That's because the CEO's and shareholders raped the regional side of the industry as there wasn't anything to get from mainline. And they could get away with it because there were plenty of pilots that would go alomg with it. Problem now is they made it so unattractive to get into this industry anymore. Hopefully we've hit rock bottom and things will start getting better

I don't think we've hit the bottom yet. There's still more pilots available than there is flying to contract. As long as the majors can shuffle flying to other regionals, we are not at the bottom. The bottom comes when the majors can't find pilots at the regional level to fly. I don't think that is going to happen anytime soon.

One caveat to this argument is whether or not the pilots at the majors relax on Scope. If that happens we will never hit rock bottom.

It's ALREADY beginning to happen. It may not be synchronous for all of the Regionals just yet, but it will be soon enough.

Soon enough for whom? :)

It will never end. The rats will just run to the next company willing to gut a contract in favor of a quick upgradezzzzzzzzzzzzzzz!!!!1!

I hope you are correct, but I don't think this profession will ever be any semblance of what it once was. I think the major airlines will milk the regional model for as long as they can. There are currently 21,500 regional pilots (APC numbers). So let's say (not counting attrition, retirement, etc.) the Big 3 each hired 500 pilots per year. It would take 14 years for the most junior pilot to put his butt in the right seat. My brother, 14 years is a lot of misery if your expecting to be lifted up by a Legacy. I understand this model is rudimentary. My point is that there are a lot of pilots waiting in line from the regionals. There are a lot of pilots leaving the military due to sequestration and forced retirement. There are a lot of pilots flying at other places that are not regionals. Im not trying to pee on anybody's Cheerios, I just think the pilot shortage is propaganda. I'm just not buying it. I fly with guys who have been here in excess of 10 years. They are great guys / gals. They've hit the wickets (check airman, chief pilot, volunteer, etc.) and crickets.

I hope you're right. I think most of us down here in Regional Land hope you're right, but I just don't know. The truth is I enjoy flying for OO. I like the people. I like the airplane. I like the places we go. Hell I'm on reserve and I'm happy. But, the one thing that burns my hairy beanbag is trying to reconcile the pay. That's it. The money.

I was in a food line the other day at LAX. Behind me was a Delta Captain. Nice guy. We started chatting. The Captain I'm flying with asks him if he's getting a lot of green sheets. This guy tells us that he got called out a few days ago to repo an aircraft for maintenance on his day off. The 1 hour trip he accepted paid double (Min guarantee is 5 hours). Once he got the airplane where it needed to go he was informed by the maintenance guy it wouldn't be ready for 6 hours. The Delta Captain was supposed to start his vacation. He said he called the company and they'd pay him for his vacation day, plus pay him double to take the plane back when the maintenance was finished. 20 hours of pay for 2 hours of work. Im sure you're familiar with the lowest hourly rate for a Delta Captain. He ends his story with, "I was at Skywest for 20 years and had a blast." I don't begrudge the Delta Captain one bit, good on him; but if I'm the CEO of Delta and I can continue to squeeze the regionals so I don't have to pay $4000.00 to a guy to repo an airplane, I would figure out a way to slow the hiring down to a trickle. I'd probably hire pilots from my competition: Frontier, JetBlue, Spirit, Virgin, etc. before I touched my cheap labor at the regionals because its just good business.

IMO, Big three will hire way more than 500 each per year. I think the number is going to be 150 per month next year at all three. The mainline operations are more profitable than the regional carriers. Even with the higher wages, they still are the money makers. I don't think they care about paying to repo that plane if it's going to make them 100k the next week carrying people around internationally.

I really hope you're right and I'm smoking crack.:) I'll buy you a beer if that happens. I just don't see it though. Hiring that many pilots would represent growth. These guys are getting new planes, but they are buying new planes to replace old ones. The new orders do not represent growth. The other issue is capacity and I'm not talking aircraft capacity. The air transportation system itself is operating near capacity meaning even if the airlines were getting new planes for new flying there is not enough capacity. ADS-B might improve that but that's another 7-10 years away to equip the fleets. There are too many things working against the fallacy of a shortage.

Wow, trying to compare a pilot job to regular jobs....

Above and beyond is just another F&H Glass plant.

No profit sharing, ha...

No one at eagle is asking for a raise. We're just asking for no more pay cuts.

Why isn't it a "regular" job? What makes it different?

I have been doing it for awhile now, and it is just like any other job.

I have worked at Mesa for 12 plus years now, so I know what it is like to want to raise the bar after all that we have been through. Yes we have low pay rates but we have been doing what we can to raise the bar with what little leverage we have right now. If you remember we stopped Freedom back in the day. That put us so far behind everyone else and we have been playing catchup ever since, or at least trying without screwing anyone else over. We all deserve much more. The guys/gals at Eagle just want to keep what they have, so I support them 110 percent, and am proud of them holding the line. I have great respect for you and thank you for trying to hold the bar. Yet you are getting screwed over by other backstabbing pilots who in this case are PSA/Piedmont pilots. Those guys feel the need to take a concessionary contract to take flying from other higher paying regionals. Enough is enough. We all need to band together and just say NO! There is no reason in justifying for PSA. I will gladly accept any Eagle pilot on my jump seat and make sure he is comfortable and I hope you would do the same. As for a PSA/Piedmont, I will take them too, but make sure they get a nice lecture and make them feel unwelcome and can't wait to get off my plane. They will know how I feel. Thanks to them, we got displaced out of CLT and into DFW so it seems like we are the bad guys in DFW even though PSA is the cause of all the pain. I apologize to the Eagle pilots in advance. I don't want your flying/I don't want to be in DFW. I want our flying in CLT that PSA is taking over because of their "bend-over-contract" to get more flying.

