Believe it when I see it and also why is it taking so long? Safe now but not then?

 

Are you new to government bureaucracy?

 

I've never worked a 16hr duty day. If I'm coming up of 13, I call in fatigued.

 

Here is the bottom line.

People want cheap. Airlines are the most taxed companies in the us. The profit margins are very slim.
Government both state/federal aren't going to give slack to airlines.

This means airlines are going to get pilots to push buttons for cheap. They love regional pilots because they do it for real cheap.
Greaseball guys are always going to crawl out of there instructing job into a 170 and think wow I've made it. Then after a few years of making no money they start to complain , but they don't realize they are part of the problem.

 

The 16 hr day become chopped by a whopping 2 hrs to become a 14 hrs day...

Some relief but not by much...

Pilot's fly, not under the influence of alcohol or drugs but in sick health & lack of sleep & rest.

And that, in my opinion, is the single most important contributing factor for colgan....

If you want to start a petition, ask for a 12 hour duty day followed by a 12 hr off duty & 8 hrs min actual rest period.

That single handedly will help the promote saftey & pilot's may also be less grumpy....

 

I like the idea of no one picking up open time... But with different unions representing different carriers there isn't likely to be much solidarity. Further, I've seen way too many "gotta get mine" guys to think this will ever work. I applaud the thought though.

Any other ideas? There is the RAA which lobbies congress against us (pilots), and there is ALPA which doesn't give a poop about us regional guys IMHO. If were to truly be represented it should be by a different union... How can we create a united (no pun intended) regional pilot group?

Air Wis, PSA and Piedmont banded together as regionals of Airways to achieve (or at least attempt to achieve) better contracts. Each airline agreeing not to sell the other out. More of that would be nice.

But how to inform the general public? I like discussing this more than, "Your airline sucks and you are a scab!"

 

So to answer your question,

Improve regionals.

- better safety culture
- increase pay, thus increasing the level of people who apply.
- make regionals a place someone who stay to work, not jut to chase a upgrade.

- don't work for republic. I'm sure you can sense my feeling toward rah. Sorry dudes who work there.

 

We work in the culture of "wo-is-me the regional pilot". Tales of suffering are told like war stories. The more furloughs you have under your belt the more respect you get... (Maybe you were furloughed because you kept chasing an upgrade that never happened???)

The real reason that the Buffalo crash occurred is that the regional airlines, much more then than now, had a large pool of 300 hour wunderpilotin that were young and saw the opportunity to fly 121, upgrade, and get out fast. #1 condition for job acceptance was "how long until upgrade?" Translation, "How long do I have to agree to make less than I can live on and crashpad it etc. until I can make a wage that will allow me to pay back 100K in debt?" Certainly the crew was acting unprofessional, but the real reasons were inexperience and complacency. Get the CVR from most majors and I assure you they will be chatting all the way to the pavement although, perhaps not in those conditions (snow/ice etc). Movement in a company keeps a labor group cheap. There is no monetary incentive to keep a senior pilot group. Bankruptcy is a tool that the airlines use to discharge debt and force the pilot group to take monetary concessions in order to improve the bottom line. At the regionals they don't have to go through bankruptcy, although they do sometimes, they can just whipsaw and re-subcontract under a "new" airline.

You accept the attitude and the payment structure for the airline where you work when you take the job. If you are willing to work for a place that treats you poorly and really doesn't care about your personal quality of life because you are looking for a quick upgrade, that is your choice. If the union you work under forces the company into insupportable compensation you will drive the company into insolvency. It is ridiculous to expect 100k as an FO working under a 1% profit margin at a subcontractor. We all see huge numbers in revenue at Delta, $124 million at one point, when in actuality they handled billions to sift out that profit. It was a function of the new scale of their operation. The airlines are seen more and more as a public right. My friend got his MBA recently. In his curriculum they demonstrated that the airlines are an example of poorly run business. Back when the train/bus was the norm, and flying was luxurious. Now bus fare is probably more expensive than flying. If we really wanted to fix our collective situation we would re-regulate routes and fix prices at a realistic rate that would allow airlines to cover their operating costs and deliver a reliable, safe product. Competition causes us to suffer in this highly-regulated business. We are policed from all sides on our operations already and adding market forces (driving price down) to onerous taxation and user-fees (another tax) will never allow us make enough to cover the bills if we keep round-housing each other with bargain-basement contracts that lose money. The junior labor group with the least-costly payroll wins the big contract. At some cargo operations they even get "FO's" to pay for a job. One day pilots may become hard to find because of increased requirements and training costs. If that occurs the seats at the regionals will disappear like a giant game of musical chairs and you better hope that your operation isn't hit too badly because you will be squeezed for every hour of flight time that they can get out of you in order to deliver as many block hours as they can and there will be no place to go. You want a better QOL? Go to the top of the food chain or eek out a niche at your current operator that makes you more valuable.

rant over.

 

That will drive your earning potential to the floor. You will be working 8 hours of duty per day with 16 in a hotel. That is no way to live. In order to block 85 hours you will never see home.

 

Or pilots could be salaried and stop this hourly pay rate nonsense. Just an idea.