Except American eagle (L-EGL)

 

And PSA/PDT....we have the same board priority and travel benefit package as mainline, and can even bump them. we are even. ZED's, vacation passes, everything....identical to airways. I've been very happy with it, and it costs $0.

 

Minus the whole company seniority dating back to the 80's right ha ha

 

Doesn't mean it can't or won't change in the future.

 

Doesn't mean it can't or won't change in the future. That was the point of my post. Many mainline partners have changed the travel privileges for their regional partners over the last decade, wholly owned or not.

 

Not really, that would be like saying rampers and gate agents get different travel benefits as they are AMR wide benefits. If we would have gotten divested though that might have changed things.

 

Yeah, they won't change it for eagle, they get money from us for five years.

 

RAH going to buy Eagle?

 

For anyone thinking of coming here thinking a new contract is around the corner.... I'm glad our NC is standing their ground and finally using the company's own financial reports against them. To me it sounds like BB & company are daring the NMB to release us. Declare an impasse already!

"Brothers and Sisters:

After being recalled to Washington, DC, your Negotiations Committee met this week at the National Mediation Board with the Company. Board Member Puchala and Republic CEO Bryan Bedford attended. The list of other attendees is at the end of this update.

This weeks meeting began with Robert Mann making a presentation showing how GROSSLY undercompensated the Republic Pilots are compared to our competitors' pilots. He used data that the Department of Transportation requires airlines to report on cockpit crew costs; these include actual cockpit costs such as pay, work rules, training, retirement, etc. That data is reported quarterly by numerous airlines, including Republic and its competitors. And it shows you what the pilots cost their airline and how much the pilots are compensated overall compared to each other.

Mann presented this DOT data from the past three years (12 quarters) to show that over that period, Republic has much lower cockpit crew costs than its competitors to the tune of 30% lower cost per hour ($160/hr v. $231/hr for competitors.) Mann also showed that Republic pays far less of its operating revenue for crew costs than its competitors 38% less. This is the substantial competitive advantage in crew costs that Republic has over its competitors even as management insists on its meager offer to the pilots.

Mann also showed that Republic has a substantially higher profit margin than its competitors. This data is also reported to DOT on a quarterly basis. The same three-year (12 quarter) period of DOT data shows Republics profit margin is more than double its competitors profit margins over that period.

So Mann demonstrated that we are undercompensated compared to our peers and that gives Republic a super-competitive position that has yielded much higher profit margins compared to its competitors.

Mann then showed that even under our March 2013 proposal, Republic would retain a 10-15% cost advantage over its competitors. He also showed that Republics so-called final offer proposal would actually yield an insignificant annual cost increase of about $4.5 million and continue Republics super-competitive position against other airlines by undercompensating the pilot group.

Mr. Mann also presented the Company's own financial reporting to show how its financial projections have improved since the beginning of the year. The Company's revenue at Republic increased 12% in the second quarter over the year before. Its "income before taxes" (RAH doesn't actually pay taxes) increased 89% in the first quarter and 46% in the second quarter.

Mann presented the Company's reported details of the announced Brazilian (BNDES) Financing. This financing is significantly better to the tune of $30M a year in Cash Flow than what the Company presented to us in February- when they last passed the LLLBFO. The financing reduces the amount of the Company's own cash that it must put to the aircraft and it could free up to $100 million in cash for Republic for the first 47 aircraft under the AA contract through 2017. Please note that even after the new Aircraft deposits, RJET still has over $210M in unrestricted Cash in the Bank.

Mann noted that the Company has reported this year increases in its revenue, earnings per share, and profit margin compared to prior projections. And independent financial analysts, as compiled by Reuters' "First Call" service, project growth in the Company's earnings of more than 11% over the next five years.

After Mann presented this information, the NC then passed a Counter Proposal of Article 3, 6A, and 7 to the Company.

The Company responded with a presentation by Wayne Heller and Joe Allman which discussed the Company's Liquidity and differences between their early 2013 plan and latest 2013 plan. Republic made no real effort to rebut Mann's information on Republics large pilot cost advantage over other airlines or its improvement in financial position. Instead, it attempted to switch the discussion to a comparison of its proposed pay rates to those of other pilot groups. But even the Company's pay rate comparison, which ignores its actual pilot cost advantage, shows their proposal leaving us below other pilot groups, particularly Skywest and Horizon, in pay rates. And Republic also ignores that these other pilot groups have pay rules, such as duty rigs and minimum day, which make their pay rates even more valuable than what Republic is proposing. Yet, the Company claimed the NC failed to recognize the Company's liquidity concerns and failed to represent the pilots.

While the NC estimates our latest Proposal at about a $31M increase over Current Book which is then offset with up to $10M in productivity savings in the First Year, the Company estimates our Proposal at around $45M. In determining the Company's costing they use worse case scenarios even when those scenarios are contradictory; such as assuming all pilots will drop their schedule to minimum guarantee (this requiring more headcount) while also assuming a large number of pilots will fly more than 85 hours in a month. It then adds both to the sum to inflate the cost of our proposal. The Company also inflates costing of trip and duty rigs by simply applying the rigs to old schedules as opposed to rerunning the schedules in PBS and "optimizing" the schedules to account for the rigs (that is, get the most efficient schedules under the rigs.) By not optimizing the schedules, the Company exaggerates the cost of rigs.

Despite the obvious improvements in the Company's reporting financials, CEO Bedford still claims that Republic cannot "afford" more than the grossly inadequate offer value of $12 million, and he repeats his tired mantra that the Union is not representing the pilots.

Republic has refused to bargain any further. Absent the Company making a true Counter Proposal, it was determined that the parties could go no further.

The Senior Mediator will make an evaluation of the parties' positions and make a recommendation to the Board as to what occurs next. No further meetings are scheduled at this time.

The Company believes its proposal is good enough and you should settle for it. RAH Executives think they should get a leg up on their competition on your back.

What Republic is not able to hide is a deteriorating operation because substandard pilot pay and work rules are causing pilots to leave- and chasing pilots away from even applying. The Company wants to continue these inferior pay and work rules even though that creates in the Company's words a "poor quality FO" pool.

That recruiting failure will only be increased by the new pilot hiring at Skywest (http://www.skywest.com/skywest-airline-jobs/career-guides/flight-jobs/#/career-guide) and Horizon (https://tam.horizonair.com/psp/qxjobs ), both of which have superior pay and work rules to Republic.

During Skywest Holdings Earnings Conference call yesterday, COO Brad Holt stated, "In general industry wide...the pilot work force to deal with those (New Flight Time / Duty Time) rules will be somewhere between 5% and 9% increase in overall pilots...". Given the current situation, RAH will be unable to maintain our current operation, let alone expand it with the increase in American Flying or United Q400 flying.

Each pilot needs to tell the Company exactly what he or she thinks about RAH's refusal to negotiate a fair agreement with its pilots.

We will provide further information as developments occur.


Fly Safe.


Dan, Eve, and Craig"

 

B-b-b-b-but, I read on APC that the Republic pilots were a bunch of gutless, vacillating bottom-feeders who want to undercut everyone and steal their flying!