Special Magenta Line - Colgan Crash
 

Today is Sunday, September 6, 2009 and this is a Special Edition of The Magenta Line. There is 1 item for discussion.





Item 1: Note to Management: If You Lie Down With Dogs…



In a devastating article appearing in today’s Buffalo News, the management of Colgan Air, the operator of Continental Connection 3407 which crashed in Buffalo on February 12th of this year, has been unmasked as a strong proponent of the “beatings will continue until morale improves” philosophy of airline operation.



While many of us are well aware of just what our fellow ALPA pilots at Colgan have been dealing with the past few years, it is because of our relationship with them as a Continental Connection carrier that what is done to them is done to us as well—and to our customers.



The article in The Buffalo News reads like a recounting of third-world sweatshop working conditions: the professional pilots of Colgan Air are harangued for their use of sick leave, threatened with termination for too many sick calls within a year, forced to provide doctors notes for routine illnesses—and browbeaten into flying tired; and sick and tired are exactly what Captain Marvin Renslow and First Officer Rebecca Shaw were before they left Newark for Buffalo last February 12th.



The Buffalo accident put Continental Airlines management at a crossroads—the warning sign said “Cliff Ahead! Turn Now!”, but our management has continued to drive straight ahead anyway. As management has shown us over and over, their sole concern is the bottom line—but, as is often the case, the bottom line has sharp teeth—and it can bite.



We, the professional pilots of Continental Airlines, have watched the former quality of our Continental Airlines brand disappear—just as our own mainline flying has disappeared to a multitude of Continental Connection “partners” like Gulfstream International. With each new downgrade, the managements we dealt with became seedier and seedier. We ate breakfast at Tiffany’s, lunch at Burger King, and dinner at the rescue mission. The only constant in this uncontrolled descent was the professionalism of the pilots of our Connection partners. Regardless of the ruthlessness of their respective management teams, the pilots, no matter the airline, were the one bright constant. We all, from Continental to Colgan, meet the same high standards; it’s management who feeds at ever-lower bottoms of the trough.



The Buffalo News article can be found here:

Colgan pilots say many felt pressure to work while ill : Home: The Buffalo News



Colgan pilots say many felt pressure to work while ill



While you read it, think about what is happening in our own Newark pilot base: we have been cut to about 1800 pilots—but management is adding 2 additional assistant chief pilots. Anyone want to guess why management needs more assistant disciplinarians for fewer pilots? Looks to us like they plan on continuing the beatings.





As we close this week, please remember our 147 hostages and their families.





Captain Jayson Baron, EWR Council 170 Chairman

[email protected]

610 442-3817



First Officer Tara Cook, EWR Council 170 Vice Chairman

[email protected]

610 220-8904



Captain Kaye Riggs, EWR Council 170 Secretary-Treasurer

[email protected]

830 431-0450

Continental hasnt cared about quality or anything close to quality in a long time. This isnt surprising in the least. They want cheap and that is what they are getting. Go back to 2000 when they sold the atr's because of an "all jet fleet" is what business travelers wanted. Now a more comfortable turbo-prop comes along and they go with the shadiest company they can find. I love how the q400's gear up landings, Buffalo crash, the wheel falling off on landing, the constant maintenance issues and cancellations, the fuel hedging loss,and the complete cluster from when chq started up in houston are all being ignored. There have been some monumental oversights by management.

This cheap cheap cheap mindset gets you nothing but headaches and ****ed off passengers.

I think there needs to be a come to jesus moment among US airlines where this outsourcing is banned or outlawed. If you want to use the name then 90% have to be flown, operated, handled, and represented by that name and company. Not like Midwest where it is the other way around.

I agree. Can I get an Amen!

There is a specific number of fatal accidents that management is willing to put up with before any real and lasting changes will occur.


And we haven't gotten there yet. So they don't care.

Unfortunatly the low bidder will win these days. I did hear that Colgan failed their safety audit by the FAA which should say something. Now that Colgan is ALPA and in section 6 I hope that the union will force the company to stop working these pilots in sweat shop conditions. CAL had an almost all jet fleet for a long time and then backslid into running bigger turbo props to circumvent the pilot scope clause with CAL Managment know is the 3rd rail that I hope they never **** on.

