View from outside...

[lookup]

Okay, let me say up front that I have a limited view of the world when it comes to airline pilot lives. If it makes someone feel good by flaming me, then flame on. But what I want to do with this post is share some thoughts and perhaps get a better view of the world you guys (and gals) are struggling in. Had my high-tech job laid me off in early '01 I would be in the furlough trainwreck at AmEagle, but I lucked out and still have a decent high-tech job, but my heart is in the cockpit...

Anyway... on to my thoughts and questions...

I read with much interest and sadness the posts in the "Thank you DAL pilots" thread. The issues between DAL and the feeder lines sound just like the ones at AA and it's feeders. I talk at great length to my best friend at AE as well as the men and women of AA as I fly (as pax) for my "day job".

It seems to me that these issues are as complicated as the Isreal/Palestine conflict! I can't help but wonder how the industry ended up this way. Does corporate management bear 100% of the fault there...? maybe... Does ALPA/APA share in it? perhaps...

How is it that "main line" pilots and FAs feel so much resentment toward feeder peers of the same parent company? Don't the feeder crews directly contribute to the same parent company day in and day out? Don't they work crappy hours for really crappy pay just to "pay their dues". When (IF) they get hired by the main line, do they "magically" become a new person and get embraced by the "big boy club".?

How hard is it for main line crews to understand the economics of small/mid market lines and the need for low cost feeds into the large lines?

What would be so wrong with a fully integrated "list" with "B scales" for planes less than 100 seats on small/mid market lines?

It seems all these games that management plays to try to get around scope clauses and other union protections end up hurting everyone. Bottom line is the bottom line. As long as any of us (me included) work for a company that has stock, we are all second to the needs of the public stockholder.. That is just a fact of life. Upper management is taught in business school to lower costs to compete in price sensitive markets. Return on stock investment is the American mantra...

Let's play a game... Kind of like "can average joe prop pilot fly a 707 without killing anyone?"... instead, let's make it "can Joe pilot fly a full blow Airline in crisis..."

Me first...

Steps:
- fire most of the middle managers, make all management pay calibrated to corporate performance including customer satisfaction, employee satisfaction, and profits.
- fire anyone who thinks they "deserve to be there" and are no longer interested in building a company that is a great place to work for (and be a pax on)
- scrap all existing past union contracts, force integration of seperate unions between feeders and main line
- work with ALPA to create some thing that doesn't currently exist
- close the gap between the worst paid and the best paid crews (feeder probey pay is criminal! and 777 capt is pay is a joke the other way)
- incent crew/rampers/gate agents for performance
- create a system that allows the feeders to operate at low cost, develops small/mid markets, and develop team players to move to main line after some time in service.

Just some thoughts from the outside.... (constructive comments / ideas welcome) route flames to /dev/null (I will)

 

[FL000]

The reason everyone thinks there is such a big rift between mainline and feeders is that the vocal minority is so loud, while the silent majority makes no noise at all. Every encounter I have had with a mainline pilot, whether it is in my plane, their plane, or in the terminal, has been a pleasant one, even when the discussion gets political. I don't know where all these mainline pilots are that hate us. I haven't met a single one of them.

 

[Typhoon1244]

I agree completely that the ture sore@sses are in the minority. The fact that they are a very loud minority has made this issue particularly thorny.

What we have are (1) multiple pilots groups (2) with mutually-exclusive goals (3) under the same corporate "umbrella" (4) represented by a common union.

Leo Mullin--and everybody else who'd like to see ALPA disappear--must laugh himself silly every time he thinks about this situation. All they have to do is keep us at each others throats, and ALPA as we know it will disintegrate. I've had too many first officers ask me why we're paying dues to a labor union that is largely fighting against us. I don't have a good answer to that question.

Big airline management doesn't have to bust ALPA. We're going to bust ourselves....if we don't stop fighting amongst ourselves.

Who'd have thought that, after all these years, "small" jets built in Canada and Brazil would be ALPA's biggest challenge?

 

[LR25]

Once I was in the jumpseat going into CLT, on the arrival there was a Dash a 1K below us, one of the crew exclaimes, "Those poor bastards" while shaking his head as we did our 10 kt overtake on the Dash(it must have been a 200).

Anyway, they knew I was Piedmont, and if that was the only remark on the 1:45 min ride than I would have not even raised an eyebrow, but it wasnt, no biggie.

