And why is foreign ownership bad...

[waveflyer]

you guys are talking my speed- capitalism pure and simple- a pilot job is respected worldwide- cost of living is evening out around the world and that's a good thing- i don't think we'd do that bad either- we've been taking it in the shorts for a while now...

but i find most of you funny, i change the subject to our own career and ya'll run scared- I say enter the free market and do away w/ seniority governed careers and i get an earfull from everyone-- hence my NSL speeches...(ie: it's a If you sit, sit, if you stand, stand, whatever you do- don't wobble- thing)

-not proposing doing away w/ unions- just their role would change to lobbying gov't and SETTING STANDARDS-- then let us each decide how much we're willing to do this for-I can negotiate for me better than anyone else, and then i don't have to worry about baby-boomers selling me out- the market is the market= my guess... since they need ALL of us to fly, but only 20-40% of us will stand strong-- in a free market we'll do better-- bc the weak among us ARE weak... until they see the 20-40% get better $$ for the same job... then they'll rise up... Collective bargaining w/ our government working against it just hasn't held up in it's current form... We're all working for below a market wage bc we're scared to death of losing our "seniority-security blanket"... it's why Corporate pilots live better for 1/4 the work. If you're at a legacy, how secure do you feel w/ our current system? Yet we still do the bulk of the flying in this country...

just thinking out loud-- and knowing-- like fuel=- if the free market demanded pilots get paid more- they would do it w/o blinking-- but when a union forces it on them... everyone is galvanized to work against it... Think how much union resources could be used to lobby for higher standards and rest rules/safety if they didn't have to work on contracts--Those higher standards would then be used by us in negotiations for ourselves- unions could still provide contract services to each of us-- templates for industry standards etc...

then i realize this is falling on deaf and probably angry ears.....

 

[d328pilot]

Why would an Indian, Chinese, etc. pilot come work in the US? Those guys start off their airline career in a 737 or bigger and probably making more money in their home country. Especially if you compare their pay to the cost of living. I tell they guys I fly with in Japan what first year pilots make in the US and they think that I am joking.

No one is going to leave their home unless you pay them enough to do it and that ain't gonna happen in the US anytime soon. Hell, I am American and I don't have any desire to come back and work there.

What has happened in the EU? Turkey and other former soviet bloc countries are now full members of the EU with the right to work in any of the other EU countries. I have yet to hear an Air France flight with a Turkish, German, Italian, Dutch accent. KLM and AF are "foreign owned" companies and how many French pilots are on the seniority list at KLM and vice versa?

Use the Toyota plant for example. How many Japanese people are working in the factories? Maybe a few managers but the workers are all American. I am from Alabama and when the Mercedes plant opened, there was no flood of German or other migrant workers to take the jobs. In fact, it created many fine jobs for Americans with a successful global company.

Just because we allow successful companies to have control and ownership of our airlines doesn't mean that we will have a flood of cheap labor pouring in. You will however, open the airlines up to a management pool that has been much more successful than our own.

 

[waveflyer]

yes- but i think the concern is w/ how portable our jobs are... there's really no reason foreign pilots couldn't just flow through from mexico or central/south america spend 4-5 days flying domestic routes here and fly home.

that's the fear anyway

 

[Dumb Pilot]

Foreign ownership? Before long domestic crews will be staged out of India and paid 35 cents/hour!

WHAT?????????????????????

Do you sir have any Idea about how much pilots are being paid in India? They have direct entry captain position in India that pay a LOT more than any 12 year seniority legacy captain in the US. Wake up people, and find out what is happening in the international pilot market before you make stupid comments like that

 

[d328pilot]

How many domestic flights are there inside the USA every day? What airline would have the crews to spare to do that flying? Since the don't have the right to work in the US, they have to start a trip from outside of the US. I dont see how they are going to get the pilots in the country to do that. Are they going to fly plane loads in every day from outside of the US to start trips? Are they going to flood the US with new international routes to get the crews in? I dont know how many flights per day Mexico to the US would support, but i doubt it is enough to start covering domestic legs.

