The message wasn't intended to divide the pilot groups.

A few months ago the CAL pilots received a company memo directing them to only use "United Airlines" in their announcements. The following week, JP asked the pilots at L-CAL to include in their announcements that the plane was being operated by "Continental - ALPA pilots."

I won't bother to explain why he asked the pilots to do this, as it seems obvious.

Sorry to interrupt the witch hunt with common sense. Please continue.

Huh. I didn't know that. Thanks for the info. I'm disappointed to hear that. Not the most unifying message from a group that is protesting loudly about the lack of unity.

I freaked out when I saw your formula and had a flashback to college calculus, but I agree with your assessment. :)

Not being flippant here, but it's not obvious to me. I would never dream of making the distinction between the two in my announcement. This is a micro example of a macro problem in my estimation. JP beats the Unity drum, but then does NOTHING to promote unity.

Look, I detest this merger. (Not piling on you directly here, by the way, just ranting away) The ONLY thing about it that I like is the new soap. I'm not kidding, your soap kicks butt! I have no interest in flying to CLE, EWR, IAH or GUA. I can't stand the guppy and its tight cockpit and 1 jumpseat. I hate more narrowbodys vs. widebodys. My seniority will almost surely be diluted. I thought we would get a management team that wanted to run and grow an airline, but your management is just like our management was. None of this is an "ours is better than yours" rant. For some people, there are some GREAT gets in this merger. Our guys that live in CLE, EWR, and IAH have to be STOKED! Some folks LOVE the guppy, etc. etc. It just doesn't have any benefit for me personally. But here is the thing, it happened. Nothing I can do about it, so the chips are going to fall where they may. I'm not going to keep on saying that I'm proudly flying a L-UAL aircraft, and I'm not going to go back and hash out who's SCABS are worse. I want a damned contract and I want it NOW. The rest is all chaff and fluff.

I TOTALLY agree. The J IS important. I'm not sure why they aren't asking for release either. Publicly they state it's because they don't think it's the best course of action at this time. Behind closed doors I'll bet it's because they felt they didn't have a say in the decision, despite JH's months of beating the drum. Whatever the reason is, I'd ask them point blank: "You don't like the JH plan. What are YOU doing to get me a contract RIGHT NOW". If JP had filed for release, that's damned sure what I would be asking my reps if they weren't on board.

I don't think it was JP who asked our pilots to do that. I think it was just an IAH thing.

I prefer NOT to do that in my announcements. I don't even tell them welcome aboard to UAL whatever.....I don't get paid enough to make those kind of touchey feeley - feel good- warm all over- ya hoo announcements. I give them the ETA, and the weather. That's it. That is all. They can figure out for themselves what airline they are on by reading the inflight magazine or watching co-worker jeff in his welcome aboard video.

I say again. We don't get paid enough to do PR work with PA's.

It's been mentioned at least twice in two separate Union updates.

Read below....

To bolster what your saying.....I didn't look too hard, but I believe I came up with one of the references in which you were referring to.

CAL-MEC Position Report
(March 30th, 2012)

**Quote by Capt. J. Pierce**
Finally this week, I want to talk about honesty and professionalism. I take offense when it is suggested that telling the truth is unprofessional. I think we all do. This week, one of the IAH ACPs took it upon himself to say that pilots who have mentioned that their flights are being operated by Continental pilots, on their PAs, were being unprofessional. I find considerable fault with his claim. The fact is that until the JCBA is complete and the SLI process is done, CAL and UAL are still separate subsidiary airlines, under one holding company. We are still Continental pilots working under the Continental collective bargaining agreement. I know that management is irritated that some of us won’t participate in their attempts to fool the public and our passengers into thinking that we are one big happy airline, but the fact is that it is not true. If they want to say so truthfully, get the contract done.

The truth is that I look forward to the day that I can say that we really are all United pilots, as that would mean that the contract is done and the SLI is complete, but we are not there yet. It is pretty obvious that this has become an issue for management and I am not going to ask you to put yourself at risk over this issue. I will simply remind management that our FOM provides guidance on the general rules that should be followed when using the PA. The second bullet point tells us to “Tell the Truth.” It does not say; however, that we should hide the truth.

Added more.....

Council 171 (IAH) Update Email "Quote":
Capt "Rep" E.H. (March 2nd, 2012)
Welcome Aboard
“Welcome aboard flight 243, service to XXX . This flight is proudly operated by the pilots and flight attendants of Continental Airlines” - Any questions?

This is irritating management? Then I'm fine with it.
If this airline was called Continental we'd probably be doing the same thing.;)

Yea I am sure they are losing sleep over this every night, lol

ha ha we thought is was YOUR soap! it does kick a$$... you mean UCH came up with something original? impossible!

