Buffett Bites Back at NetJets Pilot Complaints

[pilotyip]

Which is why you're willing to settle for less.

I know exactly what we do for a living. I do it every time I go to work. I'm good at what I do. I'm a professional. That means that everything I do comes naturally and easily these days. The benefit of experience. However, I try to not let the fact that what I'm doing feels easy blind me to the fact that what I do is very difficult, requires a lot of training, is enhanced by my experience, reduces the quality of my family life at home, and is totally disrespected by our current management team.

We are heroic. Just the fact that we continue to operate nearly accident free with the tools we're given and the way we're treated requires a certain level of heroism.

Maybe you've been lucky enough to slip by under the radar with management so far. Good for you! Let me know how you feel about it after you've done nothing worse than come off a vacation with the flu or something, did the right thing and called in sick, and then was brought to CMH for a third world interrogation about why you called in sick right after vacation and then being left NQC for months being left to wonder what your fate will be when they get back to you with a decision.

Heroic? Hell yes!

Isn't just as Heroic, that I load cargo at 0300 at CYHM, in a driving rain where you are soaked head to toe in 40 mile an hour winds. I do this to keep the assembly lines in North America from shutting down, so that workers do not lose pay because of factory shutdowns. So the that stock holders can see their investments maintain value, so NJ owners can continue to lease airplanes. Isn't that just as heroic?

NJAowner, you and gutshotdraw and gunfyter make flightinfo a pretty good place to be.

Well said, lets put heroism where it belongs

 

[G4dude]

Isn't just as Heroic, that I load cargo at 0300 at CYHM, in a driving rain where you are soaked head to toe in 40 mile an hour winds. I do this to keep the assembly lines in North America from shutting down, so that workers do not lose pay because of factory shutdowns. So the that stock holders can see their investments maintain value, so NJ owners can continue to lease airplanes. Isn't that just as heroic?



Well said, lets put heroism where it belongs

YIP, I forgot to put you on my favorite list. Sorry!

 

[pilotyip]

YIP, I forgot to put you on my favorite list. Sorry!

no worry, it was understood, keep up the good fight

 

[gutshotdraw]

no worry, it was understood, keep up the good fight

The good fight here is the one against our idiot CEO and the damage he is doing to our brand, our customers, and our colleagues.

It's about time for the Dude to JOIN IT.

 

[realityman]

Guys, relax. You folks take things way too literally. Another poster here gave a description of one of our worse type of days here. Dude made a snarky comment about him not knowing we were so heroic. The original poster didn't say we were heroic. He said the folks sitting in their climate controlled offices don't have any real clue about what we do or how difficult it can be at times. My response was simply meant to point out that what we do, by comparison, to what some folks think our job is like is heroic. Sorry if that wasn't clear.

As for what heroism really is, I wasn't aware heroism only involved bullets and/or saving lives.

Yesterday I decided to dig up a small patch of my yard and plant a small pumpkin patch because I knew my daughters would really love that. It wasn't very large, but a lot of work. After I finished, my oldest daughter helped plant the seeds. At the end she looked up at me and said, "Daddy, you're my hero.". What a great thing for me to hear! I'm sure most of you here will say, "Meh, what does she know, she's six!". I don't believe for one second that creating and planting a pumpkin patch is anywhere near the heroism of saving a life or doing your job while being shot at, but for one little girl it was still a small act of heroism.

NJAOwner, I get the sentiment, but you honestly think nothing we do even rises to a small level of heroism? How about when your catering doesn't show up, we have very little time to get anything before departure time, but still manage to get you what you want. Couldn't that be construed as going above and beyond normal duty and against the odds? Maybe it doesn't matter much to you or anyone else around you, but perhaps to owner services it's one small act of heroism.

The point is, we absolutely are heroic. Not every leg, and not every day. But we go way above and beyond, against the odds plenty in the course of a year.

And the bigger point of all this is simply that if Dude doesn't see how what we do is, in fact, difficult and challenging, especially beyond what our counterparts at the majors do, then he will never be motivated to join the fight. You have to truly BELIEVE we are worth more in order to get more.