That makes me think of the Edward Norton Speech, from Fight Club, about how car manufacturers decide whether or not to issue a recall.

And the colgan pilots want our support in their "negotiations"

Their attempt at a real airline is laughable. If they can achieve half the work rules and even close to industry average pay then it will be a monumental step up for them but will still be a drop in the bucket for the massive decrease in pilot compensation they have imposed on the profession.

to the colgan lovers i am not defending xjt taking mainline flying or any jet regional operator but the constant farming out of flying to the lowest, crappiest bidder is like our profession swimming with a cinder block tied to its foot. We will never get anywhere without an end to this. Just wait for your next contract to be underbid by some shoddy operator with grandiose dreams.

scope is never taken. it is given away.

Sometimes its taken, like in bankruptcy.

It will happen, and I will enjoy reading the posts from the colgan folks.

Not in Continental's case. And in any case no one seems to be in a rush to get it back. Lining pockets has a higher priority.

So sad...
 

Thank you for the great post. While hard to read, it is the truth of the industry. It is sad however that our fellow pilots will use such a well thought out and informative post as an invitation to berate other pilot groups, completely missing the point. While this post seems to indicate, as we all believe, that management is the issue, the immature/inexperienced pilots use this to reaffirm their stance as the #2 problem in the industry. These pilots are probably the ones that spend a little to much time in my cockpit trying to strike up a false friendship, or worse not even show the respect by asking at all, knowing that they can come home and hide behind their well-thought-out screen names and feel powerful enough to talk down to the same pilot that just helped them out.

Having read these forums with regularity, but only posting when I feel it's needed, I expect the immature, uneducated, irrational rebuttles. With any hope at all, one should expect unity and unified goal of a higher standard, no matter the regional, or for that matter, the major you work for.

Curious where you heard this. Can you provide a link?

We are not a "third-world" sweatshop.... we have running water.

Just not in our planes ;)

Haha....actually, the Q does have running water. :eek: Guess we're slowly eeking our way into the second-world. Albeit, at an alarmingly slow pace. :(

Do you even have a vague idea of how hypothetical your statement is?

XJT is a lower, crappier bidder than mainline, and by your definition CJC is a lower, crappier bidder that XJT. The regionals have become a race to the bottom, but putting your company up on a pedestal still pales in comparison to your mainline counterpart.

Show some support and quit with the whining, at the end of the day NONE of the flying belongs to ANY regional airline.

I can't recall a recent airline bankruptcy where a judge imposed a contract - can you? In the last decade, concessionary contracts have been negotiated (DAL, UAL, NWA, etc...) in Chapter 11 by the MECs and in most cases affirmed by membership ratification.

The fear was that the judge might impose more harsh terms, but scope at the majors has been negotiated away - not imposed.

I think it comes down to the self-preservation of one's own interests. Once "some" pilots become senior enough, i.e. furlough begins to look unlikely to reach them, they decide to re-prioritize their concerns.

While scope may have seemed like a good way to kick in a quick pay raise in a new working agreement, that effectively gave away market share from mainline pilot jobs to regional companies. What good is the best contract in the world if only a few handful of pilots are able to reap its' benefits?

At the end of the day, it is mainline representation who gave away scope and it will be mainline representation who will have to fight to get it back.

Scope at CAL has not changed. The Q400 is allowed per scope, just like the ATR-72's I flew for Express back in the 90's. CAL has good scope compared to most, but I would have liked to see a number limit on planes. They got the seat limits pretty good. I guess back then no one expected the huge regional jet fleets of today.

It is not hard to sit in IAH and count all of the rj's waiting to fly mainline routes.

Didn't the ATR's get parked when XJT was still COEX and just after the 9/11 flow backs happened?

If I remember correctly, the ATR's were parked 8-12 months after 9/11.

CAL's scope is better than most, but not good enough. Evidence of that is the existence of this thread.

The same scope existed before and after 9/11. The Beech 1900, EMB-120, and ATR-42/72 were being parked as part of the RJ expansion. 9/11 may have parked them quicker. I'm just responding to the post about the Q400 being a way around CAL's scope. It's not. It falls under the seats allowed for turboprops.

