Stepping stone? If you think any major airline hiring boards will be accepting Republic pilots after the way they've acted throughout the whole mess in the last year, you're sadly mistaken.

 

Hah ! Dream on ! Like it or not-they don't care !

 

They don't care.

 

More care than you'd like to think... They care.

 

There are plenty of Mesa scumbags (A-listers) that got on with every major airline you can think of. Some guys get lucky and the hiring board doesn't care, and others have good connections that sway the hiring boards decision.

Either way, dirt bags get hired. Not saying its right (because it isn't), but it is the reality of the situation. There are guys I wouldn't let buy my dinner that are working at Delta, Spirit, Frontier, Allegiant, Virgin and SWA.

Makes no sense to me.

 

How have we acted? We certainly haven't acted as poorly as you and all your Eastie buddies who agreed to BINDING arbitration and subsequently flew off the handle because you didn't like the result. Yeah okay. Keep lecturing us on how to conduct ourselves honorably. All we've done is continue to report to work. The same as all of you would have done and have done in past mergers and purchases. Nobody likes this new paradigm and what it means for all of our futures, especially us. Plenty of us will move on when the opportunity presents itself.

 

Roughly half the employed pilots in this country are flying for "regionals" or feeders, or "majors" if you prefer. This means that there will be few opportunities to jump up to a major anytime soon. Not from a regional right seat. In the "old" days, the feeders had roughly 25% of the flying mainline had, therefore there were more mainline jobs and almost anyone who wanted could go at some point in their career. Not so today. And even if you do make it, look at the number of furloughs, bankruptcies, and liquidations. Get caught in one of those and it hurts.

That is not being negative. That is our industry at the moment. I had a UPS interview in 2007. I didn't get the job. Whatever reason they do not say. The human resources guy actually congratulated me for getting an interview because he had "8000 resumes and applications" and I was one of 400 interviews that year. Why would he be that smug? Because he could. And all those fine pilots that left good jobs for UPS in 2007? They are facing furlough in a couple of months. And UPS is not even losing money.

Try to make your present company better. You may be there longer than you think. I actually tried to be cautious and select a job I would truly enjoy and was secure. I was at my "regional" for 9 years because of it. 3 years after leaving I am furloughed. Sometimes all the planning in this industry still is not as valuable as dumb luck.

 

Care to elaborate on that one, O Mighty Burninator?

 

Really? I know of at least one RAH guay who is in class for Airtran. I know of a GoJet(one of the first one there) pilot at UPS. So, take you leaking theories and plug them up.

 

That's not true, it's nowhere near half. Just AA pilots and another legacy or two account for all of the regional pilots flying today.