Myfingershurt

Yeah, cause airline management is so honorable in all their dealings. I think this is great, finally getting a dose of their own back handed dealings. I hope all the cases are dismissed.

JohnBurke

You embody the fallacy.

Yeah cause, yeah.

Republic airline management? Some other airline management? Your straw-man assertion that the sins of these sad-sacks should be answered on the heads of an airline holds no water. The sad-sacks signed the agreements. Let them pay up. They made their choice. They got their training. They obligated themselves. Time to honor that obligation.

Myfingershurt

Meh. More power to em if they figured a way around. If they’re ordered to pay, so be it. If not, I’d say kudos. There’s no honor among thieves.

chihuahua

The military hires you right away and pays for your training as well as paying you. The military also doesn't promise everyone that graduates from the Air Force Academy a pilot job, and they certainly don't promise enlisted 18 year olds they'll have a job flying a plane, then tell them "we aren't going to pay you until we're ready, but we don't know when that will be."

It's not the same thing at all.

This is all just about using the civil courts to make sure they'll have a guaranteed amount of pilots so that their operation doesn't collapse all at once. Nothing more, nothing less. I'm sure enrollment is going to be through the roof now that it's known that they might not give you a job right away and if you leave to somewhere that will, they'll sue you. Envoy starts paying people while they wait for a class date, so that's why those guys went there.

As I said, this whole thing has been decades in the making. This is the same playbook from 2005, no changes.

You're right though, nothing in life is free or even discounted, they should know that. At least maybe this will shine some light on the reality of all these new airline supported academies. If you don't want them to own you, don't take their handouts. Those handouts are given for a reason.

Myfingershurt

It’s a little worse than 2005. In 2005 you could hires 18 yr olds with 250 hours and a wet commercial cert. and pay them $19/hr.

chihuahua

Well, that's why the shortage exists now.

Excargodog

No, the REALITY is that enforcing contracts is what civilization and law is all about.

https://thebusinessprofessor.com/en_...s-constitution

And the military has numerous conditional scholarship and delayed entry programs.

https://www.medicineandthemilitary.c...E&gclsrc=aw.ds


And if you don’t think the military doesn’t bait and switch on assignments, or promise you one assignment and then send you to BFE (a small village in southern Egypt for those who don’t know the expression) ‘for the good of the service’ then you clearly have never served. And yes, the military does also give signing bonuses,

https://myarmybenefits.us.army.mil/B...nuses?serv=122

and hammer people who try to back out of them.

https://militarypay.defense.gov/pay/...ENT/rules.aspx

.So basically, you are wrong on all points…

chihuahua

At the end of the day, they can enforce all the contracts they want, and we can argue either side all we want. There is a reason why these companies are in the mess they are in, struggling to meet their obligations to their mainline partners. It's because of decades of this kind of behavior that ended up discouraging, or making it financially impossible for people to become pilots. Go ahead, sue people for leaving, and win in court, that's great. Do you really think that's going to help Republic survive their staffing shortages for an significant amount of time? Mainline is just going to transfer more flying to themselves and transfer aircraft to their wholly owned regionals they can control and build up their flow programs. At this point, there aren't too many good outcomes for airlines like Republic. Compass, TSA, Express Jet, Great Mistakes, are all already gone. Mesa is circling the drain. Republic's lesson from all of this is to sue people. Smh.

Excargodog

Hogwash. The reason that getting hours is so expensive has nothing to do with the regionals. General aviation has just become too damn expensive in large part because of over regulation and outsourcing to other countries. A new Cessna 172 is a half million dollars and fueling it at $8 a gallon is $65 an hour before you even consider nsurance, Mx, or cost of capital/financing. And it’s worse in the military where putting wings on a pilot is closer to $5 million for 250-300 hours.
Now if you want to get rid of the 1500 hour equipment thatmigh be different but Republic tried for that and was turned down.

Now this is America and everyone is entitled to their opinion but if yours is blaming the regionals, your opinion is an exceptionally ill informed one.

chihuahua

This part is true. There was also a good 15 years or so where no airplanes were built, so most of the fleet is half a century old, or older. When they get scrapped or bent, they're gone for good. Also, anything that isn't a Cessna or a Cherokee isn't really supported anymore with parts. Fuel price is somewhat location dependent, a little airport like Arcadia, FL (X06) is $4.78, while it's probably over $8 in California, but either way, still a lot more expensive than it was 30 years ago.

This is a problem of out of control govt spending and unlimited money printing. Even at the fed's target of 2% inflation, that's still 2% less (on average) that your money is worth every year. So you need a greater than 2% increase in pay each year to come out ahead or make more, even if things are perfect, and if you keep cash, the ideal plan is to make it worth 2% less each year. It's a silent tax.
The last inflation report, however, was what, 6.4%? And how much money are we sending around the world? And giving to corporations to produce studies that drinking Coke is actually good for you? Not to mention how much we shovel into healthcare and education where hospitals charge $1000 for a syringe and universities increase tuition by double digit percentages each year so the money keeps flowing. $31 tillion in debt, and neither party as a whole wants to do anything about the govt spending. To put icing on the cake, after shutting down small businesses (because we listened to China after they kept a virus outbreak hidden for several months, as well as corporate profiteers, instead of using common sense), we gave rich people near 0% interest loans to buy up real estate, airplanes, and whatever else they wanted, you know to "stimulate" the economy. Smh.

With the major expenses discussed above and yearly planned increases and devaluation of currency, the regionals were all living on borrowed time paying salaries that came nowhere close to keeping up with yearly expenses or training costs, even before the recent spike in inflation (the reasons for these things don't change the reality of their existence). It was not a sustainable business model, but they decided to keep following it till they couldn't any longer. Now instead of facing reality, which was made a lot worse by the events and decisions of the last three years, and trying to adapt to a reality they ignored for decades, they're trying the same thing that lead them to where they are now.