Need some Virgin America Info...

[Lake Alice]

Regional pilots should make a liveable wage - ie. more than high school dropouts with felony records who deliver pizzas for a living. They should make more than RTA drivers in Cleveland, more than the local elementary school janitor, and more than the government worker who takes their foodstamp applications. ALPA has endorsed and given blessing to these extremely low wages that regional pilots make. In addition ALPA has allowed outsourcing of the entry level jobs at mainline legacy carriers thus reducing opportunities for regional pilots to improve their quality of life.

ALPA has screwed the profession and now wants the people they have screwed to make even more sacrifices for them, while refusing to acknowledge or fix their own mistakes, or make sacrifices of their own. That is what makes you (ALPA collectively) a hypocrite.

If you cannot recognize that, you are beyond hope.

Look, Im sure you're a nice guy but your comparison is apples to oranges. Each of your examples is a negotiation between an employee and employer. Your regional airline relationship is an employee to employer to employer which ALPA has nothing to do with. Its staggering how most fail to understand this point. To reiterate, ALPA has nothing to do with what a major airline pays a regional carrier for feed service. ALPA, or any union, can only negotiate what the regional feeder pays its employees. You will never receive the pay and benefits you desire under that business arrangement. And again, it has nothing to do with any union. Does a regional carrier set routes and prices? Ofcourse not. What ALPA is guilty of is managing your expectations. ALPA led you to believe your worth was inline with mainline pay and benefits. It's not.
I understand this may be upsetting but it is reality. Virgin America can afford mainline pay and benefits. Jetblue can afford to do the same. Both are in greater control of their profits.
If your goal is to be paid a wage commensurate with your experience work for a major airline.

 

[Fubijaakr]

Nice try, NEDoof. Let's compare an accident from the '70s to the Smurf's common practice of rush, rush, rush. The admitted ON THIS BOARD that they routinely rush to log under block so they can pick up additional flying at time and a half.

That's a systemic problem that is encouraged by their management. Read some of their posts on the AA crawl thread.

But since you're ONLY agenda is to deflect valid criticism of your crappy airline with straw man arguments, best of luck with that.

Everyone in the industry recognizes the black uniform and the pariahs who wear them.

 

[pilotpm]

Your regional airline relationship is an employee to employer to employer which ALPA has nothing to do with.

Except maybe the fact of ALPAs collusion in the existence of regional airlines to begin with. If they had held the line on scope there would be no such thing as an RJ.

 

[NEDude]

Look, Im sure you're a nice guy but your comparison is apples to oranges. Each of your examples is a negotiation between an employee and employer. Your regional airline relationship is an employee to employer to employer which ALPA has nothing to do with. Its staggering how most fail to understand this point. To reiterate, ALPA has nothing to do with what a major airline pays a regional carrier for feed service. ALPA, or any union, can only negotiate what the regional feeder pays its employees. You will never receive the pay and benefits you desire under that business arrangement. And again, it has nothing to do with any union. Does a regional carrier set routes and prices? Ofcourse not. What ALPA is guilty of is managing your expectations. ALPA led you to believe your worth was inline with mainline pay and benefits. It's not.
I understand this may be upsetting but it is reality. Virgin America can afford mainline pay and benefits. Jetblue can afford to do the same. Both are in greater control of their profits.
If your goal is to be paid a wage commensurate with your experience work for a major airline.

You are deflecting the blame by claiming ALPA has nothing to do with the current relationship between mainline carriers and the regionals when ALPA essentially created the relationship to begin with. ALPA allowed the RJs to be outsourced to begin with. Had ALPA not opened the door to the outsourcing in the early 1990s, there would not be the epidemic of mainline sized aircraft being flown by pilots living on foodstamps. This can be placed squarely at the feet of ALPA and there is no getting around that.

Secondly, assuming you are an ALPA member, you are obviously aware that all ALPA contracts have to ultimately be approved by the ALPA president. Every single poverty level wage paying ALPA contract was signed off by ALPA national. The refusal of ALPA national to stick to its guns and insist on a liveable wage for all professional pilots has made it more profitable for mainline to outsource to the regionals, again dragging the profession even lower. Once again ALPA turns a blind eye to its own failings and wonders why the profession is going downhill.

Yourself, Fubi and others who share your mindset are taking the simple mans approach - blame someone else for your problems. ALPA initially created the RJ epidemic, and allows it to continue every time they agree to more relaxation of scope (giving away more entry level mainline jobs) and sign off on every poverty level regional contract (making it more advantageous for mainline management outsource even more). Acknowledge and fix your own failings or go away.

 

[NEDude]

Nice try, NEDoof. Let's compare an accident from the '70s to the Smurf's common practice of rush, rush, rush. The admitted ON THIS BOARD that they routinely rush to log under block so they can pick up additional flying at time and a half.

That's a systemic problem that is encouraged by their management. Read some of their posts on the AA crawl thread.

But since you're ONLY agenda is to deflect valid criticism of your crappy airline with straw man arguments, best of luck with that.

Everyone in the industry recognizes the black uniform and the pariahs who wear them.

Coming from the king of deflecting arguments. You gleefully accuse other airlines of cutting maintenance corners while failing to acknowledge your own companies very high profile maintenance issues. In fact failing to recognize or acknowledge any shortcoming of your own seems to be a real issue of yours. Of course most small minded people lack the ability to see their own shortcomings, so I guess I should not be surprised.

