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Scope issues

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TurboS7

Well-known member
Joined
Nov 25, 2001
Posts
2,261
This came up on another thread and I would like to see how you guys feel about it. We are all familiar with scope issues pertaining to regional jets vs. mainline jets etc. What are your feeling about sub-service to another airline. Example: our company subserviced out 200 hours of flying per month last summer for a 6 month contract. That hurt us as a pilot group but worse it hurt us in that we lost some good customers due to poor service. The company said that there weren't the required crews for the equipment, but they didn't figure any pilot flying "overtime" or on their days off. We had a large contract out of Boston but we lost it to a foreign carrier under129 because it was all international business. This resulted in us parking a 737-800 and not hiring 12 more pilots that we would have. The world is getting smaller and why are we worried about scope with other U.S. carriers when other airlines from other countries are taking our jobs.
As for long term sub-service we as a pilot group feel bad about it but it is justified when the carrier wants to try out our type of aircraft. Also since we have more seats it provide's 22 extra seats for non-reving, which helps the commuters.
 
Well as you know the Bush administration appears to support cabotage, so the situation may become more relevant.

My guess is that we are all concerned about the pparts of the industry we fly in and simply we are not aware of the international flying situation.

For some reason the Delta pilots have not seemed to place a lot of emphasis on international code share. For some reason they appear to think it is more important to stop a CRJ from flying to Chattanooga, than it is a 777 flying to London, Rome, or Paris.

You ask a very reasonable question.
 
Code share the big picture

The major airlines have created a monster. Not just from the scope / pilot jobs perspective but for the business plan of the major airline involved.

With the current payment schedule to the code share partner, that is a per departure flat rate, the code share partner has no incentive to spend money or resources to improve service.

If I was running a code share partner airline I would not spend a nickel on anything thing I didn't have to. Low wages, not enough customer support personel the whole nine yards. No matter what I do my revenue is a fixed amount based on the number of segments I fly. My entire energy would be in cost control so as to maximize my profit.

If I only carry a 30% load factor all the better.

In the future the airlines and their code share partners will have to find a new formula to make this a more viable business arrangement.

"These are my principles." "If you don't like them I have others."
Groucho Marx
 
Try and take your good ol' USA license and take it to a EU country and try and get a job there. They will laugh you right back to the country you came from, the good ol' U.S.A. Try and get a job here for any of you low timers, they are not avialiable because EU guys are flying them for free. Just to take the JAR/UK written takes a semester course in a college-and it is a tough test.
 
UPS scope in Europe

UPS has some interesting stuff going on in Europe. We have a large, night, operation out of Cologne. There are some city pairs we are allowed to fly with American crews and others that are contracted out to a EU pilot service/airline called Star Air. Star flys UPS aircraft and are even trained in our sims in Louisville. For example, I have flown CGN to Oslo, Warsaw, and Copenhagen recently. On the other hand....any intra-German flying or England flying has to be done by Star. In fact, story is we had approval from the English government to serve Edinborough but the British Pilots Association got involved an had it "done away with". There is a lot of political stuff going on over there and I'm sure the EU pilots doing like us being there...I kinda don't blame them. On the other hand....a US company has come in and created jobs....would those jobs be there if it wasn't for UPS? Many of our pilots are pissed that we don't have better scope but, when it comes down to it, scope is trumped by local politics and local regulations. Do you think the EU unions or governments give a crap about our scope language? They don't care because they don't have to...it's another country.
 
Whoa

An American company came in and created jobs.

Do you think they may look at it as an American company came and took the small parcel business away from local companies.

Outside of the United States, how many countries do you think exist where the government owns at least a portion of the flag carrier. I know of a few where the commercial carrier was flown by the countries Air Force pilots.

Scope may protect, but, by its nature prohibits. Sometimes that is not a good thing.

When we leave our shores, things change. On the one hand, commercial aviation has changed immensly over the last 15 years, yet, just the fact that a Railway Labor Act covers much of aviation labor law says we are far from making the moves to get into this century
 

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