jetflyer said:
MANY ASA PILOTS think dragging out their negotiations and being kept FROZEN at their current rates might be in their best interests for the long term. What do you call this?
I can't believe they're looking out for their best interests so they won't SHRINK and can still get future aircraft!? The nerve! Unbelievable!
Sometimes I feel like some ASA pilots will only be happy if Comair is dismantled and all of Comair's planes go to ASA. Then they'll finally "THANK COMAIR FOR EVERYTHING THEY'VE DONE FOR THE INDUSTRY".
I was serious,
Jet
Jet, your whining is really going over the top. If you have 5,000 hours, I doubt you will ever see a furlough notice. My friends at Comair are not nearly as worried as you are because they know Comair is not going anywhere. As long as Delta has a CVG operation they need Comair. Comair's costs are low and were not significantly effected by your concessions. Your concessions were political - and it was sucessful. Your concessions broke up the alliance between two of the largest Delta Connection pilot groups.
Comair grew into flying that had been performed by ACA pilots, Delta pilots, ASA pilots and others. With the exception of a few Delta pilots, you did not see us whining on this board despite the fact that a third of C Concourse in ATL was lined up with CMR jets. To this day, I think Comair still has more junior Captains than ASA has.
ASA pilots do not allocate the flying, so I don't know why your whining to us. Go scream at Mesa, Gerald Grinstien, or Duane Woerth. Thanks to your union not allowing any of us to have scope we have a competitive race to the bottom.
BUT - our pay is so low that the cost per hour is negligible when compared to the cost of operating the airplane and fuel. No airline is going to allocate airplanes based on $4 an hour. Just as Jerry Atkin told our pilots who are worried that SkyWest will replace us - "The airplanes will go where there is operational need for the airplanes."
Proof of this can be found in the fact that ASA turned down concessions (when Barnette asked us to come out of section 6 negotiations) yet we still got the airplanes.
After your pilot groups little bit of predatory bargaining to scope some
growth at the expense of ASA, you dare to come here and whine when it did not work out? You say you are serious, but what you write is so silly that it has to be flame bait. If it is not flame bait you need to realize that predatory bargaining never works out. There is always another pilot group willing to stab you in the back - after all
you stabbed them first. ALPA National has a duty to stop this crap, but has forgot everything they learned about alter ego bargaining.
In the mean time, ASA pilots have done nothing. We have not had a TA presented to us for a vote. We have picketed and are going to picket again this weekend. If you would like to come down to the Great Georgia Airshow in Peachtree City we will gladly get you in a rotation, feed you and say thanks for your support. And the SkyWest pilots voted
"NO!" - with a pretty good margin. So
Comair