3M vs. ZK: Who will be the first to fall?
 

A grim email was sent out by union leadership at 3M recently talking about the future. Sounds like a 5 month plan.

Meanwhile, Lakes has shrunk the operation and lost many EAS contracts. Down to 60 captains. Halving in size in 8 months time..

Who will pick up this flying? End of the turboprop or slew it to another carrier?
Thoughts? Predictions? Bets?

IDK what 3M or ZK are. Plz get back to me ASAP. TTYL and TFAYD.

Amazing what happens when there suddenly isn't a large pool of low-time pilots in need of hours that can be exploited for horrifically low wages.

I never understood why people use the 2 letter identifiers for airlines when most of the time people do not know the identifier for any airline but their own simply because it is not needed. I think it is also a commuter thing, but even then we do not use our 2 letter identifier when commuting - we use AA.

Care to share the letter?

3M vs. ZK: Who will be the first to fall?
 

3M = silver airways
Zk = great lakes ....

Hate when people talk with airline codes ! And all the abreviations ! #BS

Seriously with the two letter codes...this ain't airliners.net

+1 it's annoying.

Ironically, you could have looked up the codes in about 1/4 of the time it took you to complain about using/not knowing them :D

What is going on at Silver?

It took me about 25-30 seconds to type my response. 1/4 of that time would be approximately 6 1/4 second and 7 1/2 seconds respectively. Unfortunately, it actually would have taken LONGER to go to google and google "3M airline code", click "Google Search" and view the appropriate links to read which were which.

So no... you are wrong.

Also, that is not ironic.

You fail x2.

:D

Irony: using words to convey a meaning that is the opposite of its literal meaning; containing or exemplifying irony: an ironic novel; an ironic remark.

This thread does not deliver. Try again.

To get this back on track, I will wager that Great Lakes and Silver are beginning the inevitable role of the law of unintended consequences to the new post-Colgan rules requiring airline captains to log 1,000 hours of SIC time before upgrading.

It's one of the few sections in that law that actually makes sense, yet the ramifications are huge. If they need to upgrade people, and can't, then they can't staff.

The EAS program will (hopefully) begin a necessary slide to oblivion as a result.

Guessing that other companies operating EAS lines under a 135 cert will pick up the slack. Lakes isn't the only part 135 EAS carrier out there that pays ridiculous wages, it's just the biggest and best-known.

Silver's issue with staffing isn't upgrades, it's new FOs. They hired street captains in 2012, that's been the go-to staffing strategy when upgrades are too quick to promote from within. New FOs come there now, realize that they won't upgrade before the end of the decade, get sick of the horrible treatment by mgmt and scheduling, combined with the low pay, and bail after a few months when they get the call from the better company that didn't call before they had an ATP and a type rating. 3M has become a place to enhance your resume to move on to another regional, not a major. This pattern means they are shelling out major $$$ for training to replace all the attrition, but it's all off the bottom half of the list. Even a 12k signing bonus isn't enough to keep people around. Give it enough time, and they are going to fold. Great Mistakes may beat them to it, but it will be a close race.

You missed the point totally ;)

I am not int the regional industry and so I am not up on all the details of that segment of the industry. I went to the Silver Airlines site and wikepedia and found that Silver received over 20 million in essential service fees. They are also receive fee for departure income from code sharing with United an other carriers. Isn't that enough income to keep the company solvent? Or is it simply a matter of not being able to staff the airline with pilots?

As for Great Lakes, their web site states the following:

Attention Future Airline Crew-members:
Great Lakes Airlines is pleased to announce on March 18, 2014, the FAA approved our FAR 135 Operation Specifications addition to our current FAR 121 Certificate. To clarify, Great Lakes Airlines does not have a separate “135 Certificate”, but an allowance through our Operations Specifications to conduct scheduled airline operations under our current 121 Certificate allowances using the Beech 1900D fleet.
This new undertaking allows us to hire First Officers meeting FAR 135 qualifications. They will gain the flight time and experience required for the Airline Transport Pilot (ATP) or Restricted-ATP (R-ATP) certification requirements. Once they meet these requirements they will then have the ability to start building the required time to upgrade to a 121 Captain.



I guess this is the condition that they keep the aircraft to 9 pax or less? Is that correct? With the income from essential air service, guaranteed, and allowing for low time pilots I don't see why they would not be able to staff. Are they that bad to their people?


Again sorry if I seem out of it but from a basic business standpoint this doesn't make sense.

Doesn't 3M make tape and stuff?

Lol, good one :D

Can you post it?

My understanding was that they originally just wanted to limit the number of passengers to 9 or less. So if they need a 135 FO, they would just limit it to 9 warm bodies on the airplane. Fortunately, the FAA said they had to physically remove the seats which then requires a modified TC. I wonder how much money that cost and if the savings were worth it.