JB pilots say no to alpa/Barely

[$$$4nothin]

The failure rate or requirement for additional training is above 10% and the school house admits it's a reflection of the quality of our new hires.

So, yes, if you voted no you are a POS because a CBA was our only avenue to fix the retirement issue.

I just left the school house and of the 11 guys in our class not a single guy failed. So I am not sure where you are getting your info, but it is not correct. Nor did anyone from the two classes prior to mine.

Again. If you don't have the balls to call someone a POS to there face, doing so on a message board only hurts your ability to convince anyone of your point of view on a message board.

If you are relying on an airline retirement to support your years between 65-100 whether it be 5% or 20% match you should probably reevaluate your retirement plans. Just some advice givin to me from a couple thousand current airline pilots that WERE getting better retirements than we ever will.

 

[Lake Alice]

I have no problem calling anyone a POS to their face so don't worry about that.

Next time you are down in the school house ask them about the failure/retest rate. Re-read the post. 10%!!! not everyone in every class is failing. Some classes have no issues at all. Some of the pilots being hired are simply not qualified. This is not an attack on anyone specifically but it is a reflection of the candidates applying.

 

[Lake Alice]

I just left the school house and of the 11 guys in our class not a single guy failed. So I am not sure where you are getting your info, but it is not correct. Nor did anyone from the two classes prior to mine.

Again. If you don't have the balls to call someone a POS to there face, doing so on a message board only hurts your ability to convince anyone of your point of view on a message board.

If you are relying on an airline retirement to support your years between 65-100 whether it be 5% or 20% match you should probably reevaluate your retirement plans. Just some advice givin to me from a couple thousand current airline pilots that WERE getting better retirements than we ever will.

Any airline pilot who was relying on their airline pension had no reason to think it would not be there upon retirement. There was no historical precedent for an airline pilot to lose their entire pension. If you aren't relying on some sort of match from your employer then realize you won't have enough to retire. This is not so suggest relying on a pension but rather greater contributions to your 401K or a B-fund. Also a 401K and a B-fund cannot be taken from you in the event of a bankruptcy.
This was one of the major issues during the ALPA campaign. For some reason many of our pilots do not understand retirement or simply do not care.

 

[Flyby1206]

I have no problem calling anyone a POS to their face so don't worry about that.

Next time you are down in the school house ask them about the failure/retest rate. Re-read the post. 10%!!! not everyone in every class is failing. Some classes have no issues at all. Some of the pilots being hired are simply not qualified. This is not an attack on anyone specifically but it is a reflection of the candidates applying.

So are you saying that the stellar Airbus Company training you received way back in the day was top notch A+? From what I have heard, it was a joke and people were just tossed the books and learned the important stuff once they were online. Since then the training department has become more structured. Along with this comes defined pass/fail standards as opposed to the wink/nudge of the good ole days when the company first started.

10% re-train is not an astronomical number in my opinion, but what would be 'acceptable' to you? It is pretty sad that you badmouth the newhires for the failure of ALPA when in fact most of us couldnt even vote.

 

[Lake Alice]

Wow, I'm not exactly sure how you derive ALPA as the source of training failures at Jetblue from my post. Not having a CBA is directly relatable to the failure of our retirement package. We are above the training failure benchmark for the industry. This is a fact. And yes our training was horrible back in the day.

 

[n757st]

Wow, I'm not exactly sure how you derive ALPA as the source of training failures at Jetblue from my post. Not having a CBA is directly relatable to the failure of our retirement package. We are above the training failure benchmark for the industry. This is a fact. And yes our training was horrible back in the day.

Almost all the training failures have been very high time furloughed guys and guys with low time in glass/high automation. Most have been older. Believe it or not very very very few regional/ fractional guys are unsuccessful at our program. Just fyi. I think we can all agree the training at jetBlue is VERY fair.

 

[pilot22]

The failure rate or requirement for additional training is above 10% and the school house admits it's a reflection of the quality of our new hires. QUOTE]

Well food for thought, perhaps it's the training department and not the pilot.
Most flight training departments struggle with standardization. I know for a fact there were changes in the E190 training department

 

[Otto77]

Most of the issues I noticed in training had more to do with instructors that have never flown the line or the aircraft before teaching at JB. All the guys in my class were highly qualified....each could have easily been hired at the legacies if they were currently hiring.