 

[NEDude]

Except maybe the fact of ALPAs collusion in the existence of regional airlines to begin with. If they had held the line on scope there would be no such thing as an RJ.

How dare you interrupt his ALPA propaganda rant with facts!

 

[Lake Alice]

It's economics not ALPA, teamsters, or an in house.

 

[NEDude]

It's economics not ALPA, teamsters, or an in house.

So economics, not unions, drive the pay and working conditions that airline pilots endure.

Thanks for recognizing what I have been saying all along - ALPA and other unions are impotent, lacking ability to affect any real change in the industry other than to suck money from a paycheck.

 

[tzskipper]

So economics, not unions, drive the pay and working conditions that airline pilots endure.

Thanks for recognizing what I have been saying all along - ALPA and other unions are impotent, lacking ability to affect any real change in the industry other than to suck money from a paycheck.

"Real change" is driven by each individual airline's "economic reality" (meaning financial health...). Imo, under the RLA, at the end of the day this is what drives a federal Mediator's position in negotiations, NOT what another airline pays. If a company is healthy (SW), a Mediator will be more inclined to lean harder on the company to offer a little more to get an agreement. If the company is not healthy, then all bets are off.

The "old school" mantra of blaming others for an individual pilot groups difficulty in gaining contractual improvements, is in reality most likely an unwillingness of the group to accept the fact that their company is in a bad way (at least in the eyes of the Mediator).

Alpa's E,F&I people are very good at independently verifying what a company is saying and what a Mediator is seeing. The problem is, is that when the message sucks we all want to shoot the messenger...

Just one dudes opinion..

S

 

[Lake Alice]

I wasn't aware that ALPA voted on a contract. Individual pilot groups voted on scope. Again, a union did not make these decisions. I still don't understand why an Embry Riddle education justifies mainline pay and benefits for a pilot working for a regional. The economics and experience levels simply don't support it. A regional is not a career job. It never has been and never will be.

 

[NEDude]

I wasn't aware that ALPA voted on a contract. Individual pilot groups voted on scope. Again, a union did not make these decisions. I still don't understand why an Embry Riddle education justifies mainline pay and benefits for a pilot working for a regional. The economics and experience levels simply don't support it. A regional is not a career job. It never has been and never will be.

Are you saying that you were not aware the ALPA president signs off on all contracts? Looks like you need to do some research about how your union functions.

If you do not believe that pilots flying mainline sized equipment, on mainline sized routes, deserve mainline type of pay, you are arguing against yourself. If you think paying foodstamp level wages for RJ pilots is acceptable, you have real problems.

Regional pilot jobs were historically not career positions. But due to the different ALPA groups consistently relaxing of scope and signing off on poverty level wages, thus making it economically viable for management, they have ensured it has become a career position.

Do yourself and everyone a favor, before you start touting the virtues of ALPA, learn how ALPA operates. And before you start talking about raising the bar, stop justifying poverty level pay for pilots flying mainline sized equipment.

 

[Lake Alice]

Please don't misunderstand my posts. I'm not an apologist for ALPA and I'm certainly not singing it's praises. I appreciate what ALPA can do for us at Jetblue. For clarification though the by-laws stating the ALPA president signs off on a contract is akin to the propaganda Jetblue put out regarding ALPAs by-laws and pay caps which don't exist.
Also, just because you believe a regional has become a career position because of scope and the economy doesn't mean the contract between the legacy carrier and the regional will reflect this. This type of feed will always go to the lowest bidder. No union will change this.
Lastly, a pilot group for a major airline can negotiate with said major airline regarding its pay and benefits. It doesn't matter what size aircraft a regional operates if it can't negotiate directly with the major. All it can do is negotiate with the regional carrier. You pay and benefits will be based, traditionally, of the regionals operating budget and not the majors.
And no, I don't think a regional pilot is worth major pay and benefits. There is no argument justifying that sort of pay for a pilot who is hired with 500 hours TT.

 

[Mud]

It's "Fat, drunk, and stupid is no way to go through life son."

Get it right, sheese....

Hey Lake Alice, you a Gator? If so, clever handle!

 

[NEDude]

And no, I don't think a regional pilot is worth major pay and benefits. There is no argument justifying that sort of pay for a pilot who is hired with 500 hours TT.

Tell that to all of the 500 hour pilots hired by the majors in the 1960s.

Regional pilots are replacing the low end major jobs because the unions have allowed the easing of scope. United parked all of their 737's, furloughed over 1,400 pilots, and replaced them all with EMB-170s and CRJ-700 flown by low paid regional pilots because of the easing of scope restrictions. Northwest parked dozens of DC-9s and replaced them with EMB-175s and CRJ-900s from the low paid regionals. While Northwest didn't have pilots on furlough, they were able to hired significantly less by sending the pilots to the regionals.

Because of jets for jobs and the slowing of hiring at the majors, due to scope (as well as age 65) the regional has turned into a career stop for a lot of pilots. Many regional pilots have well over 10,000 hours and cannot get hired by a major because the major keeps outsourcing the regionals.

The fact that you think it is okay for these pilots to be paid poverty level wages is disgusting.

 

[Fubijaakr]

NEDoosh, are you for real? The ALPA president signs contracts as a formality. He NEVER intervenes in a contract, unless of course National takes control of an MEC. That has happened exactly once.