great things at Mesa

[big dog1]

from another BB


I'm a Jets for Jobs Pilot at Mesa. I communicate a lot with other 80
or so J4J Pilots here, and I can tell you 90% or better are going to
leave Mesa soon as their one year commitment is up. Mid-Atlantic
(MDA) should be ramping up rapidly by the time the 1st J4J class
reaches it's one year mark early next year, and the only Pilot's I've
talked to who plan to stay are the small handful who actually live in
PHL. If a Mesa CRJ base in CLT opens up for J4J Pilots then quite a
few more will stay, at least until MDA opens a CLT domicile. Ditto
for PIT, at least until they can hold MDA Captain.

Commuting to PHL sucks. PHL is the most junior Mainline base, and
there's a reason for that.

The way working conditions are right now some of our Pilots have come
close to quiting, even though they might have to pay the training
contract. We've had guys start with 90+ hour lines, and then wind
up with barely 70 hour guarantee because of all the cancellations.
And Crew Tracking is frequently illegally rescheduling lineholders.
This has happened to me 3 weeks in a row. On one trip we were
supposed to be done in PHL at noon, Crew Tracking delayed our morning
departure 5 hours, took our legs for that day and gave us totally new
legs to fly that got us into PHL nine hours later than scheduled.
When we complained CT switched us to the Chief Pilot's Office with no
warning, and the CP proceeded to lecture us about "the way things
are". This week when we got rescheduled I was told it
was "operational necessity". I sure can't find that in the contract
anywhere. Lineholders are being treated as reserves, and not even
given the 4 hour per day guarantee. Just the other day I lost 5
hours of pay due to cancellation/reschedule. I doubt the
controllable cancel rate will even be close to whats needed for
cancel pay to kick in. If you're going to give my flying to another
crew because we can't get there to operate it on time, then we should
at least be made whole for the time we were scheduled to fly that
day, regardless of a cancellation rate.

I could go on and on about the illegal dispatches, maintenance screw-
ups, etc. but I'd be up all night typing.

 

[Mesa Lifer]

Welcome to Mesa

Sorry to hear about all the you know what you have been putting up with. I have found it very interesting that most of the J4J guys I have run into have been very positive...I figured that they must not have experienced the line yet.

I think a vast majority of us were hoping that a large mainline presence would force our management to wake up but that does not seem to be the case. I've been here almost four years and I just found out that after having commuted to PHX for a noon show, it has now been pushed back to 5pm...could have had another night at home.

Anyway, I wish you guys the best and had it not been for Freedom I think we could have changed this behavoir. And also, not to bash ALPA, but for all the Mesa bashing that I am sure this thread will start, we had this contract forced down our throats. Numerous road shows with our MEC telling us it was this contract or our jobs, and that this was our only way to stop Freedom, well it's no wonder we caved.

Could you also explain the Mid-Atlantic deal? I'm still foggy on the details.

-Mesa Lifer

 

[DoinTime]

And also, not to bash ALPA, but for all the Mesa bashing that I am sure this thread will start, we had this contract forced down our throats. Numerous road shows with our MEC telling us it was this contract or our jobs, and that this was our only way to stop Freedom, well it's no wonder we caved.

If your under the opinion that you had no choice in the matter you got what you deserve. Your MEC (not ALPA national) rammed this contract down your throat and to make it worse you guys swallowed. I hope you realize this and stop blaming everyone else.

 

[Rottweiller]

from another BB


I'm a Jets for Jobs Pilot at Mesa. I communicate a lot with other 80
or so J4J Pilots here, and I can tell you 90% or better are going to
leave Mesa soon as their one year commitment is up. Mid-Atlantic
(MDA) should be ramping up rapidly by the time the 1st J4J class
reaches it's one year mark early next year, and the only Pilot's I've
talked to who plan to stay are the small handful who actually live in
PHL. If a Mesa CRJ base in CLT opens up for J4J Pilots then quite a
few more will stay, at least until MDA opens a CLT domicile. Ditto
for PIT, at least until they can hold MDA Captain.

