Is anyone really surprised by this? No. Regional pilots have been treated like scum for as long as I can remember and it's only getting worse. I agree. With consolidation in the industry there will be less and less need for subcontracted small lift. As contracts come up for renewel they will either be canceled or dramatically changed. Management, plus the mainline pilots have been shoving sheit down their throats for years. Why? Umm, because they can. Your companies do not own any flying. The seats are bought by the mainline company who pays for all advertising, marketing, distribution etc. Really no difference between other subcontracted services such as catering, fueling, mx etc. You are no more an employee of the major your affiliated with then those employees. Apparently because regional pilots fly small planes and mainline pilots fly big planes. Thats the only difference I can come up with between the pilot groups. I mean we all know that flying a big a jet with over 100 seats is WAY different than flying one with under 100 seats. Those big jets are much more difficult to learn and handle. Most of us know that, but it is still fun getting y'all all spooled up over it. It's beyond the capabilities of most regional pilots. Oh and hey rj guys, don't forget to thank your friendly neighborhood mainline pilot for giving scope away as if it were water, dooming 70% of the regional pilot workforce to spend their entire careers for chump change in a crappy rj.Don't worry the heyday of the rj is quickly coming to an end. My suggestion is get the old resume ready, if you have not finished the degree do it and be ready for when the hiring begins in 2013 or so.[/QUOTE]
Good luck.
It amazes me how many people here are constantly confused by my intentions. Cobraair, do you think I am in support of the regional industry? By your response it would seem so. Make no mistake, I wish the regional industry would die!! Die a quick death!! If you fly an aircraft with Continental painted on the side, you damn well ought a be a CAL pilot! Same for every other carrier out there. But no! Mainline pilots refuse to create a pay structure for those rj's that the pukes in management can accept, in order to keep all the flying in house. So they give up scope and what do we have, a bunch of bottom feeding regional airlines flying half of the country's departures.
I mean think about it. How many mainline pilots would be flying FO in an rj if all the flying were to be brought in house. Actually none since it would be done by the guys currently sitting in the right seat of an rj, but let me continue. I will use AA as an example since they really only have one regional airline flying for them (the 10 AC that CHQ fly for them are a drop in the bucket). 2800 pilots at Eagle, 1400 of them FO's at Eagle. Add the 2800 Eagle pilots to the 9000 AA pilots and you have a workforce of nearly 12,000. All but 1400 (12%) of them would be either rj captains earning a livable wage, albeit barely, and the rest would be flying MD80 or larger at current rates. Whats so hard to understand about this?
You may say how can this be done when you have mainline pilots on furlough. Well only 2 airlines have any considerable number on furlough anyway, AA and UAL. You don't allow any pilot currently flying an rj to move up to anything that is currently flown by mainline until all furloughs are brought back. Or you allow the furloughed guy to take an rj CA seat as they come available. There are many things that can be done to bring all the flying under one fold but it will take hard work that most of the mainline guys don't want to be bothered with. So we will continue to hear them bitch and moan about rj's.
