avrodriver said:
I understand your frustration and hope you understand mine. You do not need to apologize for your pilot group and you do not need to hang your head or feel ashamed. That's not what this is all about. And yes, I know all about what UAL did to Air Wisconsin back when they bought it. I also know what happened to West Air. That was then, this is now.
The problems we are having are not caused by AWAC or SKYW or ACA or Mesa individually. They are caused, in my opinion, first by the way that we "regional pilots" think of ourselves and secondly by the way we (almost all of us) allow ourselves to be manipulated by the so-called labor union that we employ to represent our interests.
It does not represent our interests, has never represented our interests and will not represent our interests in the future beceause WE, as a group, refuse to recognize or identify our own interests, refuse to recognize that the "union" represents the interests of others, and will not collectively defend oureselves ad demand our just deserts. It is not your airline that is "to blame" my friend, it is ALL of us. We're too busy trying to please the Duane Woerths of the world and appeasing those who would gladly destroy us. What we ought to be doing is taking the time to recognize that individually we have very little power, but collectively we are just as strong as any single mega carrier. Until we do that, we will continue to be relegated to the mediocrity that currently exists; with little voice in our own affairs and no control of our own destiny.
Perhaps you don't know your leader at ARW personally, but I do. He's a good leader and a good man. He knows what I'm talking about and he also knows that he can't fight the political structure that has created our problems alone, anymore that we can at my airline. We are in the very same boat. Since WE, the regional carriers, have chosen to stand individually, instead of collectively, we have no power. Getting us to come together is a very difficult task because there is so much inexperience and too many meaningless dreams within our groups that achieving consensus is almost impossible. So he does what he has to do to survive, as do we all. Notice I said
almost impossible. I think that "the difficult we do immediately; the impossible takes a little longer". However, I don't give up.
Your frustrations are justified and so are mine. We are simply focusing on different elements. You apparently see the cause of our dilemma in a very different light from how I see it. This is not about me being right and you being wrong or vice versa. It is not about your pilot group vs. my pilot group. It's about US being unable to stick together and row the boat in the same direction. Instead of helping each other and standing together, which would render folks like the Bain group irrelevant, most of the time we don't even coordinate with each other. We want to be little islands of independence, which only works to the detriment of all of us. Our only chance is unity amongst ourselves; the regionals.
In some ways we are "different" from each other, but the ways in which we are "like" each other are many more. Yet we emphasize the differences and ignore the similarities. The major carriers are different from each other in many ways as well, but in case you haven't noticed, they do not emphasize the differences and they do exploit every similarity. Their "coalition" is very effective and as long as WE are unwilling to form a coalition of our own, they will continue to run over us and squash us like bugs. If we could achieve unity among ourselves, we could stop them. Yes, it might result in a fight and it may not be a fight that we can win. However, we don't need to win. All we need to do is hold our own and not lose. That we can do and I think we should try.
Unlike you, I don't believe it is "over". I think it has just begun and in my book, surrender is not an option.
Here's hoping we can get on the same page.
