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Freedom furlough

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Isn't Freedom the non-union airline that Mesa opened up to whipsaw against the Mesa ALPA pilots during contract negotiations? If so then I hope they are bearing the brunt of the furloughs and no I don't feel sorry for them. Despite what many of you think of Mesa as a company, their pilots are dues paying ALPA members who have been put through the ringer. They are no different than you or I, they took the first RJ job they could get and stuck with it to get the time to move onto to bigger and better pastures. If I am correct in my recollection of the start of Freedom, then they rank right up there with GoJets in my book.

If I am wrong, please correct me and accept my apology in advance. If not, enjoy unemployment as your furlough has just helped an ALPA member remain employed.

That was the original Freedom operation started back I think 8-9 yrs ago. It was folded back into the Mesa operation shortly after it started with the combined contract/seniority list. The certificate was resurected in 2005 to fly ERJs for Delta Connection. Regardless of the politics surrounding the the original Freedom, this is a different group of guys entirely.
 
Isn't Freedom the non-union airline that Mesa opened up to whipsaw against the Mesa ALPA pilots during contract negotiations? If so then I hope they are bearing the brunt of the furloughs and no I don't feel sorry for them. Despite what many of you think of Mesa as a company, their pilots are dues paying ALPA members who have been put through the ringer. They are no different than you or I, they took the first RJ job they could get and stuck with it to get the time to move onto to bigger and better pastures. If I am correct in my recollection of the start of Freedom, then they rank right up there with GoJets in my book.

If I am wrong, please correct me and accept my apology in advance. If not, enjoy unemployment as your furlough has just helped an ALPA member remain employed.

You are correct about Freedom A. The current Freedom came about due to a scope clause that didn't allow Mesa to fly for Delta with aircraft as large as the crj900. So MESA management dusted off the Freedom certificate (had one 1900 on it to keep it alive) and put all of the ERJ's on it and that's how Freedom B, the current Freedom came to be. Flying for DELTA. Most of us couldn't believe that we were being put on this certificate that was universally known to be a whipsaw GoJet style operation. It was really unfair I felt.

And as a result I get to deal with fellow ALPA brothers who are;

IGNORANT, WHO DON'T TAKE THE TIME TO RESEARCH THEIR OPINIONS OR READ THEIR ALPA MAGAZINES!

Nobody who flys for the current Freedom B ever flew for or had anything to do with The Whipsaw freedom A. There is a list of Freedom A pilots. If you want to get one and hold these pilot responsible be my guest.

All Freedom pilots are ALPA and MESA Air group seniority list. Almost all of the Captains were MESA pilots based in Charlotte befor the merger of AWEST and UAIR. The only reason we even have to fly as Freedom was UAIR's pay to play with Air whisky- which took our flying due to JO's refusal to invest in the new combined company.

If I remember correctly we had asked DELTA and Comair's MEC's if they would allow us to fly for them on MESA's cert instead of Freedom. But our ALPA brother and sisters denied our MEC's request. Thanks.

Sorry if it appears I'm out of patience with this. But I am. The reality is I've taken all the slights, cold treatment and a$$hole comments on jumpseats that I'm going to take. All stemming from my fellow ALPA brothers ignorance.
 
Johndog et al: Here it is....a public apology. You are correct I was ignorant of the current Freedom and the pilot group and am sorry for my comments. I, as are many others, was under the incorrect impression that Freedom was still a non-union whipsaw airline being abused my corp. mesa. I am very and truly sorry that more Alpa members are being furloughed. The recession has hit bottom, advance bookings at all the majors have stopped the freefall and business fares are on the uptick for the first time in a year. Hopefully the newly furloughed will not be out for long.
 
What the heck does the Comair MEC have to do with choosing what airplanes fly on Mesa's certificates?

They have scope language that prohibits other code share airlines that have anything more than 70 seats to fly Delta colors. The Freedom cert acts as a fire wall preventing scope violation. About three or four years ago our MEC Chairman at the behest of JO asked if we could get scope relief from Big D's MEC to combine flying on one cert. This was to reduce operating costs.
 
Gave it all up... I didn't know they ever won anything to give up to begin with.

The big gain was capturing scope and stopping Freedom A from taking over the Mesa flying which was happening in PHX. The Mesa guys that didn't go to Freedom would show up for their trip only to find out that their flight(s) had been "CXLD" and that flight would be given to a Freedom 700 or 900 and the company would not pay protect the Mesa guys.There was an instance in PHX where a Mesa pilot and Freedom pilot got into a fist fight on the ramp.If Freedom A had not been stopped,Mesa would have changed the company name to Freedom Airlines because they were literally stealing flying away from Mesa.
 
But what does any of this have to do with ASA? This is a flight info forum isn't it? Sorry, had to do it.
 
Yes......

If I remember correctly we had asked DELTA and Comair's MEC's if they would allow us to fly for them on MESA's cert instead of Freedom. But our ALPA brother and sisters denied our MEC's request. Thanks.

Thats because your a "regional" that flies 100 seat aircraft (or used to) for dirt regionals. I agree that it's a sham that it's ok on a seperate certificate by the own company, but scopes gotta come into play somewhere.
 
What the heck does the Comair MEC have to do with choosing what airplanes fly on Mesa's certificates?

From what I remember It had to do with a scope clause that (at the time) only allowed certain wholly owned carriers to fly a perticular size aircraft for DELTA. Even though these 900's weren't going to fly (for) DELTA. In any event our fellow union members would not allow us to fly our (ERJ) aircraft on the MESA cert because of this. Which is why we are on the Freedom certificate and subject to the massive ammount of igorance that prevades our proffesion.

ps. I don't want to spend Thanksgiving explaining this any further to the glib who frequent this website-so let this thread die please.

Happy thanksgving
 

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