 

[sbav8r]

Deleted...

 

[Whiskerbizkit]

There is a little truth to both sides. When we started hiring instructors, a lot have never flown the bus and also did not have a lot of flying experence, the FAA came down hard on JB for that because they were teaching wrong. On the pilot hiring side, yes we did hire guys that did not have a lot of flying experence. I just flew with one of our senior line CA that does interviews and he told me the pissing match he had with HR,CP with their final eval after the interviews with the people they wanted and he wanted...all the ones they wanted did not have much experence and they wanted to give them a "try". He said there was a lot of re-training goin on.

 

[Lake Alice]

Whether you agree or not this is a direct reflection of what we have to offer. Jetblue is a nice place to work. It's an enjoyable working environment but there are serious deficiencies with our pay, retirement, LTD etc. In today's environment pilots at regionals are deciding to stay at their regional as opposed to applying at Jetblue. As was mentioned in an earlier post most applicants are either woefully inexperienced or furloughed pilots with no where else to go. Should the economy change, majors begin hiring again and regional/mil/corporate pilots have options Jetblue will be at the bottom of their lists.
Those of us on the ALPA front we hoping to fix this and it's a very delicate balance. For FedEx/UPS have the best pay and benefits...period, but many pilots do not apply because of the working environment or schedules. In order to remain competitive Jetblue has to have a better package. The non-alpa supporters, as a whole, believe this can be achieved without a CBA. Legally, it cannot and therefore Jetblue will continue down the path set in motion many years a go.

 

[pilotyip]

Those of us on the ALPA front we hoping to fix this and it's a very delicate balance. For FedEx/UPS have the best pay and benefits...period,

They are very profitable trucking companies, that happen to have side line of flying airplanes. They pay well because their trucking makes them very profitable. Kitty Hawk was a ALPA represented a cargo airline, they made much less than JB pilots, and are now out of business.

 

[Lake Alice]

Kitty Hawk went out of business for several reasons none of which were due to a union particularly ALPA.

Other than FedEx or UPS every cargo carrier is a third party contractor much like a regional airline. Those jobs, since they rely primarily on another carrier, will never enjoy the same career benefits much like regional airlines will never, nor should they, enjoy the same career benefits as a major carrier. Unions are necessary for many of these carriers for basic safety and basic pay.

It's always enjoyable to read your opinions of how ALPA is the root of all evil. No union will save stupidity and bad management.

 

[pilotyip]

It's always enjoyable to read your opinions of how ALPA is the root of all evil. No union will save stupidity and bad management.

Now when have I ever said that? As a former ALPA member, all I have posted is that ALPA can not make a silk purse out of a pig's ear. Not that JB is a pig's ear, but there are limitations to what a union can deliver without destroying the host. But in order to keep the rank and file happy, unions must always ask for more and use their ultimate ability to run the airline from the cockpit to enforce their demands upon the employer.

 

[Lake Alice]

Yet the legacy carriers are profitable, except for AA, most of the regionals are profitable and all the LLC's are profitable. It sure seems as if most carriers have a good enough relationship with management where they aren't ruining or running the airlines, as you said, from the cockpit. All these LLC and legacy carriers, for the record, have better retirement and health benefits than Jetblue. All have legally enforceable contracts unlike Jetblue. And before you bring up bankruptcies and furloughs neither were caused by unions.

 

[pilotyip]

Yet the legacy carriers are profitable, except for AA, most of the regionals are profitable and all the LLC's are profitable.

that is because they are in a contract set up by BK, what will happen when this contract expires?

 

[Lake Alice]

Delta renegotiated their contract. United/Continental are negotiating a contract. Southwest negotiated a contract. Alaska negotiated a contract. Shall I go on?

 

[pilotyip]

Delta renegotiated their contract. United/Continental are negotiating a contract. Southwest negotiated a contract. Alaska negotiated a contract. Shall I go on?

sure go ahead, it great to see this thread continue to live. BTW Are those contract anywhere near the ones they came before BK?

 

[Lake Alice]

I'm not sure what you're getting at. The contracts are trending in the right direction and were not obtained from the cockpit as you suggested.

 

[pilotyip]

I'm not sure what you're getting at. The contracts are trending in the right direction and were not obtained from the cockpit as you suggested.

So the UAL job actions of 2000 had nothing to do with forcing the contract the was going to give give 35% pay raises?