Pinnacle was the bail out plan for many at Mesaba. Ask around, and you will see that the whole one seniority list idea was first heavily pushed through from the Mesaba side. SE and the Pinnacle union took it to avoid future potential "whipsaw" but the reality is they are all pushover, and Mesaba was running things from the get go. The result was that every single Mesaba pilot losing a Saab job was able to come over to a Pinnacle RJ, and almost all Captains were able to retain Captain seats. No Mesaba furloughs occured last year as a result of the parking of the Saabs.
From the memo:
The Saab fleet is primed for parking, and the Q fleet may follow. There are two ways to fix this: one is internal, the other external. The internal things include fuel, mx, and labor. You can't change fuel and maintenance, but you can change labor costs. I, as a CRJ-200 pilot, will NOT take a paycut to make turboprop flying more profitable for Colgan/Mesaba! The external is if United/Continental agree to better financial terms and rates. That's most likely not happening, they can probably get away with the same costs at another carrier like Commutair. The Saab fleet will most likely be gone, and the pilots will have nowhere to go. The staffing situation has been corrected for the most part, and no longer will Pinnacle be the welfare of Mesaba or Colgan pilots. Once the Saab fleet is parked, we will furlough. Worse case would be if we lose the United/Continental Q flying, there would be even more furloughs then.
When that happens, the contract would force seniority in order (inverse) for layoffs. But one of the reasons we are in a world of hurt is because of increased training costs from everyone and their mother bidding across certificates. If you furlough in inverse order, you would actually end up furloughing Pinnacle pilots at JFK along with Colgan FOs. It is NOT acceptable for Pinnacle pilots to take yet another hit for someone else's losses! I don't care if it's one list or not.
Best case scenario would be furloughing out of seniority order, allowing those positions to be furloughed in a fashion that would be the case if there were still three separate lists. Once 9E declares BK, they can make a good case to file motion 1113e and force us concessions. On top of that, if they explain to the judge the re-training costs associated with furloughing the bottom only, and then having to retrain all Colgan captains and many FOs to other jet positions, it would cost the company too much and available cash flow can't afford it. The judge could easily grant the company the right to furlough out of seniority order, and furlough only those on the Saabs.
Menke's memo also states "We had assumed that the arbitrator’s ruling last year would put fences in place between the three pilot groups in order to protect the company from exceedingly high levels of training activity until the operations were combined. However, the award did not include such fences." The fact that Bloch didn't include those fences of each group to itself until the integration/merger was complete has really hurt this company. 9 people (total, each airlines merger committee) have completely wrecked the future of this company. These pilots could not work out their differences, wouldn't budge, and all agreed to settle upon binding arbitration which ended up going South, real fast!
ALPA's decisions of pushing through one-list as quickly as they did has really screwed up this company. The lack of "jump across certificate" fences from the Bloch award has cost this company dearly, with pilots being awarded positions that aren't even ready yet with the merger and integration. Compass was sold off the same time as Mesaba, yet, TSA Holdings has all 3 separate: GoJets, TSA, and Compass. I will not go into the history of GoJets for this topic, but the end result is all three are union carriers, and all 3 are well aware of potential whipsaw issues. None have one list! This weakened economy of 2010-2012 was NOT the time to fight for a one list to prevent a whipsaw! GoJets, TSA, and Compass are all making money. Today, the same cannot be said for Pinnacle. The integration plans and the SLI with its Bloch-isms will bankrupt this company.
So thank you, ALPA, and your fearless merger committee memebers for forcing us to be where we are today! We should have waited on the idea of one-list until the economy turned around, until our conditions improved. But Mesaba needed to make sure their pilots had a place to go, and they got the 9E union to string along (which back then was mostly pushoever anyway).
VOTE NO ON THE UPCOMING 5% WAGE CONCESSION PACKAGE! Don't let those lifers in the union tell you anything otherwise. It's insane that they are considering roadshows to explain a concessionary package! There is absolutely NO reason to vote yes on ANY wage cuts. Never in airline history has there been a case where one certain percentage of wage cuts as concessions was able to keep an airline out of bankruptcy. They all filed later at some point, and employees went in for round #2 of paycuts. JUST ASK COMAIR PILOTS!
