To answer your questions...
Life at Mesaba SUCKS A$$ right now. What was once THE place to work, with great mgmt and labor relations, high morale and a place where people loved their jobs is now a festering cesspool of an operation. Sure, we've got the best hub facilities in the industry, great equipment, great people to work with, awesome ontime performance and completion factors. But morale is low, mgmt is trying to sqeeze blood from turnips and everyone is overworked, underpaid and stretched WAY too thin. This place is going to break soon, whith the showstring staff and fatigued employees. Good thing we'll get to rest up during out strike.
Most people that are bailing from XJ are NOT going to Pinnacle. There doesn't seem to be a real push to take a lateral step and then 1 step back. That's for various reasons as well as they don't want to be in this same awful position when PCL goes through the contract blues in a few years. They're going to Comair and some have gone to Air Willy. Some have gone to corporate and some have quit all together.
We're not hiring, but starting wages if we were would be $18.21, jumping to $20.35 after 6 months. This is for both the saab and avro. Keep in mind these sweat shop rates are from a 1996 contract that was extended for 2 years and inside it contains a nifty little LOA that eliminated the jet pay scale for FOs and lumped us all into 1 scale.
We do have folks on furlough, but I have heard from a very reliable source that they're calling back all 28 furloughees and MAY actually have to hire. Brilliant planning... crew planning. I've got my feelers out to confirm or deny this.
Bottom line - Mesaba is going through contract blues. We see CRJs where we once flew the saab and or avro. Nobody is happy it seems and people are sick and tired of being lied to. But one thing is FOR SURE - the Mesaba pilots have taken the high road. We are pilots of integrity and will never lower ourselves to the levels of our mgmt.
FO