Commuting to PHL sucks. PHL is the most junior Mainline base, and
there's a reason for that.

The way working conditions are right now some of our Pilots have come
close to quiting, even though they might have to pay the training
contract. We've had guys start with 90+ hour lines, and then wind
up with barely 70 hour guarantee because of all the cancellations.
And Crew Tracking is frequently illegally rescheduling lineholders.
This has happened to me 3 weeks in a row. On one trip we were
supposed to be done in PHL at noon, Crew Tracking delayed our morning
departure 5 hours, took our legs for that day and gave us totally new
legs to fly that got us into PHL nine hours later than scheduled.
When we complained CT switched us to the Chief Pilot's Office with no
warning, and the CP proceeded to lecture us about "the way things
are". This week when we got rescheduled I was told it
was "operational necessity". I sure can't find that in the contract
anywhere. Lineholders are being treated as reserves, and not even
given the 4 hour per day guarantee. Just the other day I lost 5
hours of pay due to cancellation/reschedule. I doubt the
controllable cancel rate will even be close to whats needed for
cancel pay to kick in. If you're going to give my flying to another
crew because we can't get there to operate it on time, then we should
at least be made whole for the time we were scheduled to fly that
day, regardless of a cancellation rate.

I could go on and on about the illegal dispatches, maintenance screw-
ups, etc. but I'd be up all night typing.

like I have said before, if you only stood up for your selves and fought for something better then everyone would be better off but you drank the cool aid and say the whole thing was forced down your thoats. Well JO is still laughing and so he should. Lets hope the Feds (and United) catch up with all this BS pretty soon.

So live with it and boo f*^king hoo no sympathy here.

 

[stillaboo]

Rabid dog in da' 'hood, watch out!

. . .if you only stood up for your selves and fought for something better then everyone would be better off but you drank the cool aid and say the whole thing was forced down your thoats.

So live with it and boo f*^king hoo no sympathy here.

Rabid dogs should be put down.

I come in peace,
-Boo!

 

[blzr]

BIG DOG 1!!

All I have to say is shame on U. Your mec has, for ther last 8 years, shot down any chance of sending those precious jet jobs to their Wholly Owned carriers, and shot down a flow through and laughed about it. Just think, you could be here at PDT working out of CLT, ORF, CHO, ROA, or EWN flying a jet and working under the best contract in the industry. (I believe that title now goes to Comair, but we are still a close second)

Oh well. As for MidAtlantic, they have the Eagle contract. Alpa won't let our guys take a look at it, probably because they don't want any of the info to get out to you guys. And the company isn't a sure thing. We have sent several f/a's over to the MDT training dept and they are not 100% sure it will work. We'll see.

I hope it doesn't for selfish reasons. I would like to read posts like your every day from former mainliners that vehimently opposed growing their own carriers prefering instead to send it all to a contractor with sub-industry rules and wages.

Maybe things in the industry will change when people like you stand up against "The way it is there" as the Chief idiot told you. But in the mean time, don't for a minute think that anyone has an ounce of sympathy for you or your kind. PLEASE come jumseat with us, we will gladly take you where you need to go, but DO NOT B!#CH about your lot in life. You let your MEC speak for you, and so you and the others have to pay for their inactions. Have a good flight...DOH, just cancelled... awww, just think there's always per diem.

 

[Mesa Lifer]

Not asking for Sympathy

Uhhhh, I never asked anyone for sympathy. Do I complain about the way things are at Mesa, yep. Do I have BIG problems with the way this company is run, yep. Do I love reading the messages on the board and see how people let emotion run over logic, you bet. But if I got fed up enough I would quit my job in a second. I'm here because I want to be here...for the time being it suits my needs.

I was just stating the fact that ALPA, or have it as you will, our MEC rammed this contract down our throat. You want to say we swallowed, okay. I like a dirty joke now and again. But put yourselves in this position:

March of 2001 a press release is announced, Mesa will take delivery of CRJ 700's and be the launch customer for the 900. Now our contract had expired four months ago so we saw this as a prime opporunity to adjust things at Mesa.