I can hardly wait to get back and try the new coffee and soap.:rolleyes:

I stand corrected.

I thought I read it only in IAH blastmails.

Thank U.

I hear ya.

But, this sort of illustrates a larger point. Maybe for the first time since I was hired at CAL, the pilots are standing up for themselves. Call it our version of the shawhank redemption, but at least for once guys are thinkig about ways to NOT give co-worker jeffey what he is ordering us to do via his 14,002 pilot bulletin this year.

I just prefer not to make any announcement. Heck, sometimes I just write give the FA the atis and write down the gate and ETA and that's it. I am done doing other people's jobs for no money.

I feel under-valued, and under compensated.

Understand and agree Otto, great movie by the way.

Me too. When I get back that soap dispenser better dispense $100 bills! FUPM biatches!

well dont rush back for the coffee... it sucks :eek: they went the cheap way, and by "they" I mean the panel of 14 high level people who picked it out by drinking it in a boardroom and not actually from an airplane. "They" then walked to Starbucks to get their own personal cup.

All good.....
I find it strange we went from two extremes on "briefs".....We went from the 'former' Brett who sent out one weekly (sometimes more), to Eric who sends out one every "blue moon". Personally I could be satisfied with something in the middle......ESPECIALLY in light of the Union "climate", and everything going on right now. I would 'think' communication being key if you want your 'line pilot types' involved.....Something the MEC preaches so much.

FWIW....

All good points.

One reason Brett's communications were so wacky was his FO rep was certifiable... I personllay thought Brett was a stand up guy, but he was constantly being manipulated by the red beast.

Our FO rep is essentially absent so that may be one factor. he is A320 fumes. You might want to ask him what he's doing. Might want to ask him why he agreed with a unified letter, helped write it, failed to sign it, and then failed to explain this to his constituents in any sort of LC update.

Regarding current LC communications. It may be a reflection on how much all 3 reps communicate and/or are on the same page. I think that may be the case actually.

Remember the article said that it wasn't the coffee that is bad but the UAL coffee makers that had been modified that are causing the problem. They now have to modify the coffee makers back to get the quality that they want. It didn't say they were going to make the changes to the coffee makers, just that they would have to be modified to get the quality they were looking for.

Got it. Thanks for posting that, as that makes much more sense.

Check your PM.

Wow, ya'll really need to check your facts before posting. I've been reading some of the posts on here since "the announcement." There has been a tremendous amount of misinformation posted about UAL. From the laughable about "TK" standing for Training Kingdom to the benign about our coffee makers. When people can't even get the basic facts right, how can we get together on the more serious issues, like the f-ing contract? UAL pilots don't look down on CAL pilots. The UAL-MEC has ALL of our best interests at heart. Please guys let's not spread rumors. Let's keep our eye on the ball.

BTW, our coffee makers haven't changed since the 727, or most likely earlier than that. We had Starbuck's coffee until the merger. Funny, I talked to Dutta years back and he was adamant about how important that contact was.

P.S. I know I'm mixing threads, but I GUARANTEE JH is NOT getting "put on ice" from Moak. Your "contact" is once again poorly informed.

And the ever famous discussion I got into with a CAL Capt I was flying with. He was wondering how UAL convinced the FAA to give them a waiver so they could fly ETOPs flights without having any ETOPS planes. He was convinced that UAL didn't have one ETOPS plane yet still flew the routes with some kind of special waiver.

Like I said before, we should be on the Union for Drama Queens.

Actually, he's right. Some article was trotted out awhile back where they talked about the minutia of a merger. In it, some overpaid Sr. VP of Coffee talked about how they put the CAL bags into the UAL machines, which didn't allow the bag to sit correctly, thus diluting the coffee. Rather than just go back to Starbucks, they were going to modify the makers.

I can't believe that I just typed a post about coffee makers with all that's going on right now

Yeah I was just repeating that article and yes I think it was a joke of a story. It could be the greatest coffee machine on this earth and it isn't going to fix crappy coffee. They can blame anything they want but crappy coffee is crappy coffee.

I do like the Sr. VP of coffee title. If given the chance I would be all over that. And yes I would go back to starbucks and dump the other no name brand. Finally we get on real topics like coffee and soap, and you guys want to go back to the he said she said crap.

He sits next to the Sr. Vp of the scrabble board and the newly appointed VP of withcraft, spells, and sourcery. Look for an announcement next week regarding the filling of the vacancy for VP of scotch tape and paperclips. I just read in the A4A "smart brief" that they are looking for a senior "ghost buster" to absorb the postions of VP of dish-washing and tomato accounting". The Ghost Buster position will pay more since he is a "multi tasker."

I am going to blame it on the rain....OH wait...milli vanilli already got that. never mind. i will blame my lack of proper and timely PA announements on the poor coffee.