Hey, I'm not trying to cat fight, I was told Skywest wasn't at the meeting, and I haven't really had a chance to talk to the people in the know. So I take your word that you guys were there. That is great, by getting everyone together and saying enough, is the only way to stop the management whipsaw.

As far as pay, you might have missed my point, we are underpaid at ASA, that is why we are having such a heated contract negotiation. We don't like the idea, or care to include profit sharing in our pay. You guys trust your management, we don't trust ours. We like JA, but when he took over, he left the same old ASA people at the top, we don't trust them. They have a really bad history with us(It would take hours). The latest example is the RFP award of 12 700's. Our management is saying that we are in the running to get those planes, JA said not to long ago that ASA hadn't even put in a bid. What will likely happen is Skywest will get the planes, and ASA management will say that we could have had them, but our 700 pay rates are too high, so the planes went to Skywest. Again transferring planes from higher paid ALPA Comair, to non union lower paid Skywest. or possibly lower paid ASA. Either way it stinks for Comair. I would hate if we got those planes. And I am by no means saying that when you guys get the planes out of Cincy that you are bad in any way, you will just be doing your job, you have no control over it, nor do we. This is the reason all of us need to get on the same page and hold the line on pay.

Dude, first of all, when someone calls you on your BS, you're backpedalling like a politician.

Secondly, don't lecture me about fighting for a contract. I came to skywest from an ALPA carrier--as did over HALF the people in my class--and the QOL is night and day compared to the craphole I was working at (and it wasn't even Mesa). The first year pay is $4 less an hour than my previous employer, but our work rules have me flying the same amount and crediting more (and actually getting paid more) than before.

I'll vote for a union when I think one is necessary. That could be tomorrow, it could be a year down the road--I haven't been here long enough to judge how necessary it is. I definately want to see the 70/90 seat rates go up, and I think that they will shortly.

Allright BALZAHARI that last post was a bit more reasonable than what I was reading earlier, and I do sympathize with what's currently happening at ASA, I have friends there. I do agree that regional pay sucks in general no matter where you go, I'm just saying it's unfair to SkyWest to call us out as the ones lowering the bar. It would certainly be amazing if we could all have a pay scale like Horizon's or Comair's. I know the current rates aren't what I was expecting when I decided on this career. Unfortunately that just isn't reality at the moment. Just the simple fact that we're non-union doesn't make us the ones to blame. There are plenty of union carriers doing the industry far worse than us. It's unfortunate that you don't trust your management, it's a nice change of pace to be at a company with people who like where they're at. (I was TSA where we dealt with likes of Hulas and Leach.) When I was at TSA the pilots would taxi at 2 mph with both engines spinning just to spite the company. They'd absolutely refuse to do anything they didn't have to. That's my only gripe with unions, they tend to create a situation where people skrew themselves to skrew the other. It doesn't happen much at SkyWest and that's why things are going well here.

SOOOOOOOO True!

Good for you guys!

Ya know if you'd put a little support behind the Mesa guys they may help bring this crap hole of an industry up a notch. Frankly we are tired of the way things are and the way they went the last time around and I don't believe that its gonna fly this time.

I hope when you guys jump home on a Mesa plane you tell the pilots you think they are, how do you say... oh that's right Mesa pilots are the root of everything that is evil and wrong with the airline industry! Not that you shouldn't ride on us, we are happy to have you aboard.

FWIW, CHQ is opening a CVG base (E135) at the beginning of '07. Even though the RFP awards have not been announced, there is a lot going on at the Delta Connection carriers that suggests the results are pretty much set already and known among management.