To all the Fracs

[Ragtime67]

This is for those of you working at any of the FRAC's. I've been on the outside looking in but I can read the writing on the wall.You guys and gals at NETJETS are going to get your ass's handed to you, but you asked for it.Why do you even have a union? do they even give a rip about you?.Your MEC doesn't even have a clue.You as a pilot group have the biggest threat to the company, you can walk.Trust me, you wont walk for long.When some fat cats wife has to go from Newark to Boca on a 25 year old Be90 with a single pilot who can barely get a medical they will put pressure on the company to give you what you want.When Tiger Woods has to airline or God forbid drive to his next event he will put pressure on the company to give you what you want.You say the owners don't care? let them deal with the inconvienance of finding their own way just once and you will get what you want.If you don't get the right contract you can only blame yourselves.Please tell me you did not TA this RCM or whatever you call it. If you did you just screwed the new hires.But then again why should you care,you'll work for peanuts as long as you get to keep your gateway privalage.How nobel of you,you've just turned the industry on its head.You're just the monkey in the cage playing in his own crap.I have no other way to put it.And you guys and gals at FLOPS, you're just set up to become the red headed step child of the industry. The companys going to take away your gateway and there's nothing you can do about it. You need a union yesterday.Not ALPA, all they care about is the Majors,Not Teamsters, they've done nothing at NETJETS.You should start your own, you can call it FRAC-U,I'm sure the meaning wouldn't be lost on management.But you wont, you'll just roll over so they can rub your belly,but thats all you'll get out of it.Like I said I'm on the outside looking in,so I don't exactly have my finger on the pulse of the industry.But I've read your threads,and I've spoken to some of you on the road,and I can read between the lines.The Marketing at your respective companys does a wonderfull job."Buy a share,you'll get well maintained practicly new jets and slave labor from your pilots". What a deal!!!. So this is from the ouside looking in,please don't sell out, you deserve more.I have a great deal of respect for what you do as pilots,bit if you screw this pooch you will loose a lot of respect industry wide.Put the demands on the table,tell the pinheads if they don't ratify it by such and such date the pilots will walk. Then stick to your guns.As the redneck comedian says "geterdone".Don't give up the gateways,don't give up benifits,and get your $.I don't think 60-70% increase over four years with COLA is out of reach.Even at that you'll be under the corporate average.Good luck,and say hey to the pinheads for me.

 

[Nightmare67]

Obvious Flame Bait...


I don't think I could go on if we lost YOUR respect.

 

[pilotyip]

lets see this might work

I am a frac owner, my plane is killing me. I was rolling in cash three years ago when I signed on, but how I want out. I can not get out because it is a contract, but the contract can be broken if NJ fails to deliver the service promised. So a little work slow down, a strike is exactly what I want to get out of the frac business. Go for it guys. Lots of other people want to rent me airplanes. Remember if you fly airplanes because you like to fly, this is not a bad career, but if you are in this for the money, you will probably be disappointed.

 

[Gulfstream 200]

pilotyip you are so far out of touch...

people are not looking to get out of thier quarter shares. Netjets is doing just fine and will continue to grow as the airlines continue to provide unacceptable service to anyone except WalMart shoppers.

Now...the pay situation and the prospects of making the fracs a career....thats another story..

As always....if you dont like your job, find another one.

 

[pilotyip]

read up

That was almost right from AW&ST about a year or so ago, about the problem the fracs were having with diving residual value on their hauls as the contract expired and how some frac owners were looking for ways to get out of their contracts. Use your college degree catch up on your reading. I know you are extremely well paid and pay is not an issue for you, but how long would your exec's put up with what is being proposed by ragtime 67 at the start of this tread. Not long. High rollers don't take much BS from their servants. Besides what are you doing on frac board you a corp guy

 

[Gulfstream 200]

well said!

