MDA guys!

[ERJDRVR2]

"You guys willingly went aboard a sinking ship."

I'm getting real tired of listening to you folks criticize the decision we made in 1999 to accept employment by a major airline that was hiring over 100 pilots per month and taking delivery of a new Airbus every week.

Monday morning quarterbacks?

That was MDA NOT USAIR.

 

[CFII]

Has a class started for the old MDA planes yet at Republic? I know the first wave rejected to come over, but haven't a couple come over? Thanks.

 

[LearLove]

Lear,


Are you going to swallow your pride and "lower" yourself to fly with us? I feel for all the MDA guys but you. I have not forgot you are/were the most negative/anti CHQ pilot on here.
What good is it for you MDA guys not to take the job with 50% of the seats? Why not take the job and fight your fight with USAIR & ALPA why you are flying the line? If you lose that "change of control" fight, you still have a job.

You guys @ MDA want to point the fingers @ RP. You guys willingly went aboard a sinking ship (MDA). We simply voted to accept 1/2 of the USAIR pilots in exchange for aircraft. People claimed we took it in the A55 for this. Maybe, maybe not. Looks like we got the best of both worlds on this deal. We got the planes and only 8 pilots to go with them. Pretty good deal for us, a royal screw by USAIR for you (MDA).

So my main question again is: Why not take the job why you/ALPA fights USAIR?

Actually I would like to work there. I have several friends (pilots and nonpilots) there and they like it for the most part. I however do not want a J4J job over there. I would like to be integrated in with atleast my MDA doh which would give me a year senority. Also priority #1 is that all 100% of us get an offer, not 50%. If the senior MDA guys hadn't stuck up for us junior guys by not taking a class the j4j thing would never come down to me. By turning it down I am standing with my fellow pilots.

All I'm asking for is:
-100% MDA guys get an offer
-atleast our MDA DOH (or the date we bid over to MDA as non of us were hired here, it was a bidable position)
-no training contract
-no double hotel rooms in training

I really don't put much stock in my "mainline" senority number. We all can see that once this "deal" is done 190's will come then we can kiss the rest of mainline goodbye. So I feel its in our best interest to some kind of DOH at CHQ/Rep/SA so that we start gaining senority because I bet we'll be flying these 170/190s for a very long time. Just my thoughts.

As for your comment about being "anti CHQ" I believe we addressed that in the past. We've come along way on this board I've met alot of guys that I've had diff points of view with on this board and become friends. Infact earlier today I got a call from one of your senior check airman who lives near me at home. We often swap info on whats going on even before all this stuff

Ask furloughedagain about some of our old battles. You would never think a WO guy and a mainline guy could work together but we are now doing it everyday at MDA, he11 we share a crashpad with WO and mainline guys. I've spent 6 days in a crashpad with mainline guys and nobody has slit anyones thoat, its like a X-mas miricle. You never would have thought that several years ago.

Anyway, enough is enough.

 

[FurloughedAgain]

He has undergone quite a transformation -- i'll give him that much.

Lear's anger wasn't specifically aimed at Chautauqua. In years past he was angry at Chautauqua, Mesa, mainline, ALPA ... anybody who has (in his mind) negatively affected his perceived career expectations.

He has mellowed quite a bit since then.

To be honest, I was very surprised that he took the MDA job.

Quite frankly Learlove -- and all of the MidAtlantic pilots -- are overqualified for a newhire F/O position at Chautauqua/Republic. IF they take the offer, I would bet that they will have found other employment within a year.

I'm very glad that I didn't take the MidAtlantic offer when my number came up. A year ago saying "no" was the toughest decision i ever had to make. Now it seems like one of the only career decisions I ever got right.

 

[CFII]

.........

 

[Popeye0537]

Just wondering but how is anyone "overqualified" for anything nowadays? I have a 4 yr degree..does that make me overqualified for the regionals? I think you see it as you would rather not be juinor to a 23yr old captain.

Its not easy for anyone to start over again...this is my second time. But don't gimme the whole "I'm over qualified" BS, I sit right seat to guys who flew all the heavy iron at US.

