Suggest you get your facts straight and stop taking crap just for the sake of talking crap. There are many regionals with less pay for the equiptment than Colgan, Great Lakes, Lynx, Gulfstream, CommutAir, and Mesa to name a few. I know those airlines are not the "gold standard" of airlines but lets not act like Colgan is the worst, you just like to bash Colgan.

Colgan is improving by the day when it comes to scheduling and work rules, although we have a long way to go and continue to make strides in negotiations.

Since our union has been working with management we have been able to totally revamp our scheduling/bidding practices. No more are the days of upgrading and not knowing your base assignment untill after upgrade, we now know the base before hand and have the option to turn the upgrade down for a later date. This was never before the case, you either took the upgrade or you were blacklisted.

We can bid build up line with preferences and all lines are reviewed by the scheduling committee before being sent out to the pilots, no more 9-10 leg days. Base changes are now done through a vacancy bid, whereas before it was done by whomever kissed the most butt and then got the base they wanted. People senior to others always got stepped over for base changes because of this. This is no longer the case with vacancy bids.

The schedules are better as well. Before, your schedule would be a mix of 4 days, day trips, morning shows, evening shows, and reserve with a possible standup in order to keep the credit down. This is no longer the case as our schedules are reviewed beforehand by the union. We also now have online trip trade/open time.

These are just a few things we have acheived without a CBA. This was done with the hard work of our scheduling committee and others.

Out MEC is working hard to improve things for the pilot group and I believe the Colgan in 2 years will not resemble the Colgan we know today.

 

Those are some pretty impressive improvements considering what you guys had before. Hope it just continues to get better for you guys.

 

It will! Guaranteed......and ALPA is the reason!

 

ALPA is not the reason... the reason is the people who donate their time and efforts to make CJC ALPA what it is. Of course ALPA gives the guidance and structure but without our pilots putting in the work we would have zilch...

 

Good point. ALPA (or any other union) is only as good as the local level.

 

You can't pay the bills with turbine time guy. As for your uniformed opinion about turbine time and the majors, I know guys with thousands of hours of turbine PIC that are still at the regionals. Turbine time is no sure ticket to the majors. It is possible you may never see the right seat at a major. Worry about going to an airline that you could stand to be at for a while. Don't chase fast upgrades and "turbine time".

 

Well, would say that when the hiring starts again, piston time will get him looked at before the guys with thousands of hours of turbine PIC that you speak of?

And nope, we don't need to argue the merits of a guy flying 135 single pilot piston freight. If you (or anybody else) wants to take the thread in that direction, you're just wasting band width.

 

I think you missed his point.

 

Colgan is not the WORLDS Crappiest paying job, they are working on a contract give them a chance to evolve. Remember lakes pays less!

 

This is the exact reason our industry is crap right now. I have always been of the opinion that if we improve pay and QOL for instructors then that will force the 121, 135, etc. operators to raise their wages and improve their work rules.

I wish Colgan pilots the best of luck in getting a better contract, although based on the history of Colgan and Pinnacle I wont hold my breath.

Turbine SIC doesnt do a damn thing for you except increase your total time.