 

[CatYaaak]

You say the owners don't care? let them deal with the inconvienance of finding their own way just once and you will get what you want.QUOTE]

The problem with what you suggest is the "owners" aren't a price-captive customer base like airline passengers who, if they want to fly, have to come back no matter how pissed-off they are, and your solution is an airline-union style one. Well-heeled pax (not the flip-flop crowd) pay the frac bills, and ultimately your salary. They left the airlines because of hassles and inconvenience...they could afford to. But likewise, they can afford to leave frac comanies for other options available to them; chartering or real ownership. Those choices are already the best ones when flying too little or too much for a frac contract to make economic sense, but your work stoppage just might drive your niche customers to re-evaluate the cost/benefit/service equation. A stoppage would certainly be remembered longer than the life of a service contract, and word gets around those circles, including to those thinking about signing their first one.

Reliability...showing up in the first place... is the foundation of service, and unfortunately a work stoppage/slowdown would be seen as organized, broad-swath unreliablilty by many of your current customers to whom time is money....and lots of it. They pay, and overpay, for the tax advantages compared to chartering, and corporation beancounters like frac operator contracts due to their ability to more accurately project costs over a 3 or 5 year period which is more difficult if they have their own flight department, but becoming unreliable pretty much outweighs those advantages.

And while a customer may agree that you're individually underpaid pilots, at the end of the day Tiger's schedule and Mr. Businessman's mission are far more important to Tiger and Mr. B or his company than your pay or your company's internal troubles. A strike is a function and tool of organized labor...tell me, how many of your frac passengers are members, and how many are either people in positions of hiring others, or entrepenuers?

They know you consented to the wage scale you're working for when you agreed to work there..and they know nobody's talking about cutting your pay. Now, if there was labor strife due to safety issues, no doubt they'd be demanding to know what was going and actually care. But wages?...they figure that if you're smart enough to be a pilot flying a jet, hopefully you must have been smart enough to figure something as basic as knowing if you could afford to go to work there. Salaries aren't top secret information to applicants, and they know you aren't indentured servants. They DON'T think you're as smart as they are in business matters, otherwise it would be you riding in back, and not just driving the taxi. Don't expect from them more than a sympathetic ear, or to sign onto your fight with management. Far easier for them to throw up their hands at you both, have their secretaries charter a Gulfstream, tell the attornies to find the contract-breaking clause, and begin looking around for options. That's the reality, they're smart enough to use them, and it's just business.

I think you all should be paid more and I'm not singing management's tune. But given who's inconvenienced/at risk to loses money (pax), using airline labouresque walk-out tactics, no matter how "righteous", would be counterproductive to your own jobs.

 

[Ragtime67]

It bothers me to see highly trained and qualified people playing dead to the top of the food chain while they sit in their lofty perches and say "let them eat cake". I thought the day of sweat shop employees was gone in this great country of ours. You people at NETJETS have been trying to get this thing done for five years. Wake Up!!! Those of us on the outside looking, in are pulling for you guys. You may be able to live without my individual respect, but do you really want to be labled "NETJET patsy"? You have the power to do somthing about this if you can get the pilot group on the same page. This so called contract could cause shock waves throughout the entire industry one way or the other. It will have a snow ball effect at the other fracs and even the airlines. I may not be a frac pilot,and thank God I'm in a position to shop around for a job. If you guys get this thing done NETJETS would be the envy of the industry. All I'm saying as a casual observer is don't roll over. If you don't like the companys proposel don't sighn it,then set a date ,as a group to have a viable contract on the table. Out of all the guys and gals that I have spoken to there,not a one of you considered walking as an option. Believe me the industry is watching this thing,you can change the whole buisness.

 

[Diesel]

You people at NETJETS have been trying to get this thing done for five years. Wake Up!!!

Five years? If your just observing at least get your facts right.

 

[FlyFlyFly]

Ragtime,

Are you missing teeth or something? Why 4300 hours and still in BeechProps? Sounds like NetJets chose not to hire your snaggletoothed butt and you are bitter about it. Go bother someone else, the rest of us have important work to do.