So you can strike then?

 

It all pizza and ball bearing these days. W.T.F. are you talking about, eating acid this early in the day isn't good. And yes as an individual you can do anything you like, a strike is a withholding of services, quitting is also a withholding of services, so its the same as a strike. Understanding the game and field you are playing on goes a long way, study Collective Bargaining Agreement and Railway Labor Act.

 

One of the things that amazes me about this forum is that most understand the salutions to the problem, which Is new hire pay, new hire QOL, but even amazes me more that by the most part the blame is 99% put on the big bad CEOs, do most even understand what would be involved in something so simple as making reserve lines more commutable ?

 

I think the biggest problem is the general attitude of entitlement that pilots seem to have. Management uses this attitude against pilots very effectively.

You are already starting to see regionals buck seniority by hiring street captains. This has happened before the last time regionals saw massive growth in the mid 90s. TransStates is doing it again because they've done it before. The problem is airline pilots get bent out of shape when this happens.

I think in order for the regionals to survive they will need to hire more Direct entry captains. The problem is first year captain pay is still pretty low and they are often stuck on perpetual reserve.

The thing is it's not a bad thing and will be good long term but they need to do more with restructuring seniority and pilots need to stop acting like it's the end of the world.

 

This. I work at a regional, and I don't care if regionals pay more. I want them to experience a massive implosion. I don't want industry-wide staffing to improve, which is one reason I'm against flow-through agreements and signing bonuses. No more fake non-monetary forms of theoretical compensation. Compensation is measured in dollars that come without strings attached.

The day a scope clause or mainline growth eliminates my regional job, I'll dance a jig while wearing a party hat and smoking a cigar.

Exactly. The response to an investor should be something along the lines of "Hey man, you're the one who put your money in an airline. Next time you're reviewing your portfolio, try growing a brain. You won't find yourself in this situation again."

 

I absolutely DO NOT believe we will see meaningful wage increases for regional pilots. From an airline's perspective, it would amount to a permanent fix to a temporary problem. It would be much more difficult for them to turn around a few years down the road and ask for concessions in pay, than to just say... Pay out bonuses now. I think we will continue to see big bonuses dangled in our faces to sign contracts. We will not see pay raises.

 

I have to agree.

The way I see it though...this is an opportunity to use temporary leverage to kill the system. Regional pilots need to take back control of your unions from management and from the mainline.

The seniority system and low starting pay is a tool management uses to keep pilots in the "every man for himself" mode. Unions are supposed to be tools to organize labor in the best interest of labor...right now regional pilots' unions are organized to further the best interests of management with a massive B scale for mainline pilots flying mainline planes on mainline routes under mainline branding.

Take control of your unions!!!!

 

Pete2800,

If you want to see your job eliminated so badly, why do you take the pay every month? You could resign and make a small contribution to its demise.

Oh, you don't really mean that?

GF

 

An aside on a technical point: net margin (the 1.78%) should not be confused with return on invested capital, or more specifically, return on equity (if you want to compute shareholder return).

 

The regional model needs to die for the better. There's no difference in flying a 80 seat "regional jet" and flying a 120 seat mainline jet except the "minimums" required.

To get on with a major implies you need to fly a plane with 2/3 the seats for 1/3 of the wages. Half of what you should be worth to an airline in today's mainline (still underpaid but we'll get back to pre-9/11 wages eventually). What needs to happen is new guys need to get over SJS and educate themselves as to what they are getting themselves into.

Flow thrus are steps in the wrong direction! You are "getting" a job with the mainline from day one but for a fraction of income you could make if you didn't bite into the stupid scheme. If you are that worried about not getting a job with a major that you need a flow thru, I honestly believe you are in the wrong field of business.

Take a look at what pilots applying for Endeavour did once they found out it was a full on Delta interview and if they fail they lose any prospect of getting hired with Delta, they stopped. The fact that people applied for that is just degraded to the pilots here. A mainline job at regional level wages and benefits??

However, now that they announced the retention bonus deal, its actually getting interesting because I actually think this is a step in the right direction, albeit not the correct one. Wages plus bonuses that are getting closer to mainline pay but within a regional operated by a major with the potential to remove that bonus. They need to just have regional jets included in the mainline fleet but uneducated, selfish pilots are causing this (hopefully) inevitable, wonderful day from ever occurring.

The regional model needs to die, its just a stepping stone that is completely unnecessary since it literally proves nothing in your ability to perform the duties of the professional pilot. A new hire at a regional with a proven training success rate can make it thru a mainline training class with flying colors.

Also, the RLA is a complete crutch to pilots and I'm sure that any management within any airline will do ANYTHING to keep it exactly where it is and give us almost no power at all.

Just look at Republic and Trans States. Pilots defending our QoL and saying no to mainlines gorging themselves at cheaper ways to increase passengers. Those regional pilots are what you need to look up to. Concessions equates to less mainline flying which equates to lower standards overall for pilots.

New hires or potential new hires at the regionals, educate yourselves right now before you enter this industry. You are doing a disservice to fellow and future employees if you do not.

And for the record, yes I am a regional pilot but I did not take any bonus or flow because I know that I will get to the majors due to the demand for my professional skill set. I also have no other way to meet the minimums to get to the majors during this amazing time to be entering the cockpit of an airliner. Fewer and fewer will have this skill set until the regional model is gone due to the low supply of pilots like myself and others along beside me.

Once the supply is low enough we will see that the entry level position is in the right seat on a mainline carrier.

Again, please educate yourself as to what you should do to help this be the reality in the near future for the next set of professional pilots that will be sitting next to you in that right seat.

If you think I'm trying to live in a fantasy world, look into some of the international carriers that have <300 hour pilots flying wide body international flights. That's a whole other can of worms but it's all supply and demand.