Shortly after this, and people will argue this but it is fact, our MEC started talking about the pay rates for the new fleet. They came up with the idea of a separate list for the senior pilots to fly those airplanes and make more money. I was at the MEC meeting where this was discussed and it was told to us by our MEC chairman that management was not yet fond of the idea.

Probably shocks a lot of people to hear this, but I heard it front and center in Columbus in the food court. You can finish the rest of the story on how management creates Freedom and la la la. All I am trying to elaborate on is how f**ked up these things can get. Everyone here was militant about getting a better contract. All last summer our MEC told us that Freedom was never going to happen. They had effectively blocked it. We are going to keep fighting for QOL issues. Then comes the middle of October and guess what's pushing back from gate B9 in Phoenix? A shiny new 700 using the call sign "Tango November 502 Mike Juliet." They didn't even have a call sign approved so the feds let them use a charter call sign for the first couple weeks. Our CEO pushed something through the red tape of the DOT and FAA faster than has ever been done before. And if you vote no, well then you're on the street with no jobs any where. At that point we could have cared less about QOL, it was revenege to get back at those Freedom ya-hoos.

Then it was supposed to stop at two airplanes, then four. Guess what, prior to us signing the contract they had almost ten airplanes in less than six months. We start losing pay and trips to these guys as they grew faster than anyone expected. You come to work, see this every day, and all you want to do is stop it. Then in the middle of January our MEC chair tells me that we are a long way from a TA because we are still addressing the QOL issues. Three days later we have a TA. I and along with the rest of the folks here gave him the benefit of the doubt. He saw something that we needed to take advantage of. Now looking back hind sight is 20/20 and maybe we should have acted differently.

But If you were watching your jobs disappear that fast you'd have done the same thing and voted for the contract. If any of the wholly-o's had the same deal on the table, "Sign this contract, the pay is a little low and the work rules stink, but you'll never hear Air Shuttle on the radio again," they'd do the same thing. I've been to the Philly trailer, I read the walls. A contract like that would pass unanimously.

We all preach we need to stick together but when it's your own neck in this economy, it's all about number 1.

Just my half a cent........unleash the bashing hounds.

ML

 

[stillaboo]

Your mec has, for ther last 8 years, shot down any chance of sending those precious jet jobs to their Wholly Owned carriers

Why would the Mesa MEC want to send jets to the WO's instead of Mesa?

-Boo!

 

[Jet_Dreamer]

heres a quick question. to anyone that can give a real honest answer, please NO flames!

i read on the MAG web site traffic is up 56.7%.
does this indicate a need for more pilots?
is managment reluctant to hire more pilots because of the cost required?
how does this so-called increased traffic make working conditions worse (more hours and less time off)?

thanks

 

[blzr]

Mesa Lifer

Can you read? (maybe if you could, you wouldn't have signed on at Mesa after reading their contract!!!)

My original post was not directed entirely at Mesa pilots, but to the Mainliners that went to work there and are whining about it like a 727 on a bad day.

I'm all about bashing mesa, but this post, If you go back and read it, was not directed in your general direction.

Still a Boohoo, same to you.

 

[blzr]

Oh, by the way, read Big Dog 1's post too. that was what I was refering to.

Also, I guess I should have clarified, BD1 is a former mainliner. But since I can read, I didn't feel I had to Reitterate the obvious.

 

[ChinaClipper]

Yup, it still sucks.......

