Pilot877 wrote:
our ACA Delta Connection FRJ program fills Delta's need for a smaller than CRJ-sized jet aircraft.
Oh my God, the secret is out! Stop the presses! The Dornier is a 32-seat airplane! And wait, what will Chautauqua (for the love of Mike, it's not that hard to spell) be flying down in MCO? 37-seat airplanes, you say? Why doesn't Comair fly these routes? [drum roll] They have 44, 50, and 70 seat CRJs. If we all try really hard, we can think back to when Comair had some weird-looking airplanes with props where the jet engines should have been. However, these strange-looking machines did not fit with management's desire to be an "all-jet" airline.
The most remarkable thing about AFELLOWAVIATOR (and there are quite a few remarkable things) is that he is bitter about other carriers "stealing" his company's jobs when Comair is growing like the proverbial weed. The markets that the other carriers are moving into are those that Comair management has voluntarily vacated. Make no mistake: ACA and Chautauqua are not growing at the expense of Comair, but rather at their bequest.
From the most recent ALPA Express Newsletter:
The answer lies in the pattern of successful higher contract
demands established by Atlantic Coast, Comair and Air Wisconsin.
and
President Woerth voiced his opinion that pilot groups needed a new strategy – one that didn’t depend on circling the wagons around certain flying and trying to keep other pilots out. Instead, with new business patterns that include “portfolios” of airlines, “branded” airline networks, and families of code-sharing partners, ALPA had to refine its thinking. He called for improving and protecting contract standards and flying for the whole “brand” and not just parts of it. This “system” view of scope and contract standards is consistent with the work of the Bilateral Scope Impact Committee (BSIC)....
Atlantic Coast and Comair mentioned in the same breath? In the ALPA newsletter? What's going on here? AFELLOWAVIATOR would have us believe that ACA pilots are nothing but a bunch of sellouts who would run over their mother to cross a picket line.
We interrupt this post to bring you an update on the reality of airline operations. ACA operates 30 Dornier 328s in the Delta Connection network right now as we sit. That, boys and girls, is a lot of lift. AFELLOWAVIATOR knows for a "fact," due to his high level contacts within the simulator, that this will not last. Someday, Delta is going to look under the couch cushions in the SkyMiles lounge and find 30 airplanes that they can put into service immediately. Then those bastards at ACA will get what they deserve for caving in to management! Hopefully all you bright kids can figure out why this won't work.
Now I'm just a poor ol' line pilot, but I like think back to all the wisdom I heard during training from various instructors. Don't know about the rest of y'all, but I always take whatever I hear from the training department with a healthy dose of salt.
Many pilots have worked for years to protect us from whipsawing at the hands of management. AFELLOWAVIATOR beats his chest in this forum as the greatest, most self-sacrificing union brother ever, and then he turns around and beats down another pilot group with absolutely no justification. He doesn't speak for ALPA (as evidenced above), and based on my experience with some fantastic guys at Comair, he doesn't speak for them either.