You might lose some legs, but you will also gain revenue opportunities in the other countries. You also open the airlines up to a huge influx of badly needed capital and leadership.

Why in gods name would an airline want to pay the cost to get the crews in the US to fly a domestic route in the US anyway??? (since they cant live here) They yields are so bad that US carriers don't even want to fly them.

 

[Rez O. Lewshun]

So you can't comprehend it....so it is not going to happen.....

got it....

 

[PBRstreetgang]

Reference the maritime industry...

The maritime industry is strong, the US maritime industry is non-existent. Minor diff I know!
PBR

 

[PBRstreetgang]

How many domestic flights are there inside the USA every day? What airline would have the crews to spare to do that flying? Since the don't have the right to work in the US, they have to start a trip from outside of the US. I dont see how they are going to get the pilots in the country to do that. Are they going to fly plane loads in every day from outside of the US to start trips? Are they going to flood the US with new international routes to get the crews in? I dont know how many flights per day Mexico to the US would support, but i doubt it is enough to start covering domestic legs.

You might lose some legs, but you will also gain revenue opportunities in the other countries. You also open the airlines up to a huge influx of badly needed capital and leadership.

Why in gods name would an airline want to pay the cost to get the crews in the US to fly a domestic route in the US anyway??? (since they cant live here) They yields are so bad that US carriers don't even want to fly them.

Thank god you are a pilot, and not a politician or CEO, you can skrew up an airplane one at a time and not entire companies or countries.

 

[PBRstreetgang]

Heard this is a crew lounge:
China has 1 billion people, lets say 1/10th of 1% can fly a plane and speak english. Most of them will be able to work for $2.00 a day in their current environment. Lets say all our favorite CEO J.O. goes to China, and starts training those guys/gals. He offers them the opportunity to make $15,000 per year flying planes in the USA 6 months a year. For 6 months they come to america and live in a company owned apartment 6 to a room(sounds like a crash pad) and fly the line. Then they go home and work in the training/ recruiting centers finding and training new pilots in a country with billions of people. Time to go to the US, hop a flight and hit the sim center 3 days prior to report for service to requal and settle in. Instead of 3-4 day trips they have 6 month trips. All this needs is for politicians to allow legislation for foreign workers to legally work on US soil, and it will be sold by the industry because they cant get enough US pilots to work for 15,000 a year. Throw in the ability of a Chinese government owned airline to secure oil futures and the US airline industry will be in trouble.
PBR

 

[Freight Dog]

Can some explain why they think foreign ownership means that we will still be working?

Because we are the cheapest, BY FAR...

 

[Soverytired]

I think it's probably inevitable. And I don't like it one bit either.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/ma...&grid=&xml=/money/2008/05/22/bcnairline12.xml

Oil price surge may trigger truly open transatlantic skies


By Alistair Osborne in Houston
Last Updated: 11:16am BST 22/05/2008


High level politics and the soaring oil price have combined to create the most positive backdrop yet for EU-US talks focused on the abolition of laws preventing transatlantic airline takeovers, a senior British Airways executive has said.

John Wood, BA's executive vice-president of external relations, said he was encouraged by two sets of negotiations last week that could revolutionise the aviation industry within the next few years. "In the medium-term, I am cautiously optimistic," he said.

British Airways is encouraged by progress EU and US negotiators met last week in Ljubljana, Slovenia, for their first discussions on the second phase of "open skies", the deal struck last year that liberalised flying rights between the two regions.

The first phase deal did nothing, however, to end anachronistic ownership laws limiting EU carriers to 25pc of the voting rights and 49pc of the equity in their American counterparts. US airlines are limited to 49pc of both in EU carriers.

Such rules block the transatlantic takeovers, and accompanying cost-cutting, that the industry is crying out for now that oil has rocketed to $135 a barrel - a level at which virtually no airline can make a profit.
While Mr Wood admitted that the aviation talks in Slovenia ended, as expected, with little concrete progress, he pointed to a crucial breakthrough at more high-level discussions a few days earlier in Brussels.
This was at the second meeting of the Transatlantic Economic Council (TEC), set up in April 2007 by President Bush, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso.