The main point here is that the MEC & Neg.Com. had vast sway in the opinions on how to vote in relation to the newer guys. The Newer guys, ESPECIALLY SAN JUANERS seemed to be quite "pro-Mesa" Many slowly came around, but a little late, and with too little guidence from our MEC. It was very disheartening to me to try and explain the gravity of a very serious situation (Freedumb etc) only to hear a "newer guy" regurgitate some slop that JO spouted on the stupid YAHOO board. The fact was that Mesa MEC got out maneuvered by a greedy shyster, who would stop at NOTHING to get his way. I fault the leadership of our MEC, apparently with ALPA nationals J4J oriented blessing, for the TA being settled and voted on. The cautionary tale is that for all you who face the same thing, look at the awful place to work that Mesa has become. Look the result of "it stinks, but I need a job at ANY cost" mentality will get you, and ask you self "Is it worth it?" Constant misery under the biggest group of union busting shysters, AND THE CEO IS A CONVICTED FELON to boot! The answer is NO. But the only gratification I get these days is "I told you so" and that ain't much.....22% said no and I am one. PS There is an effort to recall the ENTIRE Mesa MEC and Negotiating Committe, I hope it works.

 

[Otto_Pilot]

BLZR:

The junior pilots who have been furloughed by US Airways (15 yrs junior?) are not those with whome you have a beef.

A great many junior US Airways pilots fought long and hard to encourage the MEC to negotiate to put the RJs at the wholly-owneds with a bidirectional flowthrough.

The MEC was top-heavy and militant. Spitting "I told you so's" at furloughed pilot on an internet message board solves nothing.

BIDOG1:

Do you have Phil Osterhaus's email address. Furloughed pilots who resigned as a requirement to take employment elsewhere no longer have access to the AAA web-board, and therefore have no idea what is going on. If you have it, please PM me.

Good luck with J4J.

Respectfully,
Otto (US Airways furloughed)

 

[328dude]

What's weird is that we have called 800 guys and girls off the APL list already for Class dates in Sept and only 8 have signed up for PSA as Captain only.

1 percent.

 

[the turtle]

What's weird is that we have called 800 guys and girls off the APL list already for Class dates in Sept and only 8 have signed up for PSA as Captain only.

1 percent.


I guess you think that the Mainliners somehow see you as a better position than J4J's at Mesa. 328 Dude, you crack me up. When are you WO's going to understand that ALL of the regional carriers working for U is simply dogsh!t in their eyes? How many different ways are you going to be sh!t upon until you get it?

We're all played, brother...

 

[stillaboo]

heres a quick question. to anyone that can give a real honest answer, please NO flames!

i read on the MAG web site traffic is up 56.7%.
does this indicate a need for more pilots?

Yes!

is managment reluctant to hire more pilots because of the cost required?

YES! Though the Mesa CEO has stated that he realizes that he is short on pilot staffing, not that this neccessarily means he will correct it.

how does this so-called increased traffic make working conditions worse (more hours and less time off)?

More hours and less time off? Not really. Despite what managment terms as "the most sophisticated scheduling software available" (Bornean), most lines at Mesa remain consistently poor relative to their competitors. Crew tracking and pilots often don't see why each other can't be more accomodating. So, despite more flights to crew, most Mesa pilots won't fly anymore. And they won't have more days off, b/c just about all of the pilots are already flying to their max capacity. The net result is working conditions will likely get marginally better b/c the current pilots of Mesa will get more seniority and be able to bid better lines as more new pilots are hired on junior to them. Of course, that will merely mean that some new pilots will inherit the poor schedules of the fomerly junior pilots.

Mesa is running GS's on the ERJ, CRJ-200, CRJ-700, Dash 8, and 1900 this month. The pool is about 35 guys now, most of whom were too junior to get the CRJ GS's and passed up the ERJ b/c they want to live out west (I kid you not! Guys who have been waiting in a pool for over a year are passing on an ERJ FO spot!). Mesa hired about 10 guys last month. They will need to hire more soon, very soon.

-Boo!

 

[OneTuffGuy]

The Turtle-

The brain in your butt is so far from your mouth your words get f**ked up on the way out. If you put PSA and MESA's contract side by side any mainline jet for jobs guy would make out much better at PSA with pay, work rules, etc. Yeah all the W/O's do seem to get crapped on from mainline, however where would you rather work as a Jets for Jobs person PSA or MESA? If I had the chance I would take PSA.