outtahere
Well-known member
- Joined
- Feb 7, 2004
- Posts
- 641
Sorry to say it guys, but I believe ASA is on the way out. I've been trying to figure out why we are furloughing and downgrading when we aren't doing that much less flying than last fall/winter. On average last winter we had around 700 flights per day. We are supposed to take a "major" hit to our flying this winter, however I'll be surprised if we don't wind up with around 700 flights per day. So, why the furlough? Well our contract is pretty tight when it comes to Skywest taking our planes, but there is not one mention of them taking our flying. Have you noticed that Skywest hasn't furloughed a single pilot yet? As we start to slide into winter I would be willing to bet my meager salary that you will start to see Skywest 200's and 700's in ATL. The excuse will be that hey, we didn't get cut as much as we thought we were going to, and now we don't have the resources to operate the schedule Delta wants us to, so we are going to let Skywest fill in for us for the time being. Then come next April, those twenty 200's that our "Senior" management is working so hard to place will o bye bye, and then they will want to furlough more. If they are unable to furlough past the no furlough clause, then they will just patiently wait until the hiring boom kicks off, then ASA will wither on the vine until it finally just goes away. Crazy you say? Look at Comair. Since Skywest bought ASA we have done nothing but shrink. We were to get 20 700's from Delta, they went to Skywest instead. Then they took five 700's trying to break our will on the contract. Then there was the 19 900's that were coming to ASA, but they also went to Skywest. That's 44 airplanes to Skywest, not to mention 12 ATR's, and now 20 200's. SEVENTY SIX AIRCRAFT!!!!! That is just three years of work from our leadership at Skywest. If you figure five crews per plane, that's 760 pilots. Skywest has about 1000 pilots more than ASA. The writing is on the wall folks! It had been my intention to hang up my hat here at ASA, I've got six in, and after all of this current industry bullsh!t works itself out I'll be closer to ten, but I don't believe that there will be an ASA left to work for. I've talked to a few others here, and they were all starting to think about this situation the same as I am, so what is the opinion of the Flight Info crowd of ASA pilots? This is after all the ASA board.