Originally Posted by gettinbumped

I'm still trying to figure out how you've decided that this is somehow the United PILOTS who are to be held responsible for the travel arrangements with their commuter partners.

.... Keep this in mind, however, when you are appealing for sympathy or action from the United pilot group. In the last decade my airline has shrunk literally in half. Most of my F/O's have been furloughed... many of them twice. During that time, the regionals have literally EXPLODED, flying larger and larger jets, getting hired with less time and less experience. It wasn't that long ago that you had to have several thousand hours of flying checks around before you could even THINK about applying to be a regional F/O for that $20k a year job. Some perspective has been lost over the last 10 years. Yet during all this time of watching more and more express pilots get hired with less and less time, flying more and more of my old routes, I never ONCE denied a UAX pilot the jumpseat. Never ONCE did I do anything other than offer to stow UAX pilots bags in the cockpit and welcome them on board.

It STINKS getting this charge thrown on our UAX pass travelers. I would list how many things Jeff and Glenn have done to mainline employees that STINK, but I don't have enough GB left in my data plan this month to list them all. It's a fight each and every day to push back against the crap that these guys steal from us. Would you like me to cost my pension for you for example??

Feel free to go crazy with fuel burn, denying UAL pilots the jumpseat, flying with the APU on, writing up questionable maint items, etc. etc. The beancounters at UAL are watching. And when they go to your management and say "well, your costs went up 25%. We are going to have to extract that from your contract", where do you think they will take that money from?

Originally Posted by rickair7777

Regional pilots are often financially dependent on their spouse, outside jobs/businesses, or military reserves.

Originally Posted by rickair7777

Commuting is actually a boon to airline management and I think most of them know it. They don't have to pay massive COLAs for high-cost areas, frequent moving expenses, etc. Spouses who can maintain a a stable job/home/friends are far more willing to put up with airline BS. Commuting is a net positive all around.

Originally Posted by NoLightOff

Good productive post Bar.

Would a signed petition help? Ideas on how it should read and who to send it to? This sucks too much to just do nothing. You Eagle guys need to do something about it too. It's just not ok.

Fly safe. Fly legal.

Originally Posted by Bucking Bar

Perhaps we are witnessing the evolution of management ... moving from irony to paradox.

Irony: Decide to save money by outsourcing. Spend 12 Billion on equipment to achieve goal of saving money. End up bankrupt.

Paradox: Decide to save money by outsourcing. Increase profits at mainline. Charge employees of outsourcing provider for costs associated with outsourcing.

Originally Posted by Bucking Bar

Was your contract imposed on you?

IMHO, it is your responsibility because the mainline pilot group agreed to a contract which allowed NON United pilots to perform your work. The "express" carriers are alter-ego airlines, they are a threat to your work and should not exist at all. Mainline pilot groups create and sustain the problem via the agreements they negotiate and ratify.

I don't see a great difference between United / Continental, or Northwest / Delta or Skywest, ASA / Expressjet, Republic or the others. Somehow we ALPA members are comfortable allowing management decide what "unity" means in our association. (I know I'll catch hell for writing this, but I consider our express partners to be pilots. ... period, same as guys on my list are, with the same concerns ... we all fly for our mainline brand, the difference is mostly pay and some training to operate in a different environment)

Maybe I am too old ... but what Pan Am / Ransome did, Delta / Northeast, or Northwest / Southern makes a lot more sense than this whipsaw outsourcing garbage model that defines our profession today. If we had one seniority list flying passengers within that network, indistinguishable from one another, we would not have problems like your job security (scope) concerns or punitive fees assessed from those who can least afford to subsidize mainline.