But my question is, where does the attitudes come from.

PDT and the other Wo's were keeping mianline on the level for a while. What gives?

 

[Typhoon1244]

Originally posted by LR25
...my question is, where [do these] attitudes come from?

Believe it or not, I have--on occasion--privately muttered disdainful comments about "clueless private pilots" in the vicinity. This is pretty stupid of me since I myself was a clueless private pilot not that long ago. (Now I'm a clueless ATP. )

C'mon, tell me you've never looked down at a Cherokee from your Dash Eight on a hot day and thought "those poor bastards..."

I guess it's just human nature to look down your nose at the little people after you move up to the next level. That doesn't make it right...I'm just saying it happens. Maybe I'll think about it a little more next time the situation arises.

 

[trainerjet]

BTW, there is also a vocal minority of regional pilots that speak just as loudly their disdain for their mainline counterparts.

This isn't a one-way street.

However, I do agree that it is a very small minority that is making all the noise.

 

[Typhoon1244]

...there is also a vocal minority of regional pilots that speak just as loudly their disdain for their mainline counterparts. This isn't a one-way street.

Very true...I meant to make that point earlier. It's been my experience that the loudest complainers are the ones right on the threshold between the two groups...that is, super-senior Connection pilots and super-junior mainline pilots.

The sad irony is that the reason I've heard so little animosity from mainline pilots during line operations lately is that the ones who were complaining so loudly are on furlough now.

 

[LR25]

Typhoon, I think I have to disagree with you comment.

I think I remember saying to myself when looking at an old ragged Beech 18, "Man, Im sure glad that I have progressed from those days of living in the FBO all week".

I dont think I ever said to myself, look at that sorry bastard flying that POS.

If anything, I would go up to the guy and shake his hand so I could climb all over his airplane and swap war stories.

I remember on a flight with PDT a CFI poked his head in the cockpit to ask a few questions when he was getting off the airplane. I answered his questions, and when he left I didnt say under my breath, that poor bastard doesnt have a chance.

See, I remember when I was really "that poor bastard" in the industry, long story short, it almost broke me a few times.

Maybe there are some pilots out there that need a little personal history lesson from there past.

You are right on one thing, human nature does tend to come to the surface than not.

You just never know that the guy flying the old Cherokee below you might be a WWII or Gulf War veteran out getting a Bi-Annual.

Think about it.

 

[Typhoon1244]

Typhoon, I think I have to disagree with you comment.

My comment was, essentially, that it's pretty stupid to "look down your nose" at someone in a "lesser" airplane than yours.

You disagree with that?

(Go back and re-read my post.)

 

[LR25]

from Typhoon
C'mon, tell me you've never looked down at a Cherokee from your Dash Eight on a hot day and thought "those poor bastards..."

Thats the comment I disaggree with.

You make it sound like everybody should share your ideal.

At some point in a carreer we have to let those feelings of inferior go.

All I was saying is, I find it to be alive and well. And like others have said, its a loud minority of the folks out there.

Im not trying to start a debate with you, just trying to come from a different angle with the light.

I think we both know what were getting at, but words on a screen are getting us twisted up as usual.

 

[Typhoon1244]

I think we both know what were getting at, but words on a screen are getting us twisted up as usual.

You're probably right, because we're saying the same things, but you're saying you disagree with me.

Here's what I think in a nutshell: making value judgements about pilots based on the size of the aircraft they're in is no better than judging people based on the color of their skin.

Having said that, I suspect that we've all done it--perhaps not out loud--on at least one occasion. I didn't say it was right...I'm just saying it's part of human nature.

The first--and last--time it happened to me was when I was a new Brasilia F/O holding short of the runway in Lafayette, Louisiana. I looked out and saw this 172 wobbling down the final in the Summer heat, and a thought swirled into my consciousness like bubbles in champagne: "oh, that is so beneath me now."

I didn't speak this thought out loud, and I squashed it immediately. It didn't take me more than a few seconds to consider that any number of events (an economic downturn, an ugly strike, etc.) could put me right back in that 172 before you can say "inflated ego."

I never thought that way again...but I think anyone who says that it's never happend to them is pulling my leg.

The trouble is that too many people make it to The Big Time (the majors), and allow their "that-is-so-beneath-me-now" attitude to blossom uncontrolled. It's by no means the heart of the Mainline vs. Regional issue...but it is part of it.