The TEC, whose European delegates include trade commissioner Peter Mandelson, was established to secure barrier-free trade between the EU and the US - including in aviation.
On May 13, the TEC issued an "EU-US Open Investment Statement", which Mr Wood said would "put top-down pressure on negotiations over an aviation agreement".
The joint-statement from the TEC explicitly states that: "An open economy, including an open international investment regime, is indispensable to fostering sustainable economic growth...Countries should avoid new restrictions and strive to eliminate existing restrictions."
Mr Wood said the US special envoy to the EU, Boyden Gray, opened the Slovenia aviation talks with reference to the TEC statement.
"One of the things aviation suffered from is that it has always been done in a black box," Mr Wood said. "That has hindered our ability to make progress. But the EU and US have now made a commitment to open investment."
He said this extended to all industries, though acknowledged there were some restrictions around defence.
Mr Wood said such a political context was "helpful" as the EU presses the US to create a full-blown open aviation area, including access to the American domestic market. Many observers see the US resistance as a protectionist measure to prevent takeovers of US carriers, such as United and Continental, by stronger European airlines.
As part of last year's "open skies" deal, the EU negotiated an opt-out for any member state. This allows an EU member to claw back flying rights granted to Washington, such as access to Heathrow, unless the US liberalises its market by 2010.
"It's a nuclear button, but it's there to be pressed as a final resort," Mr Wood said.
He acknowledged the US negotiating team was still a long way from agreeing full-blown liberalisation, instead bogging down the Slovenia talks on sideshows such as the lack of access for US carriers to Milan's Linate airport.
However, he believed that after the US election, there would be growing pressure on the American side for a change. "EU carriers want it and, with oil at $130, I think we are going to see US airlines saying we really have got to get out of the dark ages," he said. "That's going to flush out the opponents, who are mainly labour - the unions. The unions are resisting, but they are also resisting the economic benefits of a properly liberalised market."

 

[d328pilot]

So you can't comprehend it....so it is not going to happen.....

got it....

You are so sure that it will happen, so it must......

got it....


Have any of the EU airlines been over run with cheap Eastern European labor?

You know, you guys are right. There is obviously plenty of financing available for the airlines in the US right now to help them through the down turn.

 

[Rez O. Lewshun]

Because we are the cheapest, BY FAR...

Airbus designs its jets so third world country citizens can fly them. it increases sales.

Take a guy who is plowing the fields in S. America, Africa or Asia who is making $3,000 a year and ask him if he wants to make 15K and if he wants to access the US economy to buy goods and services.

What do you think he'll say?


Yes... we have to worry about the short term and long term....

 

[Rez O. Lewshun]

You are so sure that it will happen, so it must......

got it....

Nope... However there are many indications that we are going that way... my intent... awareness... Nothing worse than a bunch of cry baby pilots waking up in the morning only to find their jobs are gone, all while they say.. "how did this happen" and "ALPA sucks"

Have any of the EU airlines been over run with cheap Eastern European labor?

Actually one of the problems is many EU airlines and transnational airlines want to set up flight operations in Old East Bloc Euro countries.

Let's take it a step further... What is to stop David Neeleman from helping jB set up dispatch and mx in Brazil. Sure he doesn't work there, but that doesn't mean he can't represent jB.

What is to prevent DAL from setting up, mx, dx and scheduling in 3rd world countries.

You know, you guys are right. There is obviously plenty of financing available for the airlines in the US right now to help them through the down turn.

Foreign ownership means foreign control which means foreign jobs. What is to prevent a foreign company from flying in third world pilots to fly a domestic 6 day trip?

The camels nose under the tent in all this is.... the first lose for us is the widebody transoceanic flying. that will be done by foreigners..

The foreign carriers will use their US surrogates to petition the US gov't for work visas. A win win for all [except pilots] as American unions will be even more watered down.

All of this information is out there....

 

[CopilotDoug]

Have you ever heard Mexicana on the radio? Could you imagin that everywhere?

I'm not so sure I haven't heard them flying for the regionals already! Are the regionals hiring right off the boat?