Ty Webb said:
OK, first of all, I am not knocking you for flying corporate equipment . . . . I enjoyed my time as a corporate skipper. I was trying to point out to you that you were throwing stones from behind a tree, so to speak. Your beef is not with AirTran pilots, it's with an industry in turmoil.
What we, as airline pilots, have to realize is that we are all trying to work under a flawed system . . . one where your earning power is tied not to your skill and experience, but to the skill of your company's management.
What I am trying to say is that we need a Guild, not individual unions or chapters at each company. A 20-year captain should not have to start off at the bottom if his company goes TU after 20 years. Almost every "trade" or "profession" has recognized that fact but ours.
The way that it would work is like this- Your seniority number is in the Profession, not in your company. You can change your "bid" every year or two, based upon service in the industry. . . . . your company goes tits up- it's not your fault, you simply bid to another company.
Before you guys dismiss it simply because it is different, think about it- maybe a ten-year grandfathered period, with fences, but after that . . . you bid for a seat!
A newbie flight instructs . . . . gets a year or two, and could bid for check-hauling . . . or for regional right seat on a turboprop. next bid . . . maybe left seat t-prop, or right seat RJ. Next bid, left seat RJ, or right seat DC9 . . . etc
When a company needs to hire more pilots, they put out a bid to the Guild for "300 narrowbody pilots for a BWI base", plus "150 regional jet pilots for an ATL base" etc.
The added advantage is that airlines have to compete for pilots to bid there, based on the bennies, since they are all paying the same hourly rate for the seat . . . . To to attract pilots to bid there, they have to offer things such as multiple bases, crew meals, better hotels, better layovers, etc.
The advantage to the Industry? Well, they will all have similar labor costs, which are set by the Guild.
Laugh if you want, but it is the best thing that could happen to all of us, and to the industry, and this is probably the first time in history that it has a rat's @ss chance of coming about, what with all the conflict going on at ALPO.
Serious thoughts, anyone?
My God! What a breath of fresh air.... Thanks for letting me believe again Ty. I appreciate the serious ideas and the great points.
I have always championed a universal union of sorts, or a guild. I hate the idea that a Debunked UAL will spill 25,000hr 747 captains who may be too young to retire and offer them either a $27,000/year job at NetJets or the bottom of a seniority list at the current airline of choice...
This is a complex concept, but imagine if you could take your seniority number with you (if it were totally portable) and that it was handed to you upon being hired by your first FAR 121 National or larger airline.
It's like sports athletes... they get traded, so does their contract...
Now I don't advocate the whole contract going portable, but if the pilot was able to take his seniority number with him, now he can play the airlines against each other, rather than letting them play him...
That was thought one....
The other thing I am trying to say about SWA and others isn't that they don't just pay enough, because after 10 or 12 years and as a captain they pay a decent check for the type of equipment, but the major difference is the number of hours flown for that check. While I agree that we should have to work for our pay... I don't like having to bust my butt in a business where 14 hour days are a norm, and fatigue is the mother of all evils. It seems that SWA pilots have no problem with their work days and number of trips, so I am not trying to say that they are unsafe, but rather that it may not be possible to have every airline follow that level of crew utilization since the route structures, especially international can be very demanding on the human body with regards to sleep times and time needed to recover.
So to pressure all airline in making their pilots fly 65-80 hours per month would not only remove some 33% of all flying jobs permanently, but would also contribute to a lot of tired and possibly unsafe pilots flying routes that go farther than 5 hours from home.
Finally, I want to make it clear that I have no beef with any individual pilot for doing what he has to to feed his family. I am doing something I don't particularly like myself, that is flying what would be first class pax to places that American or Delta could be flying them, so I am part of the problem... The difference is that I work with some 40 other pilots and have no union so there isn't much I can do to improve my own situation (not that its that bad for the type of work I do). They try very hard to keep us happy and therefore never worry about a union coming in (or so that is their theory).
But I do think that Net Jets is a corporate (like FAR 135) place that is hurting both myself in my job, and the greater good of the profession, since they pay their Citation X captains as little as $48,000/year and as much as $85,000, all of which is bellow industry average, and then to compound their low pay, they also operate more of these airplanes than any one else. This also applies to their Falcon2000, Citation VII, Hawkers and Citation V. Only their BBJ pays a reasonably good salary and that is ironically their lest profitable operation. I know many Net Jets drivers and they swear that they will get a 100% raise our of their company over 5 years or they'll walk (because they are sooooo far behind the ball on pay).
But it never helps Pilots in general to have an 800 pound guerrilla such as Net Jets in the Charter/91 world, or SWA in the 121 world paying less for more work. And I can only hope that SWA, being so profitable will give their pilots more money, or at least set up a retirement pension to add to their stock plan. Otherwise, the idea of a retirement plan will never float again.