Quote:
Originally Posted by flyinawa
The East pilots have enjoyed EVERY benefit created by the merger while the West have enjoyed none. While I'm repeatedly accused of wanting to cash a "lottery ticket", I've watched significant upward movement on the East without yet even really tapping into the pending "massive retirements". While I choose not adopted the "we'll be taking over soon" mentality, I'm not surprised many senior FOs who have been frozen for 7 years on the West are getting pretty tired of the smug attitude of many of your coworkers.
I do find it pretty hard to believe a West pilot suggested we could (should?) hold nearly 1000 wide body captain seats. That's so mathematically impossible even a complete moron would find that laughable.
That is a pretty fair and reasonable assessment. If memory serves me correctly, we were ratio-ed about 1 West pilot to 2 East pilots in the narrow body ranks. Right now I can theoretically hold Captain in 2 East bases because the guy adjacent to me on the Nic can. However.....had it been implemented, I have the majority of West FOs above me who would have possibly taken a third of the available slots....meaning I wouldn't actually have the seniority to upgrade. On the bright side, when I DO upgrade, I expect I'll already have a significant number of East pilots below me on the seniority list so I won't have to sit reserve.
With that said, I have better things to do most of the time than get on web boards and lash out at everyone about what I should or shouldn't be entitled to. Life's too short and I have a little kid at home who is a lot more fun than sitting at the computer arguing. I only responded to Crazy's post because I really hate seeing blatant garbage posted with the intent of mis-informing the AA pilots about our current situation. I already get enough calls from AA buddies asking me about, "what this Captain I just flew with had heard". The amount of miss information is really quite amazing.
Perception is reality? The east is down more hulls than the west since the merger. That's a fact. We do have slightly more active pilots than we did at the merger, but we were understaffed by about 200-300 at the time of the merger and now about 200 of our pilots are on the E190. We have had gains-we got all of the A330s which added total pilots as they almost always require 3 pilots and we have added check airmen and management pilots.
You haven't gained you say, but absent the merger Doug Parker, the current golden boy of the airline world says that you would have been much worse off than without it. Had we settled the Nic food fight we would all been better off by now, IMHO.
What would an AA pilot hired in 1998 think of being placed behind a new hire US pilot that is currently in indoc.?
The west pilot that originally posted the numbers being discussed is absolutely, without a doubt, one of the stupidest people to ever be put in an aircraft. It was just one of many way out there posts that they pulled from you know where.
Your time spent with your child instead of on here or any other board is time well spent. Mine are in their 20's and I miss that time terribly. Enjoy it. We need to learn from the past, but put it behind us.