Russ said:
Walk a mile in their shoes.....
Surplus
Easy to answer, they're fighting for their jobs. UA express contracts are to be awarded by a BK judge based on what a private auditor says. The criteria is cost, cost and finially cost. UA has for at least the next few days three quality carriers that deliver a quality product. That however has no bearing on whether any of the three keep the contracts, it based on greenbacks.
Consider brevity on your retort.
Thanks for the reply. I will consider brevity and try to comply, but first let me say that "brevity" is a part of our problem. This entire industry problem is a highly complex equation. It is not a warning light on an instrument panel with a predetermined check list response under the heading of "Concessions". There are no "immediate action" or memory items. As pilots we are conditioned to a particular response for every problem that man can think of.
The trouble is, this is not an airplane problem and it is not a pilot problem at all. This is an economic problem and pilots are no better at economics than economists. We are where we are precisely because the "economists" and the MBA's were all wrong. Their responses to the problems as well as their knee-jerk reactions/solutions have so far done little to change anything for the better and have often made it worse. Do WE really need to copy that? In our rush to brevity (spelled concessions) we may well be leaving the correct responses behind.
In my opinion our "rushed" response is much like hurrying the preflight then wondering why the Cessna won't move at full throttle, because we forgot to untie the tail or, if you prefer, flying the perfect approach, flaring at exactly the right time and then "cussing" about the loud noises that result from our failure to lower the gear. As we collectively rush to give up all or part of the gains that it has taken us years to procure, do we really believe that this will somehow miraculously change the behavior of the MBA's that got us here in the first place?
I do not. That wasn't brief at all, but maybe you get my idea.
If I could believe that these economic decisions were really going to "save the jobs" you say we are fighting for, I might be willing to jump on the bandwagon. However, right or wrong, I do NOT believe that. We aren't going to "save" anything by a pay cut at a Comair or an Air Wisconsin. All that we're really doing is contributing to a management created domino effect. Neither one of those airlines or their "costs" contributed to the problem at the majors. Both are making money, today, with the cost structure that they already have.
Yes, there is now a differential between the cost structure of Mesa and the cost structure of AWAC or ACA or CMR.
That difference was there before any of this began. So we take concessions and we narrow the gap. They respond by taking concessions themselves and restore the gap to exactly what it was before. We repeat our response, etc. Where does it end? Do we just keep lowering our compensation until we wind up paying the airline for the priviege of working there? Where is the bottom and why are we helping the MBA's by pushing over the dominoes ourselves?
If Comair was told by a BK Delta that you were going to lose ALL your flying to someone else in the next week or so, I imagine your folks might come up with something along the same lines.
You are probably right, but that does NOT mean it would be the correct response, and that helps to make my point. The fact is that Delta doesn't have to be bankrupt for Comair to lose all its flying. Delta owns Comair and there is nothing at all to prevent them from transferring ALL our airplanes to another subsidiary or subcontractor whenever they chose. They don't have to be BK to do that. Just like United doesn't have to be BK to cancel the AWAC contract. All of those contracts have escape clauses that allow the contracting carrier to back out of the deal in a relatively short time. That was there before the downturn and the bankruptcies, and it will stay there after you have made all your "concessions". It's no different at Comair. As a matter of fact it is easier to put us out of business than it was before Delta owned the airline.
If Comair pilots all rushed to offer to fly for nothing tomorrow, that would NOT prevent Delta from selling us off or shutting us down if that's what they really want to do. Therefore, there is no reason for us to fall on our swords and give up our contract in and effort to prevent what we are truly powerless to prevent. The same applies to the other regionals. We are not "saving our jobs" at all. The concessions we are making can't really do that.
We play directly into the hand of management when we let them make us afraid of what they
might do. That's how they want us to react and we're doing it. If we all stood our ground, what do you suppose they would do next?
The problem, as I see it, is that they tell us it's raining a lot and there's going to be a flood. We then rush over to the dam and make a hole in its structure, thereby guaranteeing the flood. I say, let it rain. We are already the "Ark" of the majors and the only boats that are floating securely. If they sink those Arks too, it will not stop their big ships from floundering, it will just put them all in the water with no Ark to fall back on. I'll bet they aren't about to do that; they are not stupid and they aren't going to sink the life rafts.
"The only thing we have to fear is fear itself". - FDR. So far they are doing an excellent job of putting that "fear" in us, and we're helping them. They (the MBA's) have claimed that the cause of the difficulties is primarily the compensation of pilots and we apparently believe that. In the mega airlines like AA, UAL, DAL, the compensation packages
of ALL the employees (not just the pilots) may be a contributing factor, but not the cause.
At the regional airlines, the compensation packages of the pilots do not contribute in any way to the problems. Neither does the compensation of non-pilot employees. Which of the regional jet operators is losing money today? Can you name one?
If we are not contributing to the "problem", just how is our making unnecessary conessions going to solve it?
Why are we running the Engine Fire checklist and requesting an emergency descent, when our problem is a deferred coffee pot? Maybe we could just serve Coke instead of coffee and press on.
Instead, we seem to be all rushing pell mell into a bidding war against each other for the flying. That doesn't strike me as the "way to go".
Sorry I wasn't brief. I know that sometimes you have to eat a sh*t sandwich, but in our operations it's not even lunch time, let alone dinner hour and I don't particularly like sh*t sandwiches. Maybe we should have skipped that meal, instead of swallowing the crap.
