When the agreement was made between United and Continental that neither side would hire pilots off the street while either side had pilots on furlough without first offering the furloughed guys a new hire spot at the other carrier was made, each company was operating under it's own operating certificate. Now, we still have a botched up merger with two airlines operating under one single certificate and name "United Airlines". How can any ALPA pilot on either side not be appalled that one side is posting huge vacancies and announcing indefinite pilot hiring at 50 or so a month, while the other side has over 1400 ALPA pilots on furlough. You can't tell me that the flying hasn't been shifted around. United used to dominate the west coast to Hawaii flying and now you can hardly find a flight operated by United, they're all Continental! Active pilots on the United side with 13, 14 years seniority sit at the bottom of the list, while pilots much junior on the Continental side are looking at upgrades. I'm sure their seat will be protected once the merger is complete and the seniority list is integrated. This is a mess and it's the United side that is losing out in my book and it's not just the furloughed guys! I don't see how a new contract has anything to do with the current situation. Plus if you're a United furloughee that took the new hire job at Continental you don't even benefit pay wise with the new contract. You're simply a new hire, so you remain at your 5, 6, 7 year old United pay until the new pay scale exceeds your present pay. So until your recalled by your United number or the list is merged their is no benefit. How does a new contract all of a sudden change the fact that the Continental side of United is hiring off the street? Help me out, i'm confused!

 

You need to look at EWR flying as well. The 756 CAL base has been desimated over the past year. There is almost no 76 flying at all. It has all been replaced by UAL. All 76s will be removed from IAH in the spring replaced with a UAL 76 base. It goes both ways. Just management doing their best to play us against each other.

 

go speak to someone at the chief pilots office they will be able to break it down better. They have a whole power point presentation about this specify topic. It is very indepth and goes into more detail then is needed. It is about 30 minutes long so its not really a quick watch, bring some popcorn.

 

I got no particular side in this but really people? Really? What the hell do you think they do when they merge two huge damn airlines? Leave it as it was?

C'mon, get a grip and quit your useless belly achin'. Your zip, zero, zilch, nada of help to your brothers and sisters or the people you work with whining and moaning about what airline management has done and will continue to do forever. It's their job to maximize the potential of the airline and move the pieces around to find those often abused "synergies".

How well they do it is a whole different subject. Many argue Delta is doing a pretty good job these days and AMR definitely not while UCH seems to be, well....there is no shortage of opinion on that and most of it is not positive.

But really, to sit here and moan like a child about what all of us already know and understand is a complete waste of time.

If indeed you are a professional unionized US airline pilot stay focused on supporting your profession and your brothers and sisters through EFFECTIVE professionalism. Our job, our focus is supporting each other, this profession, our families and getting what we justly deserve for executing this unique skill with the ultimate goal to maintain the safest airline industry in the world. What the management upon high does, you will rarely change and complaining endlessly about it won't do much except fill space on a server.

Stay focused people. Stay safe. Stay United. Your tremendous accomplishment as one of only a handful of major US airline pilots can only be taken from you if you choose. If you wish to retreat inside and handover emotional control to others about your future then march on down to headquarters and wave your white flag mightily. Otherwise, this is just a job in the end and there is an end for all of us not that far away.

Go fishin' or something.

 

JMHO, The shifting of flying is something that seems normal & expected in a merger of this size; although not pleasant for everyone. The dramatic growth and hiring on one side only with utter stagnation on the other is really, really maddening. I'm one of those 14 year "junior" f/o's on reserve.
We are up against some absolute b&*%ards in mgt.

 

15 year Jr F/O on reserve here.

dvhighdrive88,

First off, who do you work for? Second you've completely and totally missed the point. It's not about shifting stuff around and making changes. It's about one side, L-UAL, being decimated and the other side growing in leaps and bounds.

It about the L-CAL side having growth and movement and the L-UAL side being stuck in perpetual stagnation. Since I was surplussed to the right seat 2.5 years ago I've not moved up one single solitary number in fact I've slid back 3 numbers on my fleet and seat. That is with 15 working on 16 years of seniority.
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thor,

It is not going both ways. You guys have vertical movement. We have a little lateral movement otherwise we are completely and totally stagnant. The recent recall then retraction of that recall notice is a prime example. If we had equipment bids, if we were recalling, if we had ANY movement I would agree with you. However we don't so as it stands right now, L-CAL, is being used to leverage L-UAL and yes the fact that you are hiring off the street and grow while we have furloughs out on the street and are stuck in perpetual stagnation is totally and completely wrong. It causes distrust, it causes hatred and it causes friction. What else could it possibly accomplish when you have a drastic inequity like this?

 

Just wait until the CAL MEC votes yes and the UAL MEC votes no on the TA, and so they dust off DAL's LOA 19 which allows them to implement the new contract with one group but not the other. That will be messed up.

 

Hey dvhighdrive88, are you a UAL guy? I hope not because I have met very few UAL guys with that 'rollover' attitude in my 15 years at UAL. It's painfully obvious that our side of the UCH "merger of equals" is being gutted royally. Plain and simple.

 

As the the message to furloughed United Pilots just sent out today states: Every pilot CAL hires off the street directly affects the number of recalls to the new United. This just shouldn't happen because in the end its one company. Why should a new hire off the street secure a job at what will be the new United, while United pilots hired years ago sit on the street because they didn't take the Continental offer of employment. It's wrong and if some of you guys don't see that, you're blind.

 

Actually, many of us on the CAL side see the above happening in reverse!