Yeah...sure you will buddy.

Also, you guys were awarded all that west coast flying because you have such a awesome contract right?

I'm not saying your union isn't working hard, but in the current environment, where there are dozens of articles and a government report that details a shortage of willing labor AND the fact that your company continues to expand, how do you have no leverage? I would argue that you have more leverage than you've ever had!

If a Mesa pilot lectured me on anything I would lmao. Mesa pilots have led, face first, the race to the bottom. Awful pay scales, insane share of healthcare costs, , PBS for cxl pay, pay for you own iPads and mounts. Mesa leads the way, the way to the bottom. The only improvements Mesa has made have been on the backs of fellow regional ALPA pilots.

Until the regional pilots as an entire group support each other...The multiple regional airlines will be tools for management to get what they want out of that labor pool....It's been going on for decades and is nothing new....

This is sad and funny! If you've been at Mesa for 12 years you would know all about backstabbing and bending over. Now go enjoy DFW and LAX. Remember none of it in CLT was ever "your" flying.

Anyone who thinks Regional Pilots shouldn't fight for more should have their taxes increased to cover our welfare!

We all should fight for more at the regional level. But you don't get what you fight for you get what you negotiate for. PSA and PDT have left the Real American Eagle with fewer and fewer options.

On the thread subject, what are the rumors for the next wave of bad news? Is everyone still thinking a NY closure? When does the MEC expect an actual announcement?

It's nyc closes end of 2015, the rest of 140s returned in 2015 and 25-40 ish 145s to pdt starting this spring as pdt returns all dash trash

Eagle flow?
What are the contractual requirements if eagle is dismantled like some other regionals? I have always dealt with great eagle crews. Sorry to hear the news.

Sourced or speculation. On the otherhand, wgaf anymore. Cancel everything. Shut down envoy ops.

Agreed. And it seems even that which was already negotiated is simply taken away when selfish opportunists offer to taker for less. In fairness, PDT stood tall for a long time! It's not their fault AAG was about to checkmate their asses!

Divided we are falling!

I'll take a Dash over a Taco Rocket any day.

What's a taco rocket?

Embraer Regional Jets (made in Brazil)

I think he meant Jungle Jet?

Is this still in the rumor phase or is there truth to this yet? Seems awfully fast for PDT to get jets on their certificate and pilots trained.

My mind went elsewhere on that what. Taco Rocket sounds like something from a Bloodhound Gang song.

I'm lost at why we are so upset at eagle. We voted 73% to kill the company off because we were not willing to let more go. I was one of the 73%. I'm not shocked that management is doing what they said they would do.
What is shocking and appalling to me is the bs negotiations that occur every 3 months. Then they back out without reason and then announce a closure or more loss of flying. Time to stop entertaining the idea that we will have a viable company anytime soon.
I understand what I voted for and fully understood the repercussions for my vote. I'm not *****ing about what anyone else has done lately. PDT/PSA did what they thought was necessary. Time to get over it. In the almost 7 years I have been in this I learned that it is an " all about me" industry.
Life is going to get a lot worse at eagle. The reports of pilot shortage don't matter. Companies are combating that with larger aircraft with more seats. Most of our ac are 50 seats, an emb175 with 76 seats moves 50% more people = reduction in employees needed to move the same amount of seat miles. AAG is going to farm out the flying no matter what. They will find another management team to take it. Remember it is not the pilots that decide who flies what. I don't remember getting polled as to what flying I wanted to take away from main line AA.
We are all victims of our own demise. Somewhere in our past we did things that were shunned by the industry. I believe the 16 year contract we had was shunned, yet 10 years into it it seemed to pan out in our favor because of obvious reasons.
Under that same concept I have a contract that was passed under bankruptcy. That we voted on without filing an 1113. We " tried" to help out under bk. honor and abide by the contract that we are under. It's good for 6 more years amendable in 2.
I'm all for increasing flow. I'm not comfortable taking more cuts or increasing my contributions into benefits. On the other hand if I had a flow NUMBER as well as all new hires, I might be willing to agree to something they want. I would rather be making more money at mainline than at regional and get there sooner.
More than anything else management said that they would not negotiate after the contract was shot down, why are we even entertaining them by showing up.
To each his own. ALPA will seperate us, it's clear that they don't care in uniting and standing up against poor treatment from management. They tell eagle that they support us and our cause and then support others in concessionary contracts. I just get to keep paying my dues, I hope all those midnight snacks are tasty!

Someone gets it, management does love our azzes, in fact quite the opposite, they hate the fact that they can't put incredibly cheap minimum wage labor in the front seats.......oh poo, nevermind.....

You are just dumb, but thats OK, Jerry and the SGU kids need you to offset those who have figured out their scheme. In 20-30 years your lightbulb just might light up.

You do realize that the only thing Tacos and Embraer have in common are that they are both found in countries south of the US, right? You might as well said the Penquin Ship or the Cocaine cabana. Are Boeing jets Polar Expresses or Bratwurst Buses? From here on out, I shall call Airbus airplanes Wildebeast Wonders.

Finally, someone gets to the point!

I didn't make up the term "Taco Rocket". He asked what it meant, and I told him. I have flown in Brazil many times, and have flown Embraer airplanes. I would never call them a "Taco Rocket" personally, but I do think "Jungle Jet" is funny.

I'm not blaming you. I'm pointing at the person who termed it that. Whomever that is.

Pdt timeline was added by me the rest from the inside. I do know the dash 8s go bye bye next year.

I personally like Lawn Dart.....