Lufthansa pilots now on strike!

[wmuflyguy]

Strike apparently has been suspended.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/BUSINESS/02/22/lufthansa.strike/index.html

 

[PCL_128]

Well, if it makes you feel any better; Comair went on strike for 89 days during Bush's term.

The Clinton NMB was still in office at the time. The Bush NMB didn't take office until months later. It takes a little while for new administrations to get into place. Obama's NMB has only been in place for about six months.

 

[PeanuckleCRJ]

The Clinton NMB was still in office at the time. The Bush NMB didn't take office until months later. It takes a little while for new administrations to get into place. Obama's NMB has only been in place for about six months.

And it's working out faaaannnnntastic.

 

[PCL_128]

And it's working out faaaannnnntastic.

Yep, it is. The AmeriJet pilots were released and got a contract, the Hawaiian pilots got big improvements after pressure from the Obama NMB, and the Spirit, TSA, and AirTran pilots will probably be released or have TAs this year.

 

[CopilotDoug]

And it's working out faaaannnnntastic.

Everything that PCL pointed out wasn't just a mere coincidence, mind you. That's why he is so certain about what Obama's NMB will do that he used the word "probably" in his predictions.

 

[WayBack]

Yep, it is. The AmeriJet pilots were released and got a contract

AmeriJet didn't have ALPO holding them back.

Hawaiian pilots got big improvements after pressure from the Obama NMB, and the Spirit, TSA, and AirTran pilots will probably be released or have TAs this year.

What were Hawaiian's BIG improvements?

As for TSA, Spirit and AirTran being released......You also said that PCL was going to be released, no questions about it.

 

[CopilotDoug]

AmeriJet didn't have ALPO holding them back.
What were Hawaiian's BIG improvements?

As for TSA, Spirit and AirTran being released......You also said that PCL was going to be released, no questions about it.

Don't bother taking PCL seriously, he's one of those Union tools looking out for his own ass. As a matter of fact, he's trying his hardest to avoid the sh!tty work rules afforded by an ALPA contracts by "flying" and ALPA desk.

 

[WayBack]

Don't bother taking PCL seriously, he's one of those Union tools looking out for his own ass. As a matter of fact, he's trying his hardest to avoid the sh!tty work rules afforded by an ALPA contracts by "flying" and ALPA desk.

He soon realized he would never be able to pay off all that GIA debt just flying the line. So he had to move into Union seat to start sucking money from there as well.
Why do you think he really led the charge to get ALPO on at AirTran? Do you really cares about his fellow pilots, especially after he paid THOUSANDS of dollars to put a paid pilot of out a job, just so he could move himself ahead as fast as possible?
I know an AirTran captain that has flown with him a couple of times. Everytime he knows he's flying with PFT128, he has to pour Tabasco Sauce in his eyes to divert the pain of having to listen to him.

 

[Dornier 335]

a "different" perspective from Germany

Here's an interesting article from a German magazine called "Der Spiegel" somewhat comparable to the US "Time" or "Newsweek". It's a German perspective to the labor conditions in the states. I have included a google translation, so if something sounds strange, don't blame me please

If a sentence doesn't make sense, please let me know, and I'll manually correct it.


America's Cheap Pilots

Underpaid, exhausted, crashed

Are the salary demands of Lufthansa pilots justified, or they already earn too much now? It is clear: U.S. pilots work for much less money - and have to fly more. The consequences are sometimes fatal.

Rebecca Shaw earned so little that she had to get a part-time job in a coffee shop. Her 16,254-dollar salary didn't allowed the 24-year-old pilot to even afford her own apartment. She lived with her parents in the Seattle area - almost 5000 kilometers away from Newark, location for the regional U.S. airline Colgan.

On the day of her last flight Shaw initially flew standby from Seattle to Memphis to Newark, but the one eight-hour trip. She had sa severe cold, sat down in Newark, then still a co-pilot in the cockpit of a Bombardier DHC8 with Colgan as a code-share partner of the fourth-largest U.S. company Continental Line operated the short distance to Buffalo. Pilot Marvin Renslow who sat beside Shaw, 47, who had had not such a long arrival - he lived in Florida.

Continental Flight 3407 started at 21.20, on board 45 passengers, two flight attendants and two pilots. Nearly an hour later, the turboprop suddenly lost on the approach to Buffalo, tipped over, turned on its head and fell on a house. All occupants and a man on the ground were killed.

The crash on 12 February 2009 was one of the largest aviation accidents in the U.S. since the terrorist attacks of 2001. It took almost a year to the U.S. NTSB Aviation Safety Authority is now produced its final report. Official cause of the crash: pilot error.

Renslow and Shaw were, as the investigation revealed, underpaid, overworked - and exhausted. With its flying ability, there NTSB chief Mark Rosenke at a hearing had to be apparently "sliced the salami too thin".

Although in this case other factors contributed to become fatal, such as lack of "professionalism" (NTSB) of the cockpit crew. Thus Renslow had concealed that he had previously failed on two flight tests. However, "fatigue" due to the revision was the central point. The case cast a harsh spotlight on the deplorable working conditions of U.S. pilots.

