KeroseneSnorter
Robust Member
- Joined
- Oct 26, 2003
- Posts
- 1,530
You boys are so pissed off at everyone that nobody is really looking at what is happening.
True, the problem started a long time ago....a lot farther back than you know. So far back I doubt that there is anyone left at mainline that was there! Back in the late 60's Allegheny pioneered (And I use the term loosly) the regional carriers, Prior to that if you flew with an airlines paint job you were with that airline.
But managment came to the pilots and told them that they were going to trade thier CV 580's in for nice shiny new DC-9's if they would only let them farm out the small airports that the 580's now serve. And not unlike now, they did, only now the 580's are 328's and the 9's are RJ's. Thus the disease was born, it was now possible to pit groups from the same company against each other and they have been doing it ever since.
You always have fun beating up on the big bad mainline boys, but the truth is, most of us would rather there be no wholly owned carriers at all.......it should be all one list. Flow thru that you like using as your battle cry is simply a different strain of the same disease, not a cure.
These RJ's should have been the cure to the problem, done right all rj's nationwide should have gone to the mainlines, and all W/O pilots should have been rolled into their parent companies. Had every airline held their original scope clauses from the early 70's of "No jet powered A/C anywhere but mainline" then we would not be having this discussion.
As it is, you have every tom dick and harry flying RJ's undercutting not only the mainlines but yourselves and the problem is a monster. It has now gotten so bad that the term RJ can now be applied to DC-9's and 717's. We are now flying mainline aircraft for turboprop rates nationwide. And the few high paid airline pilot left are too greedy to take a payscale that would work to be profitable, so we now have the haves.....and the never will haves.
Your average Citation or Beechjet driver now gets paid better than an airline pilot flying a 100 seater does, and only works 1/3 of the time.
What it comes down to is that we have the mainline MEC jerk-offs, fighting with the W/O MEC jerk-offs about all this crap, bickering about 20 seats this and gross weight that instead of confronting the core problem of the airlines being dissected like a science class frog.
Had scope at all carriers been completly held, you would now be an airline pilot flying an RJ with your bid in for the 75 or 73 or whatever your senority would hold next. Instead we are fighting about what job will be outsourced next.
Believe me, the feelings of the bottom half of the mainline pilot list is not well looked upon by the MEC half of the list, most of us came from the regionals and would love to see it changed. I fear we have traveled too far to ever salvage it now, especially when 70 and 90 seaters start going to the regionals. Which they are.
So feel free to get pissed and blame me for all your problems, I really don't care. But if we continue on this path, you can be sure you will never see that big airline paycheck in your career. The guys that retired a few years ago were the last of that breed. And Comair is not the model by which you want to base your career on, they are probably only another contract payscale raise away from being outsourced to the next lowest bidder.
Regards,
Former W/O pilot now Furloughed mainline whipping boy, and too disgusted to give a crap anymore.
True, the problem started a long time ago....a lot farther back than you know. So far back I doubt that there is anyone left at mainline that was there! Back in the late 60's Allegheny pioneered (And I use the term loosly) the regional carriers, Prior to that if you flew with an airlines paint job you were with that airline.
But managment came to the pilots and told them that they were going to trade thier CV 580's in for nice shiny new DC-9's if they would only let them farm out the small airports that the 580's now serve. And not unlike now, they did, only now the 580's are 328's and the 9's are RJ's. Thus the disease was born, it was now possible to pit groups from the same company against each other and they have been doing it ever since.
You always have fun beating up on the big bad mainline boys, but the truth is, most of us would rather there be no wholly owned carriers at all.......it should be all one list. Flow thru that you like using as your battle cry is simply a different strain of the same disease, not a cure.
These RJ's should have been the cure to the problem, done right all rj's nationwide should have gone to the mainlines, and all W/O pilots should have been rolled into their parent companies. Had every airline held their original scope clauses from the early 70's of "No jet powered A/C anywhere but mainline" then we would not be having this discussion.
As it is, you have every tom dick and harry flying RJ's undercutting not only the mainlines but yourselves and the problem is a monster. It has now gotten so bad that the term RJ can now be applied to DC-9's and 717's. We are now flying mainline aircraft for turboprop rates nationwide. And the few high paid airline pilot left are too greedy to take a payscale that would work to be profitable, so we now have the haves.....and the never will haves.
Your average Citation or Beechjet driver now gets paid better than an airline pilot flying a 100 seater does, and only works 1/3 of the time.
What it comes down to is that we have the mainline MEC jerk-offs, fighting with the W/O MEC jerk-offs about all this crap, bickering about 20 seats this and gross weight that instead of confronting the core problem of the airlines being dissected like a science class frog.
Had scope at all carriers been completly held, you would now be an airline pilot flying an RJ with your bid in for the 75 or 73 or whatever your senority would hold next. Instead we are fighting about what job will be outsourced next.
Believe me, the feelings of the bottom half of the mainline pilot list is not well looked upon by the MEC half of the list, most of us came from the regionals and would love to see it changed. I fear we have traveled too far to ever salvage it now, especially when 70 and 90 seaters start going to the regionals. Which they are.
So feel free to get pissed and blame me for all your problems, I really don't care. But if we continue on this path, you can be sure you will never see that big airline paycheck in your career. The guys that retired a few years ago were the last of that breed. And Comair is not the model by which you want to base your career on, they are probably only another contract payscale raise away from being outsourced to the next lowest bidder.
Regards,
Former W/O pilot now Furloughed mainline whipping boy, and too disgusted to give a crap anymore.
