Ornstein letter to UA VP of Operations- Mesa guys seen this?

[Avi8tor2000]

I was in ORD last week. We took the acft from another crew and tried to make our turn time. The deplaning pax had to wait an unfairly long amount of time for a UAL ramper to unload their gate checks. I was going to be a nice guy and help him unload, but he rudely pushed me away and said " don't touch those bags!" I said "people are waiting and I'm going to help get their stuff to them". Again "You can't touch those bags!-It's in our contract that only Ual agents handle these!"

WTF?so much for customer service. Waited 30 minutes for a contract "window cleaner" to come clean my windshields. F#$% ORD and UAL man - what a goat rope. ORD will henceforth be on my bid avoid PBS option.

Does this honestly suprise you? If we have a work slowdown to prove a point do you want someone to do your job and undermine your efforts? Its the same with them. I realize our jobs are apples and oranges with theirs but everyobody in this industry has a job to do and many jobs not to do.

 

[PBRstreetgang]

I was in ORD last week. We took the acft from another crew and tried to make our turn time. The deplaning pax had to wait an unfairly long amount of time for a UAL ramper to unload their gate checks. I was going to be a nice guy and help him unload, but he rudely pushed me away and said " don't touch those bags!" I said "people are waiting and I'm going to help get their stuff to them". Again "You can't touch those bags!-It's in our contract that only Ual agents handle these!"

WTF?so much for customer service. Waited 30 minutes for a contract "window cleaner" to come clean my windshields. F#$% ORD and UAL man - what a goat rope. ORD will henceforth be on my bid avoid PBS option.

I bet you would like to not only fly the plane but do "D" checks on your overnight. You are the problem in the industry, you were hired to fly the plane not service it, are you checked out/trained on belt loader operation? Didn't think so, "unfairly long amount of time" according to who you, gear monkey still on 1st year pay? Not even a full voting member of the union, who wants to take a ramper position and combine it with his F/O duties. The airline industry has been running longer than you have been alive, but you thionk you have a better way of doing things. You wanna be a ramper, apply, get trained, work out some, and get-er-done, till then, just sit there and do as you are told.
Get a clue, your 8 months of airline service does not make you an expert.
PBR

 

[Poahi]

Looks like UAL out smarted Mesa. We're screwing you fair and square. That's why Mesa pays bonuses for United experience.

Northwest used to screw the regionals when the flow rates in to DTW and MSP were limited due to weather. The difference was that the regionals didn't have to pay for the cancellations. It's better to lose a bunch of 50 seat flights than have thousands miss connections (especially overseas ones).

If true, this is actually good news for the regionals. Maybe this will put upward pressure on bidding for regional feed.

BTW, the 'attrition' card is a veiled threat for more cancellations. If he knows he can't make money on the UAL contract, at least he can run the stats in to the ground.

Remember: "You can't rape the willing."

 

[ex j-41]

I bet you would like to not only fly the plane but do "D" checks on your overnight. You are the problem in the industry, you were hired to fly the plane not service it, are you checked out/trained on belt loader operation? Didn't think so, "unfairly long amount of time" according to who you, gear monkey still on 1st year pay? Not even a full voting member of the union, who wants to take a ramper position and combine it with his F/O duties. The airline industry has been running longer than you have been alive, but you thionk you have a better way of doing things. You wanna be a ramper, apply, get trained, work out some, and get-er-done, till then, just sit there and do as you are told.
Get a clue, your 8 months of airline service does not make you an expert.
PBR

Can you imagine if the ramper came up the stairs and started helping the pilots with their job.....to get the airplane out on time....I can see it now...some ramper plugging numbers in the FMS....Like any F/O wouldn't have a problem with that!

 

[flyby]

The letter is legit as far as I know. Supposedly it was distributed internally at Mesa but wasn't "private, company only info" for UA or Mesa.

So is it true as Johnnie O. says? It's so bad on the UA side and so good on the "non UA side" that guys are mostly leaving on the UA side? Or is it bad all around and he's just using that as an excuse?

I agree with your assertion. I can't believe there is more pilot attrition on the UA side because they're getting re-assigned more than the DL or US operation. In the end we are all back-stopped by the regulations. JO happily pushes every MESA pilot to the limit of the law.

This fantasy claim that the UA operation somehow puts more pressure on his pilots is what discredits him as a lying manipulative pig.