VOTE NO! And thank you ALPA for screwing this place up with your pre-mature decision to push through one list and decision to use binding arbitration.
From the memo:
The Saab fleet is primed for parking, and the Q fleet may follow. There are two ways to fix this: one is internal, the other external. The internal things include fuel, mx, and labor. You can't change fuel and maintenance, but you can change labor costs. I, as a CRJ-200 pilot, will NOT take a paycut to make turboprop flying more profitable for Colgan/Mesaba! The external is if United/Continental agree to better financial terms and rates. That's most likely not happening, they can probably get away with the same costs at another carrier like Commutair. The Saab fleet will most likely be gone, and the pilots will have nowhere to go. The staffing situation has been corrected for the most part, and no longer will Pinnacle be the welfare of Mesaba or Colgan pilots. Once the Saab fleet is parked, we will furlough. Worse case would be if we lose the United/Continental Q flying, there would be even more furloughs then.
When that happens, the contract would force seniority in order (inverse) for layoffs. But one of the reasons we are in a world of hurt is because of increased training costs from everyone and their mother bidding across certificates. If you furlough in inverse order, you would actually end up furloughing Pinnacle pilots at JFK along with Colgan FOs. It is NOT acceptable for Pinnacle pilots to take yet another hit for someone else's losses! I don't care if it's one list or not.
Best case scenario would be furloughing out of seniority order, allowing those positions to be furloughed in a fashion that would be the case if there were still three separate lists. Once 9E declares BK, they can make a good case to file motion 1113e and force us concessions. On top of that, if they explain to the judge the re-training costs associated with furloughing the bottom only, and then having to retrain all Colgan captains and many FOs to other jet positions, it would cost the company too much and available cash flow can't afford it. The judge could easily grant the company the right to furlough out of seniority order, and furlough only those on the Saabs.
Menke's memo also states "We had assumed that the arbitrator’s ruling last year would put fences in place between the three pilot groups in order to protect the company from exceedingly high levels of training activity until the operations were combined. However, the award did not include such fences." The fact that Bloch didn't include those fences of each group to itself until the integration/merger was complete has really hurt this company. 9 people (total, each airlines merger committee) have completely wrecked the future of this company. These pilots could not work out their differences, wouldn't budge, and all agreed to settle upon binding arbitration which ended up going South, real fast!
ALPA's decisions of pushing through one-list as quickly as they did has really screwed up this company. The lack of "jump across certificate" fences from the Bloch award has cost this company dearly, with pilots being awarded positions that aren't even ready yet with the merger and integration. Compass was sold off the same time as Mesaba, yet, TSA Holdings has all 3 separate: GoJets, TSA, and Compass. I will not go into the history of GoJets for this topic, but the end result is all three are union carriers, and all 3 are well aware of potential whipsaw issues. None have one list! This weakened economy of 2010-2012 was NOT the time to fight for a one list to prevent a whipsaw! GoJets, TSA, and Compass are all making money. Today, the same cannot be said for Pinnacle. The integration plans and the SLI with its Bloch-isms will bankrupt this company.
So thank you, ALPA, and your fearless merger committee memebers for forcing us to be where we are today! We should have waited on the idea of one-list until the economy turned around, until our conditions improved. But Mesaba needed to make sure their pilots had a place to go, and they got the 9E union to string along (which back then was mostly pushoever anyway).
VOTE NO ON THE UPCOMING 5% WAGE CONCESSION PACKAGE! Don't let those lifers in the union tell you anything otherwise. It's insane that they are considering roadshows to explain a concessionary package! There is absolutely NO reason to vote yes on ANY wage cuts. Never in airline history has there been a case where one certain percentage of wage cuts as concessions was able to keep an airline out of bankruptcy. They all filed later at some point, and employees went in for round #2 of paycuts. JUST ASK COMAIR PILOTS!
VOTE NO! And thank you ALPA for screwing this place up with your pre-mature decision to push through one list and decision to use binding arbitration.
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