AirTran pilots considering switching unions

[maxblast72]

How about Eastern. We may stay out of chapter 7 with a weekend strike, but not chapter 11.

You made me go back and reread parts of Flying the Line, Vol II and Hard Landings. Eastern pretty much shut down operations March 4th when the pilots went on the sympathy strike with the IAM (book said only 120 out of 3500 crossed the line initially). By March 9th, Eastern had filed bankruptcy (probably Lorenzo's goal all along). You are probably right, Airtran would not escape a Chapter 11 filing during the first week of a strike. It took Eastern 4 months to get back to 30% pre-strike operational size.

The Eastern pilots had a common enemy in Lorenzo who was canabalizing the airline by piecing it off to Continental. This hatred for Lorenzo kept the pilot group pretty unified during the early months of the strike. For as much as people complain about Fornaro and crew, I don't think they bring out the same anger at Airtran across the board. Eastern's performance was alot worse than the rest of the industry in 1987-1988 leading to Eastern's pilots anger in early 1989. While Airtran's 2008 performance was bad, our 2009 performance is projected to be pretty decent, and we are one of the few airlines to recall/increase pilot staffing as a result of projected block hour increases for 2009.

I think all of our pilots should read Flying the Line Volumes I and II, Hard Landings, and some of Dave Ramsey's personal finance books as Airtran pilots will face some difficult choices in the year ahead. We don't need to make any emotional or irrational decisions but rather good decisions based on reason and knowledge of the RLA, history, and the current economic environment.

 

[Fit59]

You made me go back and reread parts of Flying the Line, Vol II and Hard Landings. Eastern pretty much shut down operations March 4th when the pilots went on the sympathy strike with the IAM (book said only 120 out of 3500 crossed the line initially). By March 9th, Eastern had filed bankruptcy (probably Lorenzo's goal all along). You are probably right, Airtran would not escape a Chapter 11 filing during the first week of a strike. It took Eastern 4 months to get back to 30% pre-strike operational size.

The Eastern pilots had a common enemy in Lorenzo who was canabalizing the airline by piecing it off to Continental. This hatred for Lorenzo kept the pilot group pretty unified during the early months of the strike. For as much as people complain about Fornaro and crew, I don't think they bring out the same anger at Airtran across the board. Eastern's performance was alot worse than the rest of the industry in 1987-1988 leading to Eastern's pilots anger in early 1989. While Airtran's 2008 performance was bad, our 2009 performance is projected to be pretty decent, and we are one of the few airlines to recall/increase pilot staffing as a result of projected block hour increases for 2009.

I think all of our pilots should read Flying the Line Volumes I and II, Hard Landings, and some of Dave Ramsey's personal finance books as Airtran pilots will face some difficult choices in the year ahead. We don't need to make any emotional or irrational decisions but rather good decisions based on reason and knowledge of the RLA, history, and the current economic environment.

Had Continental, and all of the other pilots in the Texas Air group gone on strike with the Eastern pilots I think we would have seen an entirely different outcome. Frank was perfectly content letting Eastern fold.

 

[CopilotDoug]

Look, you want to claim that unions that live to fight another day is a weakness, and then disgard said unions such as PATCO that took it to the mat and failed...

What's the message here supposed to be...If it's going to succeed, it must succeed the first time?

 

[Max Powers]

NPA does not have the bureaucratic resources to effectively challenge Mgmt. You need real attorneys with decades of experience and a team of them, to draw from. At ALPA everyone shares these great resources when they need them.

 

[belchfire]

NPA does not have the bureaucratic resources to effectively challenge Mgmt. You need real attorneys with decades of experience and a team of them, to draw from. At ALPA everyone shares these great resources when they need them.

Yep...it's worked really well when it came to protecting pensions and wages at Airways, UAL, DAL, NWA...

All those lawyers and all their years of experience and $MegaM$ in dues accomplished...

More Concessions!!!

Yeaaaaah!

 

[twepilot]

again, the best atty in the world can't defend contradictory language in a contract. Its that simple...Good wording and even a P.D. could successfully argue. With what we have now, no wonder we've lost so many arbitrations.

RV

 

[dh82dvr]

exactly. contract language should be clear, with no gray area for exploitation. Maybe ALPA would provide a little backbone because there doesn't seem to be one now.

 

[71driver]

Some of the decent work and pay rules that are in Airtran's Contract 2001 include:

1) 12 hour max scheduled duty day
2) 4 hr duty period guarantee
3) 2.5/1 duty rig
4) 3.5/1 trip rig
5) 3.5 hr pay credit earned for any unused reserve period
6) 10.5% B-fund
7) $152/hr 12th year top payscale for 117 seat aircraft

We got that 12 year captain rate because it was/is susidized by 12 year F/O rate of $79.00 an hour something that is imperative that we fix!
otherwise Airtran mngmt will continue to enjoy a divided Pilot group.

Captain rates don't need to come down but there percentage of increase won't/shouldn't be equalivant to the percentage increase the 4+ year F/O's should get.
A simple fix is use industry avg plus what ever percentage we want to start our negotiations from for BOTH Cpt and F/O rates we work together in our pay rates not throw F/O's under the bus to get higher Captain rates

 

[Citrusflyer]

exactly. contract language should be clear, with no gray area for exploitation. Maybe ALPA would provide a little backbone because there doesn't seem to be one now.

Remember, black and white always combine to make gray. No matter how you write it there is someone else who can find gray where there was none.

In the absence of that Mgt will just invent it. Nevertheless, it's always good to dream....

 

[Max Powers]

Remember, black and white always combine to make gray. No matter how you write it there is someone else who can find gray where there was none.

In the absence of that Mgt will just invent it. Nevertheless, it's always good to dream....

Its not a dream I worked at a former company that had ALPA and our last contract was easy to interpret. After every paragraph there were several examples, in some cases over 10, of actual scenarios that spelled out what the rule would mean in real world occurrences. Leaving no room for doubt.

Our contract was about 3 times thicker than the present NPA joke of a contract.

Trust me we need ALPA. When your union is in need of representation i.e. contract negotiations, they can pull other attorneys, who are less busy from other airlines to help. We need a bureaucracy which has a combine experience of tens of companies.