all4114all

The reason that airline management is allowed to roll over pilots is because the lack of cohesiveness. The lack of a national seniority list is the root of the problem.

It is too late for most of us. But should we not leave a legacy for the future and say that pilots hired from here on out are on a list.

I have one rule for this thread, in order to answer this you must include your airline name, if you do not, no one is allowed to take your post seriously. The I have got mine attitude is the cause of the downfall of the pilot profession. Only young men and women hired tomorrow can be on such list and they can never be above you.

I am with Usairways, but I only will have a month left due to health reasons.

Allow me one piece of advice, you will find many cowards responding to this without including their airline, consider the source.

Mason32

I would go for the idea of a national list for all new hires... I think that is what you are saying.

What about the situation where very junior people are getting furloughed, and may later be hired as a "new hire" at another airline. Would that start them on the national list or not? How would you suggest that be handled?

I also agree that nobody on the new national list should ever be ahead of existing pilots.... but that would entail running a separate list of everybody who currently is a working airline pilot wouldn't it?

American Evil (Eagle)

joejet

Is a coward someone who disagrees with you?

I was on strike during probation in 1998! ALPA negotiated a nice pay raise for most - by keeping B-scale for another 3-1/2 years...so the senior pilots lived large while the new guys languished on subpay. It had a huge effect when it came to retirement calculations in CH 11.

I quit my Legacy Airline (NW) - now I'm flying out of Hong Kong. There was nothing to stay for because the senior pilots took the lion's share of our frozen pension plan, age 65 took away my upgrade and employment security for the benefit of the senior pilots, and chapter 11 took away my career earnings and retirement potential for the benefit of the senior pilots. A national seniority list in this atmosphere will only benefit the senior pilots....sorry....I had given enough. There was NO talk of a national seniority list when times were great ten years ago. - because life was good for those at the top.

PS..
The cowards and the ones who stole from my pocket for their gain. That is the past, and many of us have left that behind to try something different. The system is broken, but don't fix it on the backs of the junior pilots.

Sincerely....I hope you have good health in your retirement.

Careercfi

"Never To Be Seen Airlines" here, right from the left seat! Right? Left! Check Left, Rodger, Right! [Not to be taken seriously by order!]

The pilot professions downfall was implemented when motives and values where no longer considered positive and important attributes for pilots. Looking out for one another may have become a hard to find phenomenon, but I would suggest that with each pilot ripped and pooped upon by this stricken and fouled system the number of people realizing "that airplanes aint flying without the pilots" increases. Monkeys would figure that out and adjust their gameplan accordingly. Oh no! I'm not saying Pilots are smarter than monkeys - but, really! If no pilot showed up for work for one day - everywhere in the U.S. - would they hire all the layoffs that had to wait tables from pre 9/11 to rescue the day? Neither the seniority misery nor the pay misery our fellows have to wade through will change by securing "ourselves" only. We will have to start looking out for our buddies again.

L'il J.Seinfeld

UPS, DOH 2005

I don't want a national seniority list. I suggest that anyone entering this profession think very seriously about from whom they seek employment. The guys hired in the last year at United are a perfect example. Those legacy pilots now complaining about low pay and poor work rules should have considered the cargo side a dozen years ago. They took a gamble on ridiculous pay scales and poor management of their respective airlines. The writing is usually on the wall.

The other problem with a single list is how do you integrate military pilots? SHould new Part 121 guys coming from the military at age 34 really be beneath their newhire peers that have been part 121 since their regional FO days at age 22?

greaper007

I'm just a lowly turbo-prop pilot at Colgan but I'll give my 2 cents. None of us can really guess where our current or dream airlines will be in the future. My Dad turned down a job at NWA in the early airlines and decided to stay at SWA. Some people probably questioned his sanity for that decision. Probably not now though.

I'm for a national senority list, the way it should be integrated is a whole nother thread though. We all take a gamble when we pick our jobs, I don't think that's the way it should be though. We're pilots, not business analysts. Our job is to safetly move airplanes from one location to another. At the end of the day we're just highly skilled labor. Lets make our unions real unions.

When I was working construction during college I got a look at some real unions. These guys didn't really care what company or project they were working on. They were going to get their benefits and pay either way. It was based on years of service. They had also been making at least 50,000 a year since they came off apprenticeship. A far cry from my 20,000 last year. Why shouldn't we have the same benefits?

At the very least we should all be getting a certain rate for our longevity and experience. Seniority and schedules could certainly be seperate from this arguement.

Windsor

I think we should absolutely have a national seniority list. I'm a Pinnacle Captain and would like to leave this profession (long time from now) in a better state than when I came in.

A national list would allow lateral moves within the industry that is just not feasible in the current system. The way things work now, we are locked in to our current carrier. If things change for the worse, we are stuck there or risk losing a lot if we bail to a new airline. Just look at the ATA guys. There were plenty of highly skilled professional pilots that lost their jobs and had to go start over at square 1 at a regional after the company folded. What a complete waste of skills. You had fully qualified 75 and 73 drivers out on the street, twisting in the wind all because of the seniority system. With a national system, they could have moved laterally within the industry instead of getting knocked down to the bottom.
Details for how to integrate a system are way beyond the scope of this thread, but a national list is something I would really like to see.

The Chow

I actually would like to have two seniority lists: one for the regionals and one for the majors.

I just a reserve puke at Comair but the way I see it, our management can get away with quite a bit because no one wants to start all over again. The way I see it working would be that if I left here, than I could go to any other regional at 2yr pay. Now as I won't have seniorty over the others at the new airline for bidding and so forth, but pilots should go through 1st pay once.

my .02

tsquare

I used to be for it... not now. I think logistically it is too difficult to make workable. Example: Let's say you are a 20 year pilot with a major airline that has been relatively successful and you are a widebody captain, enjoying a little seniority and the bennies that go along with them. Now carrier X goes TU, and all those guys that are a little senior to you on the national list decide to interview (since your airline is a little successful and is growing), get hired and waltz right in front of you on your company's list. Fair? nope, I don't think so. Farfetched? Nope, not at all. Just an example, but I think it illustrates the difficulties of the list. And as UPS said above, we all made choices, and we have to live with them. If we go down, well.. that's life unfortunately. I think the better choice would be to educate potential pilots to get an education that is in something other than aviation. Learn a skill... go to trade school... SOMETHING else. ALPA should lobby to shut down all aviation management programs as they serve no purpose whatsoever for potential pilots. Just my .02

Led Zep

I agree with LJS.

We have our own in-house union and personally, I think that is the way to go. You are represented by YOUR OWN pilots and your union is 100% focused on the collective interests of a specific group of individuals. Everyone should be thinking smaller and not bigger.

Let me pose a question to a lot of you who are in favor of a national seniority list. How do you feel about assigning seniority based on DOB upon entering the list?

In other words, this scenario. For conversation sake, you are number 50,000 out of 50,000, and 25 years old. A person leaves the military at age 40 and enters this seniority list AHEAD of you because his DOB is prior to yours. I think it would be a very fair way of integrating folks into the list.

Just for FYI, some carriers assign seniority numbers based on DOB.