 

[realityman]

I think the marketplace in general and the pilot shortage in particular will force them to stop being stupid eventually, maybe very soon. Not getting new pilots will focus their minds wonderfully.

I truly hope you're right.

But nothing I've seen coming down from the top shows any indication that will happen.

It's only my opinion, but given serious pilot attrition where they can't hire fast enough to keep up will not result in a better contract, but rather a lowering of the standards required to work here. They would much rather try everything they can to bring in cheap, first year co-pilots than pay more money to everyone already here.

Pilot attrition combined with not enough new hires will turn up the heat on them, but it isn't going to be the key that gets us a new contract.

 

[gunfyter]

I never took fire (excluding friendly fire in training exercise screwup).

The simple equation I think is this.

NJ employs ATPs with certain level of experience and this happens to be exactly the same as the Major Airlines and LCCs.

I don't see any reason the Walmart Shoppers riding on a LCC should be paying a higher rate to their pilots than the folks who attended the Berkshire Convention pay.

 

[NJAowner]

Realityman -- the pumpkin work does qualify as heroic and your daughter will always remember it. I am usually pretty good at finding the sarcasm in the posts but yours did not appear sarcastic. I apologize for my comment.

GF -- we have had many economic theory discussions. Frankly, there are many professions where people doing the same work with the same skill get paid differently. An eye surgeon in Des Moines gets paid less for the same procedure as the one in NYC (and it is not just the cost of living difference). Lawyers in large firms make more than similarly qualified and experience lawyers in smaller firms (even in the same city). It is fair?? But it is reality.

Before everyone flames me, you know I think the NJA pilots should be paid more. I just think many of the arguments being used to justify higher wages are not sound or convincing (we should be paid more because (1) NJ makes lots of $$, (2) BH and WB have lots of $$ and won't miss it, (3) owners can afford to pay more, (4) other guys get paid more so we should too). I am not saying these are the only arguments the pilots are putting forward -- but they are the leading and most popular ones.

Don't try to be like the others and get paid like some of them. DIFFERENTIATE the NJ pilots (more than just we work hard or have experience), convince management (ok that may be difficult as we have problems with them too) and NJ share owners that you are close to being IRREPLACEABLE and even different from the ego-case flying the Delta 737, and that it is this core group which can UNIQUELY deliver this service to the company and therefore, the share owners, and that the share owners DEMAND pilots of your caliber.

 

[Mooneymite]

Don't try to be like the others and get paid like some of them. DIFFERENTIATE the NJ pilots (more than just we work hard or have experience), convince management (ok that may be difficult as we have problems with them too) and NJ share owners that you are close to being IRREPLACEABLE and even different from the ego-case flying the Delta 737, and that it is this core group which can UNIQUELY deliver this service to the company and therefore, the share owners, and that the share owners DEMAND pilots of your caliber.

While I generally agree with your post, I do not think that there is a qualitative difference between most pilot groups. The vast majority of pilots, regardless of company, do a very good job of flying airplanes.

What differentiates NetJets pilots from other pilots is the fact that we:

1. Operate in a "hostile environment". I.E. 5500 airports in conus that airlines don't serve and, in many cases, provide minimal support/infrastructure.

2. Fly long and hard. Our seven day trips are MUCH harder/tiring/trying than airline trips. (30 years experience in the airline speaking here.)

3. Remain flexible and can quickly respond to an ever-changing game plan.

4. Provide personalized service taylored to each individual owner.

The question is: "What are these differences worth?"

The answer will be negotiated.

 

[Diesel]

I am in agreement with what owners know and say. I just continue to point out that I think it is a faulty assumption to assume that the owners will side against a mangement in any dispute/strike. I would not take that for granted -- the enemy of my enemy is NOT always your friend.

Owners are more worried about their asset than our issues with the company.

When owners start to care is if our issues with the company affect their asset.

That's when they care.