars... basically unskilled and uneducated labor... How much education and training did it take you to get to the point of just being "hirable." You'll have to be a regional Capt for several years before you see that.... and their $80 an hour is from duty on to duty off...

We as a profession need to stop giving away the expertise for peanuts.

 

Exactly, and this is a HUGE contributing factor to why the big three automakers are begging for a bailout. I used to know a guy whose mother put two screws in the back of a glove box and she made huge pay and benefits.
I agree with most of what you said, though. Unfortunately, salaries and benefits are usually set by what the market will bear. The automakers hoped to share the expenses by over-pricing their cars. The big three automakers are discovering something that Honda, Toyota, and others discovered long ago - there aren't ENOUGH people willing to pay those kinds of prices for those kinds of cars.
Conversely, the airlines can't figure out how to get consumers to actually pay enough for what they are getting. Everyone wants a $99 round trip ticket, and the masses shop purely by price. Some airline is willing to pay next to nothing to some starry-eyed and wet-behind-the-ears pilots while cutting back on "amenities" to give the consumer a lower price and win the purchase.
When I said that I was looking for "SOMETHING", I was not meaning that I would settle for one of those companies. I am too old and have too many qualities marketable in other industries to be treated like that. If I am going to go to a regional, it will be one of great reputation, good second year pay, "good" QOL, etc.

 

editted .

 

Things will get better. I'm thinking it will be sooner than later. Even in better times, there will always be some airline that tries to undercut the competition in part by offering lower wages to the more motivated (ie: desperate) pilots.

The way to deal with this is not to attack the pilots who take those jobs but to help your company do better than those companies. Then fight for what you deserve. At times it seems unlikely that the purchasers of contract services care about anything but cost. I think we'll soon see that quality can be rewarded. By the time this trough finally shakes out there will be fewer contractors than there were. As things begin to improve, new contractors will pop up. Some will make it and some won't. All I can do is to try to do the best job I can every day.

 

At this time, we are seeing a consolidation and weeding out process at the regional airlines.

When things start to come back, I think we will see more pilots selecting regionals as a career rather that a stepping stone to a major airline. I think the regionals that expect to survive are going to be considering this. They will have an opportunity to hire new pilots who may have more commitment for the long haul. There may even be a new layer added. It may be major, regional, and what ever they will call time builders.

 

While I agree with many of the things being said in this thread, I do not agree that management is going to be looking to have people stick around for the long term.

When an employee stays around long term it means a much higher operating cost for the company. They are paying people double or triple the salary for the same work, contributing to the 401K, pensions (for the lucky few), health care, etc. With the costs associated with this, they can't be competitive in the market for which they are bidding. The big 3 auto makers are perfect examples of this or in aviation look at Comair and ExpressJet. Both companies have contracts that would lead to long term employees and both are now furloughing because they can't keep up with the race to the bottom.

Getting employees to leave and thus keeping relatively junior people around is a much better option. Training new hires is cheaper than keeping people around. Unfortunately this is the sad new truth in aviation.

 

I predict that we may see a different paradigm as we emerge from this trough that we are now in.

Just a little example here. Years ago, I was in charge of a janitorial company. We had a contract with a government agency providing solid reliability and quality for a fair price. The government customer was required to bid out the job every year through a RFP (request for proposal) process. Every year, my company would get underbid by a new low baller that was way below all the other bids. The government agency knew from experience they would not be happy with the low baller but they lacked the guts to risk criticism for buying from a higher priced contractor.

Every year, the government agency would fire their new janitorial service after about 1 month of miserable service then hire my company back. The service buyers knew that it would be better to just hire my company in the first place but they were worried about the consequences. I believe a private company, such as an airline, may be more likely to balance quality against the lowest price.

I think some managers at Delta will remember the consequences of hiring Mesa for a long time.

In a way, you really can't blame Mesa for thinking they were filling a niche. Look how long it took for Delta to finally ditch them.

I think as we enter the next upswing, airline managers are going to be asking themselves questions about how to avoid another Mesa.

 

What happened to threegreens? I miss his interesting posts. Are you still out there threegreens? Over.

 

While I agree with you that the airlines should do this, my argument is that the government has no competition. If they get charged a little more, so what, there is nobody there to compete with them at a lower price so they just pass on the costs. An airline on the other hand will always have competitors. If one charges more for a service, the public will simply fly with a cheaper one. When was the last time you heard of anybody buying a ticket based on the on-time performance of an airline??? It is a price run industry at this point. Cheapest price wins.