 

[FurloughedAgain]

I certainly did not mean any disrespect.

I've started over 3 times since my USAir furlough, so dont mistake my comment for arrogance.

The fact is that Lear -- and most of the MDA guys -- have years and years of experience. That experience has value.

Given the choice of starting over after 15 years in the industry as a CHQ newhire (essentially no-better than a 20 year-old FSI academy grad with 500 hrs) or seeking other employment, i'm betting they'll be job-hunting.

Why? A couple of reasons. Chautauqua's F/O pay is pretty piss-poor and these guys have been screwed around by the industry long enough to know that this 2.5 year upgrade garbage will not last forever.

Second, there are other aviation opportunities out there! They may not be airline opportunities, but they exist. I KNOW that these guys have been looking outside of the airlines. Do a search on Learlove and you can see that even he has looked at corporate jobs which may (in some cases) be more stable and (in most cases) will pay significantly more.

Lastly, sure -- there is an element of ego involved. When you were flying part 121 before some of the Captains with whome you fly had even taken their first flying lesson.... well, needless to say that's a bitter pill to swallow. It can be done! But, unless there is a clear career-path that one can see, I doubt that it can be done without at least looking around for something a little better for the ol' self image.

Just my opinion -- I still have a couple of friends at Chautauqua who have been able to make fantastic careers there!!! (but they're not newhire F/Os ... and i'm guessing if they had to start over, they too would look for better opportunities)

 

[RP170]

I certainly did not mean any disrespect.

I've started over 3 times since my USAir furlough, so dont mistake my comment for arrogance.

The fact is that Lear -- and most of the MDA guys -- have years and years of experience. That experience has value.

Given the choice of starting over after 15 years in the industry as a CHQ newhire (essentially no-better than a 20 year-old FSI academy grad with 500 hrs) or seeking other employment, i'm betting they'll be job-hunting.

Why? A couple of reasons. Chautauqua's F/O pay is pretty piss-poor and these guys have been screwed around by the industry long enough to know that this 2.5 year upgrade garbage will not last forever.

Second, there are other aviation opportunities out there! They may not be airline opportunities, but they exist. I KNOW that these guys have been looking outside of the airlines. Do a search on Learlove and you can see that even he has looked at corporate jobs which may (in some cases) be more stable and (in most cases) will pay significantly more.

Lastly, sure -- there is an element of ego involved. When you were flying part 121 before some of the Captains with whome you fly had even taken their first flying lesson.... well, needless to say that's a bitter pill to swallow. It can be done! But, unless there is a clear career-path that one can see, I doubt that it can be done without at least looking around for something a little better for the ol' self image.

Just my opinion -- I still have a couple of friends at Chautauqua who have been able to make fantastic careers there!!! (but they're not newhire F/Os ... and i'm guessing if they had to start over, they too would look for better opportunities)

And MDA FO pay sucks too. Get over yourself and deal with the crappy hand you've been dealt just like all of us in the industry have been recently. I'm on my 3rd airline in 3 years but I'm not gonna sit here and cry about starting over and flying with guys that are several years younger than me in the left seat. Put your ego aside for once. The bottom line is the industry sucks right now and so does management. Life isn't fair. If you don't like it, go do something else.

 

[FurloughedAgain]

um... RP170 -- I AM doing something else. I don't work for Chautauqua or MidAtlantic. I don't have a dog in this hunt.

I was simply defending Learlove and trying to give you guys some insight into the reasons why people may not want to come on over to Chautauqua at the bottom of the list.

 

[RP170]

um... RP170 -- I AM doing something else. I don't work for Chautauqua or MidAtlantic. I don't have a dog in this hunt.

I was simply defending Learlove and trying to give you guys some insight into the reasons why people may not want to come on over to Chautauqua at the bottom of the list.

Good for you.

 

[Popeye0537]

I agree it is a bitter pill to swallow. Its notfun pulling gear for a guy who was in Jr high when I started making the "wrong" decisions. O well I guess. At least I enjoy what I do now...I drove trucks in between layoffs and I HATED it.

 

[DrewBlows]

OH, sorry...Do we?

Why did you need justification?

