goldentrout said:PCL-128
This is not the 1930s/1940s.
There is no doubt ALPA has made significant improvements for the airline pilot profession since its inception.
However, you're argument about safety needs some support.
If I understand you correctly, you say regulation is needed to guarantee people's safety.
Has safety in the American airline industry gone down since deregulation? Hardly...it has remained stable or improved based on incidents per flying hours every year since deregulation.
When was the last major airline accident in the US. American up in New York about a year ago. Other than that (excluding 9/11), I can't remember the last major airline accident.
When was the last time a SWA jet was a smoking hole? Can't remember, if ever.
The argument that the airlines need to be regulated for safety is not supported by any factual data, and is more accurately refuted by safety stats since deregulation.
It is inherently self defeating for an airline to be unsafe, because customers would not fly on an airline that consistently crashed planes.
Your experience at Pinnacle, while horrible, is not the standard at the major or any of the national/large regional airlines in the US.
As for ATC...it is a transportation infrastructure control function, and is inherently governmental.
Flying people to business meetings and weddings and vacations is not an inherently governmental function. It should be done by a business...and in the USA, businesses compete on the open market and live or die by the competitiveness of their product.
SWA is living...UAL and the others are dying, some quicker than others...and that's what ALPA apparently refuses to deal with.
First off, my point of that post was not to say that safety is impossible without regulation. My point was that ALPA can be thanked for the safety guarantees we now have. That is why I referenced my experience at a non-union carrier (It wasn't Pinnacle by the way. Pinnacle has a great maint staff. It was my previous job) Without regulation or ALPA, the ailine has no one to hold them accountable for these things. And don't tell me the FAA looks into these things. It took them till 1 year after EAL went under to finally discover that EAL mechanics were doctoring logbooks to show that planes were fixed when in fact they weren't.
Don't get me wrong. I don't think reregulation is the only answer. I think that better mgmt is certainly another solution. In the 1970's airlines starting having guys like Frank Lorenzo and Mr. Icahn of TWA head their airlines. These men had no idea how to run an airline. And the guys running the show now don't either. That's the problem. We need people with airline experience with a successful track record to run these airlines. Instead, what happens? DAL hires a former Midway executive to head their new LCC. Midway failed terribly!! We keep going back to the same failures to run airlines. That's the problem here. If UAL's mgmt thought that the new pilot contract would bankrupt the company, why did they agree? I'll remind you that labor can't force mgmt to do anything. UAL mgmt agreed to the contract, and they should be held accountable. Pilots are not financial experts and aren't supposed to be. Airline mgmt is. They should know better.
I'm still not agreeing that labor pay is the cause of the problem. I'm just saying that if you think that it is, mgmt is the one responsible because they signed the dotted line on the contract. For the life of me, I can't understand how you can defend these morons running airlines.