About 2 months ago, Prater was in the pilots' lounge in EWR and he was spouting off about not letting management use PBS to leverage us. He said remember the quality of life issues....... I pointed out that if over 50% of the bidding population were going to get a line that completely ignores their bidding parameters ( i.e days off, max hours, etc.) and will 'award' a line of 90+ hours that there isn't much left with quality of life.
I then had to explain to him what a 'splat line' was and other basic aspects of our current PBS system. Clearly, Prater has never had to even deal with our current bidding system on a personal level.
That is our in-touch leadership........
Right on! Interestingly, you
can get him to talk Crewpass?! Full page ad in USAToday?? Oh, he's in touch all right. I barely see my family and he's worried about taking his shoes off??
Prater is not equiped to take care of all of us in this profession. What he
really means to say is: he won't let the company,
and the bottom half of the list, leverage PBS against him taking care of the top half.
The loan is no longer due I'm afraid. It
was due, and then Pratard changed retirement age. There would be a durable pilot shortage pushing things along if it weren't for him. Even with fuel and these recent shutdowns, pilots would be in demand. Here's what's going to happen IMHO: The need for pilots will return in about 24-36 months, and it will be an even greater than before. F-ing Prater & company are going to lament this and seek to cash in on it again. It will be with foriegn control, or cabotage, or something like that...He'll want to pull the ladder up again. We
have got to put a damper on this recent windfall his crowd took. I say we shore up scope (capture the 170/190), seek an incremental raise for junior pilots, and leave the top half of the list high and dry (let's
lower their pay!?). Sign a two year deal and get back to this in earnest when demand comes back.