Rotten apples are everywhere. Even in the land of pay freezes and whatnot, (I keed, I keed) Surely you know this or will soon.

Good Luck Fellow WM Aviator.

SennaF1, don't take my comments personally (I don't think you did). I didn't, or at least didn't mean to imply that I dislike your pilot group, in fact quite the contrary, I have many friends who fly there and I like them all. And without exception, they will probably all be captains before me, which is why it may take a little more justificaiton as to why I didn't interview at Chautauqua. I understand that managers make decisions, not pilots, and I'm not a big fan of the way Republic runs it's business (my opinion), hence why I didn't interview there. I have never told anyone else not to interview there, but if you ask my opinion I will tell you why I didn't. That said, when someone comes on an internet message board and gloats about growth at the expense of a fellow airline pilot's job, it makes that person look bad (in my eyes), and it reflects bad upon your pilot group. I understand that there are bad apples everywhere, which is why I stopped routing for my company like a sports team a long time ago. Ultimately, this is a business and everyone has to make decisions that will affect their career. I certainly have not made the perfect career choices, but I'm comfortable with them. I guess the bottom line is that I shoudn't have lumped all chautauqua pilots with a few idoits who post on flightinfo. Sorry if I offended anyone (except Popeye0537).

 

[FurloughedAgain]

Drew said, "which is why I stopped routing for my company like a sports team a long time ago."

It's funny how we all do this, isn't it? I think we believe the hype. In 1998 at my IOE at AirTran a senior manager told us, "We hired you because you're the best of the best!"

... yeah right. They hired us because we were willing to show up.

The Comair guys have a sign outside their crewroom (trailer) door that says, "Through this door passes the world's finest airline pilots".

We all tend to buy the hype. We want to know that the decisions we made were the right ones. We want to believe that we had the wisdom to make the correct career decisions in a field where only a fraction are successful.

I'm just as guilty of "rooting for the home team". I buy company logo t-shirts, and company logo license plates (got a whole stack of those in my garage.)

Ultimately though, the success of our decisions are a matter of fate. We chart the course for our career and end up making deviations around buildups. More often then not we end up in sucker holes. A lucky few pop out into clear blue sky and have a nice smooth ride.

Anyway, i'm rambling. The point is that these guys never wanted to work for MidAtlantic. They are there because the former CEO promised a "soft landing" for furloughed pilots if the US Airways MEC would agree to (once again) lift the scope language and allow more and bigger airplanes to be flown off the property.

Now they face a furlough for the second time in 3 years and, for some of them, the 3rd time in a decade (from the same company!)

Was it their "choice" to hire on with a struggling airline? Were they victims of past mergers? Did they look at market conditions in 1999 and bet on a CEO with a stellar track record? Did they look at upgrade times at UAL and AMR vs. US Airways and bet on the promised growth?

Who knows. The point is, they never thought they'd be faced with this decision.

How many of you are senior Captains at Chautaua -- say those hired before 1998?

If Beford came up to you tomorrow and told you that he was spinning off the E145 fleet and that you would have to start over as first year F/Os at first year pay -- would you do it? Or would you look for a better opportunity.

Chautauqua is a fine airline. I dont think ANY of us in 1996 could have foreseen what it would become. Amazing. But, its fortunes could turn just as quickly. Try not to chastise the MDA pilots for not seeing your vision -- they've likely seen it before at airline after airline. Once you've been burned a few times you're much more cautious about the "opportunities" you're willing to subject your families to.

 

[Capt.PoopyPants]

How many of you are senior Captains at Chautaua -- say those hired before 1998?

If Beford came up to you tomorrow and told you that he was spinning off the E145 fleet and that you would have to start over as first year F/Os at first year pay -- would you do it? Or would you look for a better opportunity.

If Bedford spun off a division, I'm sure most guys would argue to stay with the aircraft. If he sold them most would probably realized that their screwed and
would look for a better oppurtunity.

It's already been argued numerous times on this board. Is it an asset sale or change of control? If the arbitrator believes that this is a change of control as per LOA 91, then the MDA guys will get what they want. If that happens it will most likely put an end to this sale altogether.