Republic Abuses Flight Crews

[Beech_boy]

Commutair

Welcome to every day at CommutAir when I was there. When I was called regarding late departures because we needed to get something to eat, I was told there was plenty of time on the multi-hour sit for breakfast and lunch. (The sit started around 11am, 6+ hours into my duty day.)

Try the "food court" (ha) in Syracuse or Portland, ME, for 4 hours. And I had plenty of 16-hour duty days.

Sounds like pretty much every regional. Mine never even had food as a consideration. When a newhire dared to ask why we couldn't get breakfast included with more of our hotels, he was given a less-than-warm reception, by both management and his fellow pilots. Nice.


I'm jealous! :laugh: Ours in Boston was four chairs behind the gate podium, with a little Tensa-barrier around it that said "CommutAir Crew Area." Just before I left, we were upgraded to a windowless concrete 5x5 room with no heat and no chairs, though it did have a giant electrical transformer to keep it above freezing in there.


With very few exceptions, welcome to Regional world. Hope you get out quicker than I did.

Wow, I was just going to post this exact same thing about commutair. The only difference between when you were here and now is that it is way worse now. Many people, myself included, are only getting 8 days off a bid. They are bending every rule to make you fly longer and longer days. If you have a stand up that ends at 7AM that day is considered an "Off" day.

I have a hard time when I hear someone crying about how bad it is at republic.....the original posters should come fly for us

 

[Wanderlust]

Maybe the fact that the gal who used to answer the phones at the Local is now your Business Agent has something to do with that. I mean really, why wouldn't they abuse you?

Whozzat? Deanna?

 

[saab fixr]

atleast rev b shares the weath or do you fly for another reason stop whinning and go back to work!!
Republic as a group isnt perfect but in these times atleast you have a Job. Heres an idea if you dont like the rules LEAVE!! Im sure there are a lot of crew members that would love to keep that seat warm in your place.

 

[8HourPilot]

Just the truth here chief. I've been here long enough to see that goods and the bads...and for the record...I don't drink the cool aid....I just stress personal responsibility.

We find ourselves in situations of our own choosing.

Soooo how the koolaid tasting?

 

[Boatdrinks554]

think of scheduling like the family dog, if you let him up on the couch once, he will be there every morning. Fly the contract !

 

[CFI2766]

Seriously, why dump on this guy/gal for posting this? Does it make you feel better? Superior to the original poster?

We are airline pilots; no one is going to look out for us but ourselves.

 

[aewanabe]

Classy. Very professional to post this on Flightinfo. If you are that miserable, leave RJET and let one of the furloughed pilots that would be grateful to work again take your place. In the meantime, we can all work together with our union to get a better contract and be a part of the solution, not another whiner.

Why the hell would anyone leave their job right now because they're miserable? You only want kool-aid drinkers in your pilot group? That has got to be the number one BS cop-out response to rear its ugly, recurring head here on Flightinfo. Are you just that much in love with the Reverend since you got a 2-year upgrade on the 170?

The OP's post sounds like a grain of truth expanded with a healthy dose of exaggeration. My time at RAH included stays at Days Inns, Ramadas, Hiltons and Sheratons. I saw the nice joint crewroom in Philly's E gates, and walked past the nice COEX crewroom in CLE on my way to the broom closet. RAH definitely did NOT go out of its way to provide luxurious crew accomodations for the multiple 4-hour sits (LGA anyone??). If you want to fix it, fight for trip and duty rigs in this contract; if the mult-hour sits start costing the company serious money, you're going to see a lot less of them.

All of that having been said, being at JetBlue I have seen the following: 3-hour sits in PWM and AUS, rooms in Hiltons, Marriotts, Holiday Inns and Ramadas.... Some things never seem to change.

 

[knewhigher]

My worst day at Republic is still better than my best day at Mesa.

 

[100-1/2]

Um...wasn't republic one of the first alter ego's by schiitaqua to circumvent alpa and scope?

[Geico gecko voice] "A bottom feeder behaving like a bottom feeder...Brilliant!"

100-1/2

 

[olympus593]

Um...wasn't republic one of the first alter ego's by schiitaqua to circumvent alpa and scope?

