Have a question for Mesa pilots... I heard you guys were getting fired by United...

1. Is that true?
2. Does your performance suck as bad as everyone says it does?
3. Is it true you cancel United flights to use the same aircraft for a USAirways flight?
4. Is it true that you would rather not fly for United since you sit in the penalty box at ORD for free?

Unrelated questions...

1. How is everyone doing with the CSL (chinese as a second language) classes?
2. Do you all still do stand up overnights where you have to sleep on the airplane?

 

HAHA! Ok, yea I already know where this is headed...

 

4. Is it true that you would rather not fly for United since you sit in the penalty box at ORD for free?


please explain

 

Mesa flies in and out of ORD quite often... Everyone know that ground delays there can be terrible. Mesa's pilot contract only garuntees them average block, so any time they are sitting on the ground caused by a delay they are not getting paid.

 

I will attempt to take this one without starting a Flame war (where this thread is obviously headed). Let me begin by saying that while I work for Mesa, I do not like Mesa.

1. Who knows... Might be, but its the first I've heard about it.
2. Our performance (I'm on the UAL side in IAD) is not the best in the industry, but it isn't any worse than the other UAL carriers in IAD. Most of the delays I've had in IAD have been from the crappy ground crew (none of them speak English). For every delay or problem that has been Mesa's fault, I have had 5 related to ground crew. Gate is occupied, can't find a crew to push you back, you call for a GPU in range and it never arrives, late boarding, etc. Unforutanly this affects all the carriers at IAD (TSA, Shuttle America, Colgan, Mesa, Chataqua, and BlowJets).
3. No. I've never seen this, it would be difficult as all the planes are painted in United or US Air colors (no Caspers or planes painted in a neutral scheme). We do have pilots from US Air bases TDY'd in United bases, and the other way around, but no planes doing the same that I'm aware of.
4. I can't speak for the ORD guys, I would rather not fly out of any large hub where delays are common until we get block or better (look out for Contract Negotiations this Sept, we need all the support we can get).

As for the second 2 questions. While I love Chinese food, I have no intentions of living there. Standups are now given hotel rooms (altough the really short ones (less than 5 hours I think) only get one room per crew). I am doing a stand-up tonight. Get in at 2300, show at 515. I will be snoozing at Sleep Inn.

Hope this helped. OK...flame away.

 

I'll take a stab as well...

Question (1): I wouldn't be surprised. No inside information, but I have a feeling that UAL would love nothing better than to transfer YV flying to a SkyWest, RAH, etc.

Question (2): I always thought it was as bad, but I've been proven wrong in that statistics seem to put Mesa on average with all other regionals flying for UAL (this is from the recent DOT report). I know...I couldn't believe it myself. But performance is one thing, quality of product is another. Mesa may make it from ORD-MCI in the same time as say a SKyWest, but the SkyWest plane will offer a superior overall experience (ie: seats are in good shape, APU is working as to provide adequate cooling/heating, lav doesn't stink like JO's wife, etc...)

Question (3): Haven't ever heard of that, but I wouldn't bet against it.

Question (4): You could probably drop the "fly for United" part, and just leave it as "you would rather not sit in the penalty box at ORD for free?". Absolutely. Obviously, we get paid on segment times, so it all depends on whether or not our sit eventually exceeds our segment time. For instance, if ROC-ORD is blocked at 2:05, and we make good time to ORD and land at 1:30, and have to wait 20 minutes in the box, then we're still getting paid under what we blocked. If we wait an hour (which can certainly happen!) then we blocked 2:30, and don't get paid for the additional :25. That sucks.

Truth be told, the segment times will most often work in your favor, but the times they don't tend to balance out the two. Being ORD based, it's the 4-hour EDC's at an outstation that start the snowball. Those excessive waits will usually result in cancellations when you do finally get back to base, and find that your remaining flying has been dropped (due to you being so late). Of course, that all depends on aircraft and crew availability. If there aren't any other spare airplanes or crews, the subsequent flights just go out 4-hours late. In ORD, that's not such an uncommon occurence. But if you do get dropped, that's a negative on the payolla. That sucks worse (as you just lost a round-trip of pay, or worse).

Unrelated question (1): We're being payroll deducted for Rosetta Stone CD's in Chinese. The company is stressing the crews to fluently speak "ladies and gentleman, the reason it's a bit cold back there this morning is due to our not having what's referred to as an auxiliary power unit...". Or, "we do realize that the lavatory is broken, and is excessively putrid, but this is a short flight, so we'd appreciate your bladder's cooperation". Gate agents over in China will learn quickly how to say "flight has been cancelled", or "there is a maintenence issue on the airplane...we will update you as soon as we learn more"

Question (2): I think they're still doing these camping trips out in the PHX system...another reason I won't ever bid PHX. I haven't done a standup in 2-1/2 years, and hope not to. But there is a line on the releases that now states something to the effect of "continuous overnight crews with less than a 4-hour overnight will have one hotel room provided for all crews". Anything over 4-hours is normal (one room per crewmember).

Hope that helps (and, yes, I know the original post was a flame!)

 

I can't believe his lawyers are letting him get away with that! What happens when you have a female crew member and 3 or 4 other guys?

You guys have my blessing in September, whatever it takes, picketing, calling J.O. at home in the middle of the night...whatever, I'll do it.

 

groovin why did you start this thread? sure mesa sucks, but why do you get pleasure in pointing out how bad they are? you must be a fellow skywest pilot. you disgust me.

 

I parked next to an all-white Mesa 1900 in RDU two days ago...

 

I'm sorry... I didn't know that this thread would ruin your day... I can't beleive I disgust you. How will I ever be able to sleep tonight? If this thread ruin's your day and makes you want to give up on all of humanity, you may want to stay away from anything that has GoJet in the title, or a few other users.
I generally keep it pretty real, but I admit some guys and I thought up these questions while bored sitting around a crashpad... I admit maybe it wasn't the most productive thing to do, but then again some of the questions were serious and answered in a very informative way (thank you mesa pilots).

On a side note... I was always curious what your avatar is... very clever and definitely one of the more interesting ones I have seen on here. Just curious.