"We were hit by an economic tsunami"

At the NTSB hearing on Flight 3407 came to light recently, shocking details that are in the industry is no exception. Shaw earned an hourly wage of $ 23) is far less than the already paltry average salary of Colgan pilots (55,000 dollars a year. Many other pilots living away for financial reasons, far from their location. Renslow also had the unfortunate pilot in training often have problems with the Bombardier DHC8 had, was allowed to fly propeller-driven plane anyway.

The days when pilots were mythical heroes in the U.S. are long gone. Today, the job is 16-hour mean-days commuting across the continent (of course unpaid), duration of stress. Since 2001, the industry got massive problems, especially when pilots were forced to accept the U.S. regional wage cuts of around 40 percent, often they also lost their pension entitlements.

"We were hit by an economic tsunami," said Chesley Sullenberger, one of the most prominent U.S. pilots, twelve days after the crash of Flight 3407 before the Congress. "As much as I love my profession, I do not know what happened to it. I would be violating my duty if I were not on record that I am deeply concerned about its future." It was Sullenberger, who in January 2009 a U.S. Airways plane after a severe bird strike on the Hudson River from Manhattan notwasserte successfully.

"Economic and other factors have the pilot morale destroyed," said John Prater, president of the world's largest pilots' union ALPA, which represents 53,250 members in the U.S. and Canada. He flew the line from 1977, but as bad as it is he had never experienced this moral before.

Strike are only under the most extreme circumstances legal

Strikes are rare. According to the Railways Labor Act 1926 - a law on working conditions for U.S. railroads, which was expanded in 1936 to the airlines - labor disputes are legal there, only under the most extreme circumstances.

The payment of U.S. pilots is aimed roughly according to their experience (the more flight hours, the more dollars), the size of companies (the bigger, the more dollars) and the size of their machines (the more seats), the more dollars. The U.S. Department of Labor estimated the average annual salary for pilots at least $ 65,340.

But that obscures the real conditions. Indeed, there are extreme differences in wages, many young drivers have to make do with salaries of about 21,000 dollars. Top veterans reach up to 180,000 dollars.

According to the pilot site FltOps.com paid for by the major airlines, U.S. Airways the worst. Starting salary: 21,600 dollars a year. At the other end of the spectrum: Southwest Airlines (49,572 dollars). For comparison: At Lufthansa is the starting salary including allowances for 60,000 euros a year (more than $ 81,500).

16 hours work, one hours pay

For experienced Airline Captains in the U.S. the salary margin ranges from $ 123,480 (JetBlue) to $ 181,270 (Southwest). At JetBlue, Lufthansa is also involved. Even more worthy only of who flies for UPS and FedEx Freight companies - here the annual salaries can exceed $ 200,000.

The U.S. aviation authority FAA restricts the working hours of pilots of large machines officially on 100 flight hours per month and 1,000 flight hours per year. These pilots allowed to fly on U.S. domestic routes only eight hours per day, with a break of at least eight hours also. These rules are from 1985 - a completely outdated era of aviation terms.

"I worked 16-hour days, but was often paid only for an hour," said the former pilot Colgan Corey Heiser the TV station PBS. "In my first year I earned almost $ 22,000. In addition, mortgage came, the rent for the second dwelling on the site, credit debt, car insurance, and so forth. In effect, we starve."

The U.S. airlines to reduce in every nook and cranny, including, inter alia, by such routes across regional carriers Colgan settle for less pay and not keeping up with the hours rules exactly. Thus they undermined the legal limit more and more - without adequate breaks "as APLA complains:" We receive daily reports on schedules that cause the pilots to become real 'zombies'. "

"Do not seem tired to work, I owe my passengers"

John Schroll, a captain for the low-cost airlines AirTran, gets up at three, to get from his home in Florida to its location in Atlanta and take over a first flight by 6 clock. Only four days later, he returns home and falls at 18.30 clock exhausted into bed to sleep off before the next round of something. "You do not even seem tired to work," he told the newspaper USA Today. "I owe it to my passengers."

Regularly complain to the pilots when their employers - in vain. "We are pleased that Continental has been run in the last two quarters of profitable again," said Captain Jay Pierce, head of ALPA pilots at the airline, recently smugly. "What we miss, however painful, is any indication of the investment in those assets, which is for the success of the airline's most important - the employees." A terse "thank you" in the quarterly report as many any more.

For the passengers of Flight 3407 such insights come too late. Among the passengers were the prominent human rights activist Alison Des Forges, who was known for her work in Rwanda, and Beverly Eckert, whose husband, Sean Rooney, 11 September 2001 the collapse of the World Trade Center had been killed.

Six days before her death was Eckert, a spokeswoman of 9/11-Families, was in Washington and met President Barack Obama. After the crash, Obama paid tribute to her especially when he thought of the victim: "She was an inspiration for me and so many others." But he did not mention the Colgan pilots .

 

[Dan Roman]

.
What were Hawaiian's BIG improvements?

.

I believe the point was the effectiveness of the Obama NMB. We (Hawaiian) were stuck for over two years in negotiations with the company unwilling to budge from a token 1% raise and they were looking for numerous changes to our contract. Under mediation we in fact made BIG improvements. We ended up with a 22% improvement in pay with top pay at they end of the contract to well over $200 an hour, gains in our already substantial retirement and no major loss of work rules.
The TA passed by a huge margin, reflecting the fact that the majority were either very pleased or at least accepting of the contract.