My suggestion to ALPA and the pilots

[AMANSWORLD]

OK here I go- We as pilots union and non-union major and regional need to come together with the support of ALPA (I hope someone passes this to Duane W.) and need to set aircraft rates and work rules that are standardized for every company that employes 121 pilots. For example, if you operate B777 you will have a set pay rate in the left seat and right seat with longevity stopping at 15 years roughly with a 2-5% cost of living allowance (COLA). If you operate a CRJ , B737, MD80, etc. And should the company operate these aircraft that is a fixed price with NO EXCEPTIONS. This is a fool proof way to stop management from whipsaw. Well then you saywhat about the non-union and subrate carriers out there who are happy with a in house union such as SWA. Well at that point we allow them ALPA national rates and the standards we at ALPA recieve while continuing to negotiate within their more Restrictive (to their own repective management) in house unions. With that being said ALPA national needs to be quicker and more responsive to addressing workplace related problems. This is simply a suggestion from a guy who thinks we (pilots) as a whole do have a common ground to stand on. We all want jobb security and a pay rate that we can all live with. Alsowith that being said I know there will be alot of feedback with this post and a slew of diffrent senarios and adjustments but it is a good start and we as pilots and ALPA need to get together on this because the way I see it corporate america will continue to blame 9/11, rising fuel costs, and my favorite hard to find good management, which by the way I think is a way of saying lets rape the shareholders and employees for all they are worth. See a picture of Leo Mullins, Don Carty, John Orenstein and most recently Brian Lebreque and Jerry Atkins. The list before them is long, lets not as pilots let this list continue to grow. Just my opinion and maybe a far fetched idea. But if we as a pilot group continues to whore ourselves out we are the only ones responsible for it.

 

[mkingmei]

We need to re-regulate the system too. Perhaps that would stop some of this crap.
Money problems at an airline... charge more and no refunds, you reserve a seat and you pay regardless of whether or not you are there.(WX, MX and company crap aside).

I am not sure it has anything to do with the above but it got me thinking.

 

[Peter Griffin]

Dont forget to create a national seniority list while youre at it. You can put me at the top.

 

[bvt1151]

Re-regulation? That's a joke. People forget that deregulation has helped the only people that matter in capitalism, the customer. Regulation would drive prices up, and passenger loads down. How many pilots do you think would be furloughed when the resultant airlines went out of business.

Reregulation would help the salaries of a few, and furlough many. It would be great for Amtrak employees, though.

 

[YourPilotFriend]

It should be illegal to flood market share below actual product cost. Since it is not, the companies have found a way to level the field, and that's to cut your pay.

 

[Rez O. Lewshun]

If you set standardized pay, then when your company is making loads of cash and you can negotiate BETTER rates but can't cause you are locked in,...will you be happy?

Your post is in response to the current poor economic cionditions. It doesn't address what to do during good economic conditions....

Thinking needs to long term.... not short term

 

[pilotyip]

bvt, stop dealing in reality this a pilot board.

 

[Ben Dover]

OK, I'll be the contrarian. I'd like to see airlines, and particularly pilots move towards more of a market based system. Most of the ideas above are artificial mean to achieve a result. Historically, markets forces are better at getting things right than any artificial means created by government, industry group, or union.

For example we've asked our unions to negotiate a system of compensation and seniority for us that virtually ties us to one company for our entire careers. In other industries with more labor mobility, when the grass is greener or the company faces decline, employees leave. Not us, we just ride it into the ground.

 

[labbats]

Interesting choice of metaphor.

 

[atrdriver]

Re-regulation? That's a joke. People forget that deregulation has helped the only people that matter in capitalism, the customer. Regulation would drive prices up, and passenger loads down. How many pilots do you think would be furloughed when the resultant airlines went out of business.

Reregulation would help the salaries of a few, and furlough many. It would be great for Amtrak employees, though.

