Ya know I always felt that way about the clause in that it is just a statement and anyone (management) could do what they want. I could be wrong but I think the MEC at ASA learned from past mistakes and really made this one specific and purposeful. Essentially the contract is between the ASA pilots and SKW since it's all the same money, and really it's all about money. No one cares if they keep flying, just a paycheck. But hey it's a cruel world and all we can do is hope people do the RIGHT thing.

Exactly. I'm very much happy at ASA, and will certainly miss line flying. But in this economy, if they're going to send people to the street time is running out to find other employment. And yes, I also have financial obligations (a mortgage, a car payment, various bills, and thankfully no huge outrageous loan from ERAU [subtle joke]). But my point is all of us have various responsibilities that we must manage.

Eh? What?

I'm willing to bet I'm just as junior as you. Feb 08 hire.

As I said, I have a mortgage, a car payment, and various other bills to manage. Don't talk to me about financial responsibility. I will say that I am glad some of my peers are not all giddy about flying for a damn airline that they forget what it is to live in the real world instead of in a dump of a crash pad for $250 a month, and then paying their $1000 loan from some uber-expensive flight school that sold them some great bull**** marketing.

While I hate to say it, but a crashpad and loan payment do not necessarily rank up there high on the "responsibility" meter. When (if) the F bomb drops, a lot of my peers are going to be in a world of hurt. Crawling back to mommy and daddy to live.

Myself on the other hand, I'm building a family with a child on the way in April. If they're going to furlough, DO IT is all I'm saying. Either say it, or say "You know what guys, we know it's a tough environment out there. We're a successful company, have a good bit amount of cash and we're going to keep you guys employed through this economic meltdown. Merry Christmas."

And this sentence: Meanwhile I'll be worrying about if I can afford to buy groceries.

You can finally get those food stamps we've all been talking about. ;)

It's nothing but a PR write off that cost the company NOTHING in the long run. All companies do the same in some shape or form, they have too.

Did I read correctly that Delta doesn't expect demand to increase until Q1 2011? If that's the case, it's going to be a crappy two years. Hopefully, their forecasting is as wrong as the rosy forecasts so many had in 2007.

The foreseeable future in aviation is no further out than a few hours. That might be an exaggeration but this industry is wound so tightly anything could happen at anytime.

Demand increases in 2011 and then the world ends in 2012 just as hiring starts picking up. Man, we chose a wrong time to be born!

I had no say in the matter!! LoL I wish every day I'd have gotten the chance to fly around with the likes of Doolittle, Lindbergh, and Hughes!

HAHAHAHAHA!!!!!:D

I hope you guys don't have to f-lough, and I hope that we can get a frigging contract like yours over here at 9E so we can hopefully keep the bar where you guys have it set so DAL loses any incentive to whipsaw us on the 200s...

On the other hand...all the comments on here about paying the bills and food stamps and stuff--I checked, and even on first year pay at many regionals, it goes over the Fed program requirements for stamps...jesus.

As a side note, if you have lots of student loans, and you do get laid-off, there are such things as economic hardship deferments (for both fed and many private lenders), consolidation (Chase and Wells Fargo do private student loan consolidations on 25 (Wells) and 30 (Chase) year terms). There is always also grad school so you can get an in-school deferment. I've looked into all of these in case 9E ever had to drop the F-bomb (they're surverying captains over here about VOLAs as a possible cost-mitigation for '09, though it might be scare tactics).

Sounds like there are def some politics going on with your ALPA and PBS...though it would seem logical to most observers that PBS reduces staffing needs, PBS actually works better in a slightly overstaffed condition...if they F-d the bottom guys who are outside of the f-lough clause, but kept the remaining 100-170 who were f-lough protected (this would seem to be a slightly overstaffed condition from what guys are saying on here)...that would probably result in LESS costs than continuing with paper bidding and f-loughing 300 or so. There is a sweet spot where PBS generates the best solutions from a cost perspective, and it's usually when you're very slightly overstaffed...

Can't make any predictions b/c I don't work there and have no idea what your staffing/lines look like, but it might actually be the company pushing for PBS + Floughing the guys outside of the clause...they might have run a sample solution with whatever software package they're using and figured that out...

Email from SH tonight says we're offering voluntary furloughs effective immediately along with extended COMAs. Are we asking for everyone to leave who will, then furlough those who aren't protected anyway?