They've taken a 25%-30% pay concession (judge even said they couldn't strike). It's been all over here.

When my company was negotiating concessions the company threw Mesa's contract on the table and said "this is what we have to work with". No doubt Delta pointed to it's express carriers and said "this is what we have to work with". Since Comair's pilots are still holding on, Delta is giving their aircraft to SkyWest.

 

You can call it a leading contract all you'd like but if it pulls the company down and they can't afford to pay it then all their contract did was run their company into the ground and force them to lose their jobs. That's a bad contract.

 

Comair grew post-9/11, despite having that wonderful contract. It did not bring Comair or Delta down. The 2001 Comair strike cost Delta much more than simply paying the pilots what they eventually got.

Comair took concessions because 1. Delta was in financial trouble, and 2. and others (Skywest, RAH, Mesa) provided the same feed for less $$$.

 

I know the contract didn't bring them down. Delta brought them down. Delta owned comair so when delta went belly up they forced comair to go chapter 11 with them. Comair said they'd be able to get out of it for $70mil annually(i'm hitting up google now to keep the numbers right). While the pilots agreed the FA's did not and this supposidly made things a lot worse. The judge ruled in the FA's favor. From what I've gathered this tied up comairs hands even more making Chautauqua and SkyWest look better. True they could provide the feeds for less but that's because Comair couldn't afford to run the feeds at their current rate. It was just economics at that point. They weren't making tons of money "choosing" to screw their guys and go cheaper. They didn't have a choice.

I have to admit I'm a news junkie and everything i'm saying is based of what the press has ran ect. There could be more behind the scenes. however my main point is Skywest isn't the redheaded stepchild to spit on. It's a good company with happy employees for the most part. The guys I've talked to that went there really enjoy it. That says enough.

 

The only thing I care about is that we don't get an ATL base. It's like the armpit of America.

 

here is my give o crap meter 0 ---*---------------------------- 100

 

I wonder if management from any of the airlines read these posts. If they do I'm sure they are getting a kick out of watching us eat each other alive.

 

Kinda like RodSox fans and Yankees fans hating each othe rmore than the actual players.

 

This is BS.

They had a industry leading contract that was enabled by three factors:

1) Pre-9/11 pilot demand and rising compensation.
2) Their acquisition by DAL
3) Their own determination.


Post 9/11, everything changed...

1) Management farmed out routes to regionals.
2) Many majors went BK, and their pilot groups didn't hold on to scope as tightly as they should have. This opened the door for even more regional flying.
3) DAL went BK, effectively killing the goose.


COMAIR was simply the last company to raise the bar before 911, it would have been nice if they had been able to hold on to what they had, but not surprising that they didn't.

SKW is not the cause of this, merely a symptom (and by no means the worst symptom).

If you want to blame someone, blame the senior captains at various majors who negotiated away scope in order to minimize near-term damage to their own hourly rates. They mortgaged the future...well, the future is here NOW.

 

Dude you are an idiot. You probably would fly an MD-80 for a three dollar overide. Its people like you that are destroying the industry and the reputation of skywest. Keep posting you're remarks, they make me want to throw up.