It needs to be re-regulated to the extent that there is a set price for each city pair. Whatever price that is, that is the least that a carrier, ANY carrier, can charge on that route. If your carrier has a special product and can get away with charging more, then fine. But no less. Then carriers don't price themselves out of business to "gain market share". It really doesn't matter if you have 95% of the market share of you are losing you a$$ in the process.

 

[YourPilotFriend]

If I owned a gold mine and starting selling gold before it came out of the ground to force the price down, I'd be floating in a river real soon. The same concept at the airlines gets you a pot of gold.

 

[bvt1151]

bvt, stop dealing in reality this a pilot board.

point taken

 

[pilotyip]

Atrdriver, they have already set the minimum price on a city pair that guarantees a profit. It has been regulated by market forces. It is called SWA. Lowest prices in a market, profitable forever, pays their pilots well, has a long list of pilots trying to get hired. The model is already out there.

 

[atrdriver]

Atrdriver, they have already set the minimum price on a city pair that guarantees a profit. It has been regulated by market forces. It is called SWA. Lowest prices in a market, profitable forever, pays their pilots well, has a long list of pilots trying to get hired. The model is already out there.

SWA cherry picks their markets. That is one of the many reasons that they are profitable. You will NEVER see SWA flying ATL-AGS, ATL-CHA, CVG-LEX, things like that. They go where they know they are going to make money. And fact is, SWA is NOT always the lowest fare out there, but because of their reputation people often think that they are.

Why, for example, doesn't SWA fly ATL-MCO? It can be a hugely profitable market, and while I don't know how many flights DAL and AT run per day, but they are ALWAYS full. But because AT is trying to gain market share, they drop their price. And then DAL drops theirs lower so they don't lose market share. Then AT does it again, and DAL does it again, and soon the ticket price is below cost, and everyone loses except the passengers (and they lose too when it comes to service). And then we come to my last statement, I would rather have 5% market share and be making money than have 95% market share and be losing my a$$.

 

[100LL... Again!]

ATR driver:

Price controls have never led to robust markets anywhere. The reason for this is the law of unintended consequences.

No matter how well-intentioned your idea may be, it would utterly FAIL to produce the results you seek. In all likelihood, it would produce the opposite.

Each artificial factor you introduce will produce a cascading effect of other effects which will be undesirable.

Just look at government. The government is the least efficient way of getting MOST things done.

The free market, while rife with faults, is very efficient at finding the true value of goods and services.

I understand and sympathize with your frustrations, but consider that the current state of the profession is but a blip it time. This is, of course, little consolation to those that are suffering (I have also experienced a lengthy furlough), but the system you propose would be more of a quick fix than a long term solution.

You have to game out all of the effects of the idea you propose befire you realize that such a proposal would most likely just increase the control that management has over pilots.

As a previous poster noted, the seniority list enslaves us to one company. We can't take our skills elsewhere and improve our situation the way almost ALL OTHER PROFESSIONALS can.

A corporate pilot can experience (in theory) an increase in pay and position with each job change. Once you work for a major, that is no longer possible. Imagine if you could transport your pay longevity with you to a new employer. Imagine if you really could threaten to quit (and mean it) and have a way to land a new position commensurate with your old one.


My challenge to your idea is this:

How do you propose to get everyone on board for this idea? Even WITHIN a given pilot group there are so many varying self-interests that unity is often difficult.

How will you unite all the union airline pilots to this idea? You will have a hard time convincing many of them that it will work.

And EVEN IF you can convince them, they still may feel that their bargaining capital is better leveraged elsewhere. Especially the ones who still have decent contracts.

They might use this line of reasonong:

"Why should we spend our hard-earned negotiating capital to fix your cruddy contract?"

Your answer will have to be more than logical. It will have to appeal to them at the 'hearts and minds' level.

A very tough proposition.

 

[atrdriver]

Just look at government. The government is the least efficient way of getting MOST things done.

The free market, while rife with faults, is very efficient at finding the true value of goods and services.

