No, I don't know what the MEC thinks as far as furloughs. I don't think that they've made any comments other than to blame management. It amazes me how most pilots think that their airline should be making money and expanding like crazy in this environment when everyone's losing money (except Southwest). I view this as a time to hunker down, cut capacity, and conserve cash. We've seen several airlines shut down in the last month and F9 declare ch 11 bankruptcy.
I think that the industry downturn's just starting; there will be others who have problems. And I expect just about every airline to furlough, including CAL.
As for me, I figure that I'll be out on the streets at some point; I don't want to be caught flat footed like I was back in early 2002. At that time, I thought that passengers would quickly return to flying after 9/11. They did over time, but I didn't count on the fire sale ticket prices which caused most airlines to hemorrage money.
I don't know how many pilots will find themselves furloughed, but I can see where, with near zero retirements (UAL's had a total of 4 retirements in the Jan-Mar timeframe), there will likely be more furloughs this time than post-9/11.
As for age 65, I thought that we'd be OK with it attached to the FAA Reauthorization Bill - I didn't expect it to pass. I hadn't counted on the pukes at reston to distort the results of chunky pretard's push poll, voting almost unanimously to change alpo's position. Once that happened, 65 was a done deal. Those ba$tards went as far as to change the verbage of the bill (which was collecting dust) to make it so that two pilots over 60 can fly together domestically.
This Pandora's box is going to end up significantly lowering pilot wages due to the excess pilots out there. The age change is going to result in a lot of extra pilots; a lot of pilots on the street. It's a matter of time before another narrowbody airline or two pops up with sub-Skybus wages. We can all thank chunky pretard and his supporters for the ensuing downward wage spiral.