[Geico gecko voice] "A bottom feeder behaving like a bottom feeder...Brilliant!"

100-1/2

That pretty funny!

 

[aewanabe]

Um...wasn't republic one of the first alter ego's by schiitaqua to circumvent alpa and scope?

[Geico gecko voice] "A bottom feeder behaving like a bottom feeder...Brilliant!"

100-1/2

Umm, no. Quick history lesson kids. Republic is both an airline and the overall holding company that operates Chautauqua, Shuttle America, and Republic Airways. The original Republic Airways was going to be a strictly non-union E145 operator after the original CHQ pilots told Bedford hell no to J4J back in 2002-2003.

The benevolent Reverend and his management team responded by posting a list of tail numbers that would be sent to Republic and furloughing a few CHQ pilots. During the ensuing fray, which was co-incident with section 6 negotiations, Chautauqua's EXCO agreed to J4J on the property and secured regional-industry leading scope, when not just Chautauqua but Republic Airways Holdings was bound by one pilot list. This in turn prevented a Freedom/Go-Jets type debacle when E170s started miraculously showing up on property a year later.

In 2003 not a single CHQ pilot believed we'd be flying 70-seaters any more than we thought NASA would out-source the Space Shuttle to us. Giving credit where it was due, however, the Reverend was looking to the future and suddenly we had a deal to fly 145s and 170s for UA. Oops, our agreement with AA and the APA's scope clause did not allow us to fly such heavy metal on the CHQ certificate, thus we needed another certificate. No problem, we'll just fire up Republic again. Oops, it's harder to start a certificate then we thought?? Cool, we'll just buy this tiny Saab operator called Shuttle America (who happens to be flying a bunch of ex-CHQ Saabs), integrate their pilots, dump the Saabs and presto, instant 170 operator.

However, management kept working on getting the Republic certificate running, because now DALPA's scope is capping this new shiny jet at 70 seats, and we want to fly a few for US Airways with 72 seats. So, certificate number 3 finally appears, and now the same holding company and pilot group is spread over 3 different groups. Us pilots seem to think it's strange to start a certificate with 4 airframes, until shady shenanigans ensue involving Doug Parker, Reverend Bedford, and some goats, and suddenly Mid-Atlantic ceases to exist and Republic is flying all sorts of E170s for US. (Ps, kudos to U-ALPA for allowing even MORE narrow-body jobs and jets off the property).

You're welcome for this brief lesson of one of the few scope victories ever for a regional pilot group (albeit one that viciously highlights the continued decline of mainline flying). Please return to your regularly scheduled mindless bashing.

 

[cldsfr79]

Hope non of you regional guys who can’t handle the sits applied to the fractionals. Sitting 3-5 hours in between flights is normal and so is working 10-14 hours; and try doing that day after day for 7 days. And there are no early shows or late shows. You are the show, and the company owns you all day long.

You guys are lucky that your company is attempting to be productive. Maybe they need to furlough some more.

Remember there are guys out there on the street who would kill to have your job and work those hours with no complaining.

 

[BoilerUP]

Hope non of you regional guys who can’t handle the sits applied to the fractionals. Sitting 3-5 hours in between flights is normal and so is working 10-14 hours; and try doing that day after day for 7 days. And there are no early shows or late shows. You are the show, and the company owns you all day long.

Comparing business aviation to airline flying (fractional to regional specifically) really is no comparison at all.

A 2-3 hour sit in a food court or 10x15' room with 20 people squeezed in is NOT the same as a 2-3 hour sit in your average FBO pilot lounge with big-screen satellite TV, wifi internet, free coffee and cookies, crew cars, and comfortable recliners to sit/nap in.

 

[kf4amu]

You guys are lucky that your company is attempting to be productive. Maybe they need to furlough some more.

You're missing the point. Sitting 3-5 hours is not productive.

This kind of scheduling max duty days basically provides free reserve coverage. You get 10 crews with 5 hours of extra sitting a day, thats 50 extra hours of reserve coverage the company doesnt have to pay for.

 

[30West]

Heres an idea if you dont like the rules LEAVE!! Im sure there are a lot of crew members that would love to keep that seat warm in your place.

Bingo!

Everything that is currently wrong with the industry, eloquently summed up in two sentences.