I'm not sure I understand this. This thread is about the mention of the Colgan crash and codeshare airlines from the Magenta Line. EVERY airline codeshares with a regional partner. Some more than others. Some with EMB-170/190's. CAL only allows 50 seat jets. I'd say that's good. The only better you could do is all CAL flying is done by CAL pilots. I'm all for that, but I don't expect that to happen.

You can start a thread on the migration of Canadian Geese and it will turn into a ****ing contest of employer comparisons by self proclaimed experts!

You sure do whine alot!! The funny thing is you probably have jumpseated on our third world Q's and we accepted you with no prob. There was several XJT guys supporting us in IAH with the ALPA drive and assisting with answering our questions, etc... I think you deep down inside wish you worked for us and cry yourself to sleep wishing you could fly the big shinny third world crappy Colgan Q. GROW UP!!!!!!!

A little thread drift never killed anyone. Sounds like you understand. I don't expect all CAL flying to be done by CAL pilots because CAL pilots as a majority don't think it's a priority.

XJT was supporting you becomming ALPA but as far as getting the Q which circumvents the the scope clause and took some of the XJT flying moved us over to the nightmare called terminal A we do not support.

Look- like it or not XJT's 50 seat feed is mainline flying. It's not yours just like it's not Colgans or CommutAir or Chatauqua's. Don't try to ack like poor XJT. You're company tried your branded flying and your at-risk Delta stuff after Colgan came in, and they both didn't work out.

Second- the CAL MEC doesn't take an issue with Colgan's Q400 flying because it feel into the realm of their scope. They knew what they were agreeing to when they signed Contract 2003 (?). I don't think that any regional should be operating an aircraft with more than 19 seats, but to label it as scope circumvention is not fair, because it wasn't.

I think that the XJT guys just go too used to being CALs only feed. And I will admit it's a great company with an excellent contract and a good product. But it doesn't change the fact that CAL came to XJT and offered them the Q400, however your management balked at the offer, feeling turboprops were below them.

And why do the XJT guys not take more of an offense to CommutAir? EWR-ACK, EWR-SYR...that was "your flying", too.

XJT unfortunately has been beaten and kicked around by CAL management for the last few years since LK took over and he has unfortunately made the CAL/XJT relationship shaky. XJT never had a problem with Commutair or SkyWest when they were here or even Colgan until the Q came on line. We did have issues with CHQ but that seemed to go away after a while. It is what it is and it sucks but do you really think that CAL should run a 737 from IAH to MOB, or EWR to SYR? Back in the good time when GB was running the ship and it was CAL and COEX, before I was at XJT, it seemed that things were good. It will always be you are taking my flying, that was ours but I have learned over the years business is business and crap like this happens. XJT management has made some bad decisions in hind sight but that is always 20/20. Our branded and Delta venture could have been better if fuel prices did not choke us out but we tried it and lost and here we are. After my eyes were opened last night to what is going on at CAL with the union and management, I now realize how CAL management has shoved down your throat for years and now you are trying to get back what you deserve and should have had about 4 years ago. In a perfect world, I would hope that CAL buys XJT back, they work out a fair sonority integration and take the best parts of the XJT contract and CAL contract and put them together and finally have an airline that will set the bar for the others to finally take back from the corporate greed and share the wealth amongst the employees. Seeing is how that will never happen XJT is in the position that we are in, CAL is doing what they gotta do and the corporate BS will continue.

Good post,

Unfortunately that is the true reality of this industry. The only company that truly "owns" the flying, is the company with their logo on the side of the aircraft.

And my contract, paycheck, and benefits should be coming from the company with the logo on the side of the aircraft also!

You didn't know much when you got the job, you interviewed not knowing what you were getting into, you wanted a 121 job, and now you're with " X " airline you are angry about it ? You research has been done on the wrong end pal..

How do you know WHY they balked at the offer?

Maybe they knew at the rates CAL was willing to pay they'd have to pay sh**ty wages to fly 70 seat planes (and who knows what the impact on mx and training would have been)? Obviously colgan management was happy to jump on.

I don't know. I would bet that it had something to do with startup costs and not wanting to fly a turboprop. It wasn't CJC management, it was PNCL. I'm not defending CJCs pay or work rules Clocks.

Then don't make crap up.