McPickle
Well,
I can't argue with your insight. I can't argue with your logic. And I don't think you are really that far off.
It's a lot easier to look back and armchair this thing and woulda coulda shoulda it to death.
Bottom line, I don't think we had the unity within the pilot group to do some of the things you suggested. I know in PHX, where we were seeing our flying going away day by day as the Freedom jets passed our planes and they called on the radio "Cisco" as their call sign, the pilots where plenty pissed and would have stuck together.
As for the east coast flying, where they aren't seeing Freedom directly, I'm not so sure our unity would have stood the muster.
So in effect, your ideas require a pissed off, unified and strong pilot group. All of the qualities which we had, just not so sure it would have come together at the right time. It was sort of fragmented and disjointed if you will. Nothing like Comair.
Our MEC put out massive PR campaign, joint picketed with America West, set up strike centers, family awareness events, etc all the educate the pilot group. However, even doing all of that, I question if we could have successfully done some of the things you were looking at.
As for how we got into this whole mess, it's been suggested that because our Negotiating Committee was asking for jet rates on the 700/900 that were unreasonable. Not unreasonable when considered next to Comair and Air Whiskey, but unreasonable because they were higher than the senior most captain on a 757 at America West, who as you know with our code-share arrangement, is paying our bills. Do we get pissed off at America West?
In short, it just wasn't gonna fly.
We got enhancements. Not much, but enhancements. I just get pissed off when we get blamed for the industry's problems. Sure, we didn't keep raising the standards that were set by Comair and Air Wisconsin, but given the negotiating environment, and the fact concessions are now a fact of life, I don't think we could have no matter what we tried. Those gravy contracts were negotiated in better times. And our management's philosophy is for leaner returns (6-9% profit margins) in exchange for duration. And that's what they did the pilots too.
It doesn't matter now if we did the right or wrong thing. It's done. Let's just work together to try to keep what we have, and improve it along the way, whether we do it property by property or through ALPA, or another venue.
We're all pilots. We all need to stick together. We all need to help each other, even if you're pissed off about our contract. I just hate to see folks threatening jumpseats, etc. No one wins but the company at that point. They've pit us against each other and made the competition in the cockpit, rather than in the open market.
Thanks for a reasonable debate, but since I agree with much of what you are saying, I think I'll leave it at that.
The Plebe