Yes, I would say that normally the free market is good at setting prices. In the airline industry, however, it is not working. The main difference is that there is too much supply right now. Yes, demand is keeping up with it, but ONLY because the airlines continue to price their product below it's cost of production in order to gain that wonderful "market share". What does it tell you that on many routes it is cheaper to fly than it is to take a bus? Yes, setting a minimum price for ATL-MCO might drive away some passengers, I would challenge that they are probably passengers that would be better off taking a bus. No matter what happens, until TRUE demand equals the current supply of seats, we are going to have problems, either furloughs or airlines closing their doors. You can fill up a plane with people and still lose money, and most of the majors are proving it right now.

 

[punkpilot48]

In other industries with more labor mobility, when the grass is greener or the company faces decline, employees leave. Not us, we just ride it into the ground.

You have a good point. But when the ship is in trouble do you give up 8 years of senority and the pay rate to go back to first year FO? In other industries you can leave your job and find one that pays the same or better, but if you've been at a carrier like UAL or DAL for 18 years could you really afford the cut. You almost have to stick it out and hope for the "bounce back."

 

[Rez O. Lewshun]

There doesn't appear to be any easy solutions... no quick fix or silver bullet.

The only way to make it better is education, understanding and pragmatic application of resources.....

 

[Ganja60Heavy]

We need to re-regulate the system too. Perhaps that would stop some of this crap.
Money problems at an airline... charge more and no refunds, you reserve a seat and you pay regardless of whether or not you are there.(WX, MX and company crap aside).

I am not sure it has anything to do with the above but it got me thinking.

And pretty stews should be the rule.

I was in NRT last week and....wholly cow....every cabin crew there was <25 yrs old, hot, mostly Asian, were enthusiastic, and smiled. The ugliest creatures on the tram, and possibly the hemisphere, were the 1960's DOH hags off my Delta flight.

 

[D'Angelo]

If you set standardized pay, then when your company is making loads of cash and you can negotiate BETTER rates but can't cause you are locked in,...will you be happy?

Your post is in response to the current poor economic cionditions. It doesn't address what to do during good economic conditions....

Thinking needs to long term.... not short term

That is a big part of the problem with ALPA thinking. They always get too greedy anytime they even sniff a profit being made. Its better to have a contract right in the middle. In the wildy profitable times you can stockpile cash, in the bad times you can make it through without having to do a paycut. Pattern bargaining is old thinking. Why isn't ALPA coming up with fresh new ideas? You can only try the same thing so many times.

A national payscale is also a joke. Whats to stop a non union or non ALPA airline from having different rates. You can't pass a law forcing everyone to be union members. If ALPA does this and prices themselves out of the market non union airlines will start popping up. Its kind of like what unions have done in a lot of markets. They set the conditions and wages artificially high so their job gets outsourced. Now the union is standing their saying thats not fair and theres nothing they can do about it. I don't belive pilot jobs would be outsourced outside the country. Not in our lifetime anyway. It's certainly not very hard to outsource it to new pilots. Especially since the demand for RJs is now going way down. There is an abundance of flying and it goes to the lowest bidder period.

 

[atrdriver]

A national payscale is also a joke. Whats to stop a non union or non ALPA airline from having different rates. You can't pass a law forcing everyone to be union members. If ALPA does this and prices themselves out of the market non union airlines will start popping up. Its kind of like what unions have done in a lot of markets. They set the conditions and wages artificially high so their job gets outsourced. Now the union is standing their saying thats not fair and theres nothing they can do about it. I don't belive pilot jobs would be outsourced outside the country. Not in our lifetime anyway. It's certainly not very hard to outsource it to new pilots. Especially since the demand for RJs is now going way down. There is an abundance of flying and it goes to the lowest bidder period.

Nothing stops a non union carrier from starting up. But when a 5 year 737 captain in ALPA makes, say $120/hour, and the non union carrier pays $85 for the same position, just how long do you think it would take that non union carrier to start a union drive? That is the flaw in your thinking about ALPA. The non union carriers out there also benefit from ALPA, because their management doesn't want the union to form on their property. To stop that from happening they try to stay pretty close to similar union carriers in pay, work rules, and benefits.

