I have forseen the future. First all of you netjets guys who have been waiting for resolution on a contract, the wait will continue for five years.
Meanwhile, the eclipse 500 hits the market. An aviation visionary buys 200 of them to start his air taxi network. A new lowering of the bar for all jet pilots. To staff these airplanes he needs pilots.....cheap pilots. Starting pay is going to be 18k a year. Captain pay tops out at 50k in year 15. Two year training contract. Benefits after one year of service. Right seat to be filled with young 200 hr pilots paying to be in the right seat. 200 hr. blocks to be purchased for only $9995. What a foot up in the aviation indusrty! The right seat deal promises an interview with "Eclipse One" the name of the new outfit, after you complete the 200 hr. right seat block, and reach 1000 hrs. of total time. The right seat program is a resounding success, long lines of rich kids just waiting for the opportunity to fly jets! SJS lives!
This new visionary sees an opportunity to bend over some green pilots and boy does he! All new hire captains will be on the "flex schedule". You get a guaranteed 8 days off a month! You can request days off but you won't likely get them. You don't need them anyway cause you're a team player. Suck it up for the company. The kool-Aid is out and the glasses are empty. In another ground breaking cost cutting vision, the CEO forsees that airlining to and from airplanes will be cost prohibitive. He strikes a deal with the CEO of JB Hunt and a couple other trucking companies. Jumpseating with OTR truckers will save this company A LOT of money, and the CEO's of the trucking companies get free rides on Eclipse One whenever they want. The new jumpseating arrangement is a resounding success. The stock flourishes, shareholders are happy.
The company flourishes so rapidly that more pilots are neded NOW! We can't have empty planes on the ramp. We need to fly them.
In an effort to find quality pilots Eclipse One turns to ERAU for some fresh meat; really fresh meat. ERAU has a lot of pull in the aviaton industry and a lot of eager pilots. ERAU comes out with a groundbreaking Eclipse 500 transition course. For only $9995 you get some CRM and E-500 sim time. This gives YOU the EDGE in the aviation market. There is a shortage of well trained pilots you know. The SJS'ers sign up in droves, the pipeline is flowing. A resounding success ERAU decides to make it part of the CAPT program. This makes the high quality E-500 training available to all pilots(with deep pockets).
In an effort to make ERAU grads employable at Eclipse One, ERAU petitions the FAA for an ATP blanket age and hours waiver for ERAU grads. It rationalizes that ERAU produces a superior product and shouldn't be held to the same exacting standards as regular pilots. The FAA in an effort to "promote" aviation agrees and now Eclipse One can man the left seat with 500 hr. top guns.
The program flourishes for awhile but eventually the air-taxi concept proves unworkable. Management miscalculated the demand for this product.
Then the twist. Warren Buffet sees a diamond in the rough. The network is there, the costs are containable, I'm gonna buy this sucker he thinks. He has a new vision for fractional ownership. "NetJets lite" Before anybody knows it he owns Eclipse One in a hostile takeover. Now people can buy a fraction at a fraction of the cost. His new NetJets lite attracts new short range customers- and he creates the first Hub and Spoke Fractional. Now NJA pilots are "Mainline" pilots. Quite a new title for these guys, and they should be proud. Still ,they think "show me the money", pay me what i'm worth. They still don't have a contract. Warren promises more money eith the mainline title, but that carrot keeps moving. All of the gateways are now "hubs". This will really cut down on those deadhead legs Warren thinks.
The regional jet of Fractional flying has arrived. The year is 2010.
Eclipse One pilots are elated. With the new flow through program, they get to fly those shiney citation X's and Falcon 2000's. They have arrived. Those NJA big bucks look pretty good from where they are sitting.
NJA pilots are furious, the contract still isn't done and that SOB WB just threw a wrench into all they have been working for. Back to the negotiating table. We can't have this group of bottom dwellers in our scope clause. This industry is a mess. Now the contract is slated for completion in the year 2015.
