Originally Posted by Gjet

Re: Alpa at the hill (thanks for that link!)

After reading the testimony of Lee Moak, I have to say, he couldn't have done a better speech. About time.

I do however, stand by my view that ALPA blew a huge opportunity. Imagine having 51,000 pilots contacting the US House of Representatives with their thoughts? That would have driven home the point that Mr. Moak is trying to make and reminded the Representatives that people, not companies, vote these Reps in or out of office.

Originally Posted by tom11011

Just let the natural laws of supply and demand take there course. Congress shouldn't need to do anything. They wrangled with these same issues back when all this was decided. It was known this would happen.

Originally Posted by bedrock

How far are we willing to go to let the "market" decide. Do we let the market decide who gets harvested organs? Adoption? Medicine, hospital care? We do to a certain extent, but selling airline seats ain't like selling paper towels. If you buy acme brand paper towels, and they fall apart, you never buy them again. If the AC/Delco alternator that Gulfstream put on their airplane malfunctions in low ifr, you run into some serious circumstances.

We need to address the RLA FIRST if we are just going to let the "market" decide. The airline business is regulated for safety and logistics like no other. It is simply a fallacy to say we are going to heavily regulate one way, but de-regulate another.

Originally Posted by bozobigtop

Some people thought changing the rules was going to make the powers that be pay more and it hasn't happen. What I really love seeing is union people and politicians complaining about the low pay but haven't come out of their own pockets to improve it. Many of these regional airlines will arrive at the junkyard long before these companies see any increase in pay for pilots.

Originally Posted by Gjet

From my other post: pilots allows them to steam roll congress with minimal flack from pilots themselves and their unions. You all know what their grand plan is, don't you? They will push for lower hours AND/OR push to allow foreign pilots in. Wait till Aug hits, then you will see them parking more planes to foster panic so that the public will then start screaming to the congress/senators while the owners sit back and laugh. It will get pushed through, one way or another. Plus you know they are greasing the politicians through their PAC's. Yep, hell of a system we got.

Let's face it, they (owners) are better organized and count on lazy pilot unions and pilots too tired from long days and commutes to lift a finger to fight them. Want proof? Go to the Regional Airline Assoc website, and look for the lobbying info. Then go to your union webpage, and look for their lobbying info.

All the union has to do is post the names of the congressmen with emails/fax/mail and a simple form letter, post it to their pilots, and hit send. How hard is that?

In fact, where the hell are the lobbyist that the unions are bribing? They should know about this stuff and be keeping union leaders "in the know", who should have already sent mail to the pilots regarding this.

Makes you wonder if the unions are doing all they can with the dues they collect, or if they are not paid off by management to do just enough to look like they care.