Mesa Ta

[the turtle]

Mesa Air Group Reaches Tentative Contract Agreement With Its Pilots
Wednesday January 22, 1:51 pm ET


PHOENIX, Jan. 22 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Mesa Air Group, Inc.
(Nasdaq: MESA - News) today announced it has reached a tentative
agreement for a new contract with the Air Line Pilots Association
(ALPA), which represents the airline's 1,300 pilots. In addition, the
parties have reached an agreement concerning participation in the US
Airways "Jets for Jobs" regional jet expansion program.
(Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/19990210/LAW065 )
"We are delighted that we have reached an agreement with our pilots
and can move forward with our growth plan," said Jonathan Ornstein,
chairman and chief executive officer.

The agreement is subject to ratification by ALPA membership. Terms of
the agreement were not disclosed.

 

[Flying"C"ranchr]

Really

God, I hope it's more than one additional day off and a 1% pay raise. All I need is a little more money and a much greater quality of life. If not, I'll be helping about 400 pilots with one greater seniority number.

Ranch'r

 

[jetdriven]

welcome back CCAir pilots. We knew this day would come.

 

[WileE]

Freedom is back to the fold

Two of the biggest things are that Freedom will now be back under ALPA, the 700's will be back in the Mesa Seniority, and Jet for Jobs means 250-350 new pilots positions that will be needed at Mesa in the next year or two.

 

[dashjockey]

it's over

no, the biggest thing about this, if the map pilots ratify that ta will be the death knell for the wholly owneds, yet again getting screwed because of contracters

 

[sioux1]

What are the details of the TA. I.E. money, work rules, retirement, company car, yacht for the weekend.

 

[WileE]

Details aren't out yet.

There's a ton of scuttlebutt flying around, but full details won't be released for a couple days.

Right now, some of the more reliable rumors: No big pay raises, some improvements on per diem, work rules improvements (block or higher for example), CCAir pilots recalled to Mesa seniority list based on percentage (if your are halfway down CCAir's list, you'll be recalled halfway into Mesa's list), some other little things like that.

Bottom line, it seems to be a slight improvement to the old contract, nothing that advances Mesa out of the bottom of the food chain though. ALPA is basically sacrificing any major improvements for the Mesa pilots to get an agreement that gets rid of anti-union Freedom and gets the USAir mainline furloughees back into cockpits.

The only advantage for current Mesa pilots is that more planes means quicker upgrades. We'll have to wait and see the details to see if its as mediocre as it sounds.

 

[WileE]

More info coming out.

The union is being very slow at getting information out about the TA to the actual pilot group. But from what the reps are now beginning to disseminate, I probably jumped the gun a bit about griping on how badly the union rolled over on us pilots at Mesa. Typical I guess of the pilot group here. Between ALPA and our company shooting the actual pilots in the back seemingly at every opportunity, a lot of us have gotten very gun shy and thus the rumor mill tends to lean heavily towards the negatives first.

Anyway, apparently the only major issues that are now set in stone are Scope, One Seniority list, and J4J. What it boils down to is that means Freedom is dead as a separate entity. Mesa may keep the Freedom certificate but it's days as a non union seperate carrier is over. The scope clause also means that Mesa is prohibited in very strict terms from ever trying to start up another carrier like freedom again.

One seniority list means that CCAir pilots will come back to work and will merge with the rest of Mesa. How that will exactly be worked and how the freedom pilots will work back into the seniority still needs to be worked out.

And finally, the reason management accepted the first two clauses is that that was the only way the union would approve a TA, which is what USAir needed by COB on Tuesday or else J4J for Mesa would go out the window. Essentially Johnny O folded like a pair of threes against a full house when it came to giving the union what it wanted or sacrificing the chance to fly 50 more RJ's for US Air.

Everything else, pay, per diem, duty time, seat locks, etc.. is still subject to Section 6 negotiation. The union reps might still end up dorking the pilots (and them dorking Air Midwest pilots in favor of the jets is almost a guarantee) but there is still a chance that we'll end up with a decent contract and move out of the basement a little closer to the light of day.

We'll see how it shakes out. It will probably be months of more negotiations before the final contract actually comes out.

 

[mckpickle]

Ok so my question is......do we still treat the Freedom guys like the "red headed step children" they are or will "all be forgiven"? Just want to know who can ride my jumpseat.

 

[g159av8tor]

As stated "Airline Pilot" Magazine, ripping out Freedumb's heart and J4Js (read as getting furloughees back in the cockpit or read as getting major airline pilots flying again?) are the two primary concerns for this contract. ALPA still doesn't know how to exactly represent both the majors and farm leagues simultaneously.

Anyway, that's the impression I still get. Everytime a pilot is called a regional pilot or small jet pilot, it grates my nerves because I know they still think we're taking away their jobs and debasing their profession.

I guess time will only truly tell ALPA's intentions on the J4Js issue. I want to believe in the noble cause of pilots helping pilots. Beyond that, see ya in hell Freedumb.

Tailwinds...