Open Letter to All United Pilots

[dixieflyer]

Some of yall may have seen this before. It's an email that's been making its way around aviation circles. Enjoy, and let the flames begin....


"An Open Letter to All United Pilots. I'm a dinosaur to you. I started new hire school at United on August 8, 1966 and flew my last trip on December 14, 2000. During my 34+ years I was a loyal ALPA member from day one. I worked under countless United presidents and CEOs and many fine MEC chairmen. I supported every labor issue as it came along, once getting stranded for a week in Honolulu (tough duty) when the IAM went out on one of their many strikes. I walked the picket line when the Eastern employees went out, I walked with the Continental pilots, I walked with our own AFA when they were picketing informationally and more recently when the American flight attendants walked. I walked the picket line with our IAM countless times and they, and our flight attendants, walked with us in '85. Do you think that ANY group would walk for you today?In 1985 my wife, a UAL F/A, and I put our jobs on the line, not for ourselves, but for the future of your profession. I say not for ourselves because, our then president Dick Ferris, only wanted to change the pay and work rules of the future pilots, not for us. We could have sold you down the river, a river that you seem so willing to sell us down today. When we went on strike, for you, in 1985 we had a 50-50 chance of never flying for United again but we went out knowing that the profession that we loved would be worthless without unity, unity throughout the entire workforce at UAL. We couldn't take the easy way out and let management divide us, the greater good was too important.Today that unity seems to be a thing of the past. The contract that you just voted for is the most shortsighted, selfish contract that I can imagine. It's not only a contract that sells out your fellow active employees, it sells out all of us who came before you. Those of us who sacrificed so that you could aspire to the wonderful profession that I left, proudly, in 2000.I wore my ALPA pin with pride for 38 years, both as an active employee and as a retiree, but now I'll wear my pin upside down out of shame for what my union has become. I'll still wear it because I want people to know that I was once a member of a proud association of professionals, but I'll wear it upside down because I have no respect for the current members.Captain W. Thomas (Tommy) [email protected]"

 

[ATR-DRIVR]

I wonder if ole' Deewayne has seen it.

 

[FDJ2]

I suspect the author never spent two years in BK. The problems facing UAL and many others are real and need more then just emotional broad sides.

 

[dojetdriver]

I suspect the author never spent two years in BK. The problems facing UAL and many others are real and need more then just emotional broad sides.

Excluding a former CAL, Eastern, ect guy,
I suspect a alot of post 1985 UAL pilots may have never walked a picket line either or watched a scab take his job.

 

[Frac Daddy]

Yeah, but....

the chicken known as "deregulation" has finally come home to roost.(After twenty-something years.) SW, JetBlue, Airtran, etc. don't have "legacy costs" like UAL. No defined benefit pension or large retiree medical costs.

When Captain Tommy started at UAL this was not an issue. Instead of flaming UAL ALPA, why not come up with another solution to compete with the likes of jetBlue and Airtran. I know having your pension slashed sucks, but what are they(ALPA) going to do? Not trying to start a fight. Just asking a serious question.

 

[FNG_that's me]

Two issues here:

1) LCCs, while being the result of a capitalist system, are to the aviation industry what outsourcing jobs to India is to corporate America. They take folks who are willing to fly for less cash, work a harder schedule, and have nil long term benefits and pass that savings on to the custormer. It's the Walmart in the sky. The facts of life are that there are plenty of pilots willing to do this(especially with the current state of the industry), so it is the future. That's a glass-half-empty approach, but it's how it is. Working for a LCC is like having all your cash in a 5% CD. When the market is booming, you're kicking yourself for having such a crappy investment...but when things suck, like now, you walk with your head high thinking, 'hey man, I'm getting 5%.' We'll see over the next few years as the economy turns north if it goes back to the old way...don't hold your breath. Again, this is the way of the free market system and we need to get used to it, or find a way to get the industry to put the $$ back in the pensions on a real-time basis, which will drive ticket prices up, which will drive total pax down, which will make for fewer pilot jobs out there.

2) Second issue, and the real problem as I see it, is new carriers that never make any money. Someone refresh my memory, but was it Vanguard who boomed on the scene in MCI, selling tickets for nothing, never making a dime...all the while, sucking customers from other airlines(including the LCCs) and 'wasting' revenue that could have helped a UAL, DAL or USAirways. I guess it doesn't really matter who it was, there are too many of these wanna-be, fly-by-credit airlines trying to carve a niche into the bedrock of an industry that can't even support the mainstay corporate structure


Talk amongst yourselves...

 

[CSY Mon]

Hmm, interesting post Mr. FNG.

Yup, Vanguard was the one that sold cheap tickets for a while.
It was a good training school, guys got their 121 / jet time there, then applied to other carriers and jumped ship.

Made some $ on Vanguard stock for a while, it went up and down fairly regulary, so a few hundred could easily double next week...Or disappear.

 

[Mr.B]

Very good post FNG.

 

[AA717driver]

His letter is excellent. He is a product of his environment. I know a lot of guys who got hired in the 60's have the same committment to our profession.

It's those that came after him who brought us to this point. The pilot groups at the "big 5" in the 90's salivated over other carrier's financial or labor troubles as an opportunity to improve their own positions.

They cheered and pulled for the "weak sisters" to go out of business so they could move up a seat or get to a widebody.

So many of us are willing to go to a non-union LCC and "cut our own deal" because we saw where 17 years of ALPA membership and "Unity" with our "brothers" got us.

Funny, I seem to have lost the drive to fall on my sword so someone else can have a great career... TC

 

[canyonblue]

Two issues here:

1) LCCs, while being the result of a capitalist system, are to the aviation industry what outsourcing jobs to India is to corporate America. They take folks who are willing to fly for less cash, work a harder schedule, and have nil long term benefits and pass that savings on to the custormer. It's the Walmart in the sky. The facts of life are that there are plenty of pilots willing to do this(especially with the current state of the industry), so it is the future. That's a glass-half-empty approach, but it's how it is. Working for a LCC is like having all your cash in a 5% CD. When the market is booming, you're kicking yourself for having such a crappy investment...but when things suck, like now, you walk with your head high thinking, 'hey man, I'm getting 5%.' We'll see over the next few years as the economy turns north if it goes back to the old way...don't hold your breath. Again, this is the way of the free market system and we need to get used to it, or find a way to get the industry to put the $$ back in the pensions on a real-time basis, which will drive ticket prices up, which will drive total pax down, which will make for fewer pilot jobs out there.

Man you really are a FNG. Let me help you catch up. First the earth cooled, then the dinosaurs came, and then management at various Legacy airlines plundered and pillaged what they could from their airlines and telling their employees that the losses incurred were not because they mismanaged the place, but rather the competition is fierce. Don't help keep these sham managements afloat by spreading their propaganda. They are the reason they are losing money, not the employees, and not another airline.