 

[100LL... Again!]

ATR:

Your solution WOULD have possibly worked had it been implemented at the dawn of the profession.

Again, though, selling your idea at a 'hearts and minds' level will be essentially impossible.

The toothpaste is out of the tube, and I do not see it being put back in.

 

[pilotyip]

ATR, about the same time it takes a non-union auto maker to squeeze wages at the UAW plant down to the non-union plant levels.

 

[atrdriver]

ATR, about the same time it takes a non-union auto maker to squeeze wages at the UAW plant down to the non-union plant levels.

There is a difference between labor at an auto plant and pilots. An auto worker can be trained in the job very quickly, which cannot be said for pilots. And if that was the case, why do the non union carries keep their pay and workrules close to, if not better, than the union ones? If your example held, SKW would be very low pay, and horrible workrules, and the union carriers would be adjusting to them, which has not happened.

 

[D'Angelo]

There is a difference between labor at an auto plant and pilots. An auto worker can be trained in the job very quickly, which cannot be said for pilots. And if that was the case, why do the non union carries keep their pay and workrules close to, if not better, than the union ones? If your example held, SKW would be very low pay, and horrible workrules, and the union carriers would be adjusting to them, which has not happened.

When your non union you clearly get the best of both worlds. You still get the good pay, workrules, etc however you don't have to waste 2% of your check every month. Nothing wrong with free loading at all. The threat of having a union is much more useful than actually having one. Once that union gets voted in your stuck with them. Getting rid of a union its darn near impossible. Funny because its not nearly as difficult to get a union on the property. One day I do believe there will be a mass decertification drive of ALPA. Comair will be leading the charge within the next decade or two IMO. Besides when your non union your much flexible. The company doesn't need permission for every little rule change. Flexibility is key in this buisness. I wish we had this flexibility at comair.

 

[bvt1151]

I think the flaw is that there's always enough pilots to fill that $85/hr 737 job.

 

[pilotyip]

Union vs Non-union automotive

ATR I agree, the UAW example was probably a bad example, the wages are very close between union and non-union for the very reason D Angelo posted, to keep the union out. But where the non-union plants kick the union plants butts is in productivity. They simply produce more with fewer people. The non-union plants have none of the union rules on who can do what job due to job classifications,or being paid for not working because your factory has no work or taking the rest of the day off when you reach a production quota. BTW There is hope for UAW, they are becoming management friendly. The New Dundee engine plant only has two-job classifications, the union set up a 18 month training program to teach its members the complexities of their new jobs. Fewer jobs for union members, but very high productivity and higher wages for those members who have jobs. When will the airline unions become management friendly?

 

[atrdriver]

When your non union you clearly get the best of both worlds. You still get the good pay, workrules, etc however you don't have to waste 2% of your check every month. Nothing wrong with free loading at all. The threat of having a union is much more useful than actually having one. Once that union gets voted in your stuck with them. Getting rid of a union its darn near impossible. Funny because its not nearly as difficult to get a union on the property. One day I do believe there will be a mass decertification drive of ALPA. Comair will be leading the charge within the next decade or two IMO. Besides when your non union your much flexible. The company doesn't need permission for every little rule change. Flexibility is key in this buisness. I wish we had this flexibility at comair.

And with a mass decertification of ALPA there would be no more "freeloading" as you put it. If there was not a threat of a union the non union carriers would not have the pay and workrules that they do, and there would be nothing to stop management from slashing them at will.

 

[atrdriver]

When will the airline unions become management friendly?

When management considers the pilots (and the rest of the employees) as true team members, instead of liabilities. When management realizes that their employees are their biggest asset. There are a few airlines out there that have embraced this philosophy, and look at how they have prospered. There are many more that haven't, and look at the shape they're in.

 

[XJohXJ]

Heck, at Mesaba, the employees are very literally the ONLY asset they have. They truly have nothing else, and look at how they are treating us.