 

[Soverytired]

Mesa sucks...always will with JO at the helm...but not all of their performance shortfalls in the UAL system can be attributed to them alone.

I disagree.

Mesa entered this contract agreeing to meet the United targets under the United stipulations. The fact that Mesa was too dumb to realize that it wasn't do-able is the fault of Mesa, not United.

United has every legal right to tell Mesa to eat it. And United has already pocketed 30 million dollars that was supposed to be given back to Mesa because of (as I understand it) poor performance. . . . so I'd say United knwo what it was doing.

 

[Soverytired]

So is it true as Johnnie O. says? It's so bad on the UA side and so good on the "non UA side" that guys are mostly leaving on the UA side? Or is it bad all around and he's just using that as an excuse?

Operational performance at the "non UA side" is quite good. Quality of Life, however, is only slightly better than at the "UA side", and getting worse. For example, even at the "non-UA" side, schedules are:

* min days off for line holders (10 days, never more)
* min days off for reserves (8 days, never more, 6 on/2 off)
*Junior assignments out of domicile . . . a involuntary TDY for 28 days is not considered a "junior assignment" for the purposes of pay or inconvenience for the pilot, yet increasing amount of captains and first officers are being forced out of their "on paper" domicile.

And so forth. While the vast amount of f/o's leaving probably are from the United system, an increasing number are leaving the other systems as they see the handwriting on the wall . . . which is they're either going to be involuntarily dumped in to United systems due to pilot shortages, or they'll upgrade into United systems because that's where the openings are. Their QOL which is minimal now will go right down the toilet for 2-3 more years.

 

[ualdriver]

Operational performance at the "non UA side" is quite good. Quality of Life, however, is only slightly better than at the "UA side", and getting worse. For example, even at the "non-UA" side, schedules are:

* min days off for line holders (10 days, never more)
* min days off for reserves (8 days, never more, 6 on/2 off)
*Junior assignments out of domicile . . . a involuntary TDY for 28 days is not considered a "junior assignment" for the purposes of pay or inconvenience for the pilot, yet increasing amount of captains and first officers are being forced out of their "on paper" domicile.

And so forth. While the vast amount of f/o's leaving probably are from the United system, an increasing number are leaving the other systems as they see the handwriting on the wall . . . which is they're either going to be involuntarily dumped in to United systems due to pilot shortages, or they'll upgrade into United systems because that's where the openings are. Their QOL which is minimal now will go right down the toilet for 2-3 more years.

Wow. So they're so short staffed that every pilot on the property is getting a max of 10 days off, huh? No wonder guys aren't staying.

 

[CFIse]

This fantasy claim that the UA operation somehow puts more pressure on his pilots is what discredits him as a lying manipulative pig.

You can't argue that UAL's operation in ORD doesn't adversly affect pilot moral. Only on the most perfect of weather days does anything run on time, and in anything else flights get cancelled, people lose trips, get re-assigned all over the shop. Out of IAD there's all the fun of the New York airports. On a windless sunny afternoon Newark goes down the tubes, and it doesn't take much more for LGA to follow. Again, lost turns etc.

While that all happens in the other operations, it's not anything like at the same level as UAL.

Now you can argue, and probably will, that none of that is UALs fault and it's all Mesa's fault - but I'm not buying that. I regularly get pairings through ORD and think "no way is that going to go off without a hitch" and more often than not I'm right. UAL builds those schedules. It does it to all it's "regional partners", I once sat and watched every flight to a destination (all operated by SkyWest) from noon onwards slowly cancel (who knows what the passengers did, drive probably since the destination was pretty close in).

Ask any pilot who has flown in any other system - even US Air out of PHL, and let's face it, PHL is not exactly an airport that runs trouble free - and they were much happier even if they were flying for Mesa.

But I don't think any pilots are leaving Mesa BECAUSE of UAL, they're just leaving, and if UAL ran like a Swiss clock they'd be leaving anyway.

Sure - the whole letter has interesting motivations, including the possibility that it's a ploy to get planes for China. However it may just be a ploy to get UAL to get it's act together so Mesa can operate the contract at a profit. I mean in the end, for Mesa, a profitable UAL contract AND planes in China is better then one or the other.

 

[CFIse]

Wow. So they're so short staffed that every pilot on the property is getting a max of 10 days off, huh? No wonder guys aren't staying.

If that's what he said it's not what he meant, because it's not true.