Airline Pilot v. Taco Bell Assistant Manager...(comment on Newco)

[FN FAL]

I really don't want a 21 year old kid fresh out of some hack flight school (Not to be morbid, but the co-pilot of Paul Wellstone's final flight, who was at the contols during the fateful descent, is a perfect example.) sitting in the left seat of a large airliner with a 100 people on it - Especially if the airline's work rules have kept him/her on the road and up late for days on end.

http://www.tpmcafe.com/story/2005/10/3/125354/159

Ran accross a blog that had an article in it comparing the Newco deal at NWA as putting pilots at fast food restaurant levels of compensation and work rules. If you click on the link, the guy that wrote the blog article got a letter from a NWA DC-9 guy...sounds like not only are they going to make them regional pilots, but they are going to be making them guys start out like a new hire at Newco. This is insane! Remember last year when that military guy was bragging up Newco, how NWA pilots weren't going to let XJ and Pinnacle fly the 70 seaters and how Newco was going to be THE stepping stone job for getting into NWA.

 

[Snakum]

Yes, it is, indeed, shocking. However, what are we to expect when ALPA has 'chosen it's battles', to put it nicely. Based on everything I've ever read, if Comair had gone on strike in 1975, Delta and ASA would have walked, too. Immediately. If Northwest had tried to so blatantly to screw it's mechanics and FAs in 1975, what do you think ALPA would have done? STFD, more than likely. Remember, they weren't called "Cobra Airlines" for nothing.

But no ... ALPA has no teeth, and the people sitting at the top (with the golden chutes) know it, and so they will, in the coming months, see just how far they CAN go. Asking a relatively small freight company to jump on a hand-grenade isn't going to do anything for your cause when the big guys are giving away the farm with ALPA national's blessing.

You can justify DALPA and Northwest ALPA's lack of support for their brothers and sisters however you want, you can rant and rave that my opinion doesn't count because I don't fly 121, or whatever else you can come up with to deny the reality of the current situation. But that won't do a thing to change the fact that pilot unions in the airline industry (121) have no teeth, and the people who sign the checks know it. And as I've said before, this is just the beginning. US Airlines will, without drastic measures taken now, eventually have non-citizen pilots sitting up front. It will happen. They may be sitting in the same planes you guys are currently flying, or they may be sitting in something with a different paint scheme. But they will be sitting up front and flying between US city-pairs unless something drastic happens, and soon!

Ya'll better start kicking ALPA in the ass now, and the next time there is a battle on this front you'd better support your brothers and sisters instead of trying to come up with justifications for hanging back. I've watched this same thing happen in manufacturing over the past twenty years, from the other side of the battle. Now I see it in the aviation industry.

How badly do you want to fly for a living?


Minh
(And before you start flaming ... Yes, it does affect me so it is my business. More airline pilots out of work means more competition in my little small-time local corporate world.)

 

[FN FAL]

Minh
(And before you start flaming ... Yes, it does affect me so it is my business. More airline pilots out of work means more competition in my little small-time local corporate world.)

We're still getting some bottom of the barrel types by us, but I think management is trying to seek a balance between skill and people who want to stay for a while. It was worse when jobs were less scarce.

We have the gammut by us, some guys have been here 15 years and it was their first full time flying job. Some guys are from major airlines...I think one was a typed major airline pilot in the 757, the other is an NWA F0. We just let an ex whale pilot go, but I don't know where he came from or what capacity he served in 121 flying.

Last winter when I was annual simulator re-currency, I bumped into a NWA DC-10 captain that was heading over the sim center at the same time as me and he told me that one of his F0's was working for us.

Yea, I'd like to see it swing back the other way, all this gloom and doom is bad for the morale.

 

[flyinglow]

http://www.tpmcafe.com/story/2005/10/3/125354/159

Ran accross a blog that had an article in it comparing the Newco deal at NWA as putting pilots at fast food restaurant levels of compensation and work rules. If you click on the link, the guy that wrote the blog article got a letter from a NWA DC-9 guy...sounds like not only are they going to make them regional pilots, but they are going to be making them guys start out like a new hire at Newco. This is insane! Remember last year when that military guy was bragging up Newco, how NWA pilots weren't going to let XJ and Pinnacle fly the 70 seaters and how Newco was going to be THE stepping stone job for getting into NWA.

I wonder if that guy has been on a psuedo United flight and not realized that he did indeed have two of those pilots up front.