Big Sky Consideration

[youngpilot]

Mesaba pilots who are happy about the Big Sky clauses

As a Big Sky pilot I can't help but to be a little upset. From the moment your owner bought us until this day all we have heard is gross negativity towards Big Sky pilots. From hateful adds in our local newspaper to wide rumor of blacklisting to now being proud and largely unconcerned about putting 50 active and 20 furloughed pilots, AND their wives and children, completely out of a job. Now let's consider a hypothetical situation. What if MAIR did find a contract with a major airline and Big Sky becomes big and profitable flying RJs and Mesaba starts to not do so well. Then what if we start to get upset because MAIR is using money to support Mesaba with our hard earned new shiny dollars. Maybe we could say that Mesaba would be holding US back. Now we start marching and asking for more and...ask them to put Mesaba out of business so that we can make even more money and have even bigger and better dreams of jets, jets, jets! Who cares about Mesaba, they are just dragging us down? Right? WRONG!!! I don't think you would EVER see us act this unconcerned about a pilot group. Back in our contract negotiations we were either saved or out of business. MAIR saved us, we didn't have a leg to stand on, and we TRIED to work with ALPA, never crossed any picket lines, and were civil. Now we are truly being sold out and sold off by the Mesaba pilot group. Now, that is if all this is true about the TA and it gets passed. Maybe MAIR did buy Big Sky so that they could earn more money in the regional market, not so hard to believe. Look, I'm just letting you know that I don't see much consideration from the outspoken Mesaba pilots for the Big Sky employee group, and never have. Please don't plead for support for your cause and then turn around and slay an entire airline (with an entire employee group of which us pilots are only part of) to get it. When we wrote our contract it considered the well being of Mesaba pilots. It stated that we could not cross your line, fly your planes, and otherwise disturb your business. Yeah MAIR might have spent a little dough, and 3.5 mil for an airline isn't a whole lot. And yeah we might have been bleeding there for a while, but we were doing better, by our hard work, cutbacks and furloughs. And who knows, if we had a chance to do well as a UAL express or something we could have actually started to earn big $$$ for MAIR that COULD HAVE GONE INTO Mesaba. I mean come on. Wherever do you feel the right to put into your contract to actually criple an entire airline and ALL the people behind it just to benefit your own? You effectively will take a great future and kill it. Go ahead, keep us from flying for NWA and any possibility of jet contracts with them, please, you deserve it. Go ahead and earn more $$$, you deserve it. But leave us the possibility to get off bottom dead center.

My god, have some consideration.

 

[Metropilot]

I am also a Big Sky Pilot but do not share the same thoughts as young pilot.

Business is business, if this is the contract that Mesaba wants let them have it. We were just a pawn for negotiating purposes. Im looking for other employment.

The world is full of "what if's". I think the Mesaba pilots are not out to get the pilots. It is to stop whipsawing. We are on the wrong end of it, which was not of our choosing. The airline industry is starting to pick up, so the best thing to do is move on.

 

[othello]

Youngpilot.

We did what we had to do to keep our Managment from exploting us.

the good news is that there is still one option left and that is MAIR to simply combine/merge BSA and mesaba. our new scope covers our asses, but it still allows MAIR to put you on our seniorty list. You would be working under our new contract which by the way I think you'll like the metro pay scale.
15-19 seat DOS
1st yr
CA 36.29
FO 23.08
2YR
CA 38.09
FO 27.67
3YR
CA 40.09
FO 30.38
4yr
CA 41.92
FO 33.09
toping out
18yr CA 58.65
8yr FO 37.24
and that blows away your current scale if Iam not mistaken.

But it is all up to MAIR and Foley we can still grow through the BigSky certificate but if it happens it will be under the Mseaba contract and we will all be on one seniorty list. If you were just a pawn in the game you will be sold or shut down and that is not up the mesaba pilots.

Best of luck I know I would like a Billings base and Iam sure some of your senior Guys would like the chance to bid the AVRO and its 92.63$ an hr that its pay tops out at DOS.

 

[jetset]

It is ENTIRELY about whipsawing. My husband was furloughed twice by Mesaba (at Christmastime), and the second time was right at the time of the Big Sky purchase. It was never against the Pilots of Big Sky, but Paul Foley.
I don't know of a single pilot in the company who had any bad feeling towards Big Sky pilots, and I saw the article in the Billings paper. 3.5 million might not be much, but to furlough a guy who is pulling in 20,000 and turn around and buy an airline is kicking a guy when he's down. You want to talk about hateful, Paul Foley is your man.

 

[jetset]

P.S.-how could you be "doing better" when there are pilots on furlough?

 

[RegularPilotGuy]

Young pilot. I feel sorry for you guys as I do for any pilot when things don't go their way. However, the Mesaba guys did the right thing for them and the industry. If you would have flown jets under your contract, it would have put intense pressure on everyone from Comair down to even Mesa. I read that all kinds of people went up to Billings to talk to you guys about your contract, but you still voted it in. I guess you guys did what you thought was best at the time to protect yourselves. Now the Mesaba guys are doing the same for themselves AND the rest of us throughout the industry. I for one am truly thankful to my Mesaba brothers and sisters.

I don't think it had to be like this for you guys. I know a Pinnacle guy who met up with your Union Chairman in MSP. He said by chance he sat down next to him at the food court and suggested he call Tom Wychor to work things out. He said he told your chairman 3 or 4 times to call Tom Wychor to save your jobs and your Chairman refused. A strange episode to be sure. Who knows, maybe if the guy would have called the Mesaba MEC things might not have gone this far and things would have worked out better for both groups.

Frankly, I believe you should be thankful that the Mesaba guys let you even continue to operate and offered to have you come over to their airline. Good luck in MT.

 

[youngpilot]

What I meant by doing better is Big Sky not bleeding out the $$$ so badly, and maybe even breaking even. Furloughed folks aren't doing better, or are they?

I know there are many pilots out there who got the sh^t end of the stick. I don't know anybody who would wish that on another person or pilot.

Merging seniority lists would be a good option. Better pay and a future, sure.

To the other Big Sky pilot. We are all looking for other jobs. And belive me I am moving on, like it or not. The morale meter at Big Sky continues to read low and not a whole lot of folks have a whole lot of good to say. It is important to take perspective and consider possibilities though. It sounds like you are losing hope. Fine, I'm almost there too. But don't you have a strong opinion and stand somewhere on the issue or is it really just a "ho hum" world? For better or worse I posted my opinion for people to hear. Big Sky will become what it will and I will deal with whatever happens, of course. Hopefully this can turn out to be not so doom and gloom and we can keep our jobs.

There were some messages on this board that displayed pleasure about the Big Sky clauses and I tried to make it clear that's who I was talking to. Like I said before, I can only hope that Mesaba pilots get better pay and benefits, it is deserved. Just maybe cross out the Big Sky paragraph and put in a whipsawing paragraph instead.

I should also be asking why aren't Big Sky pilots part of this decision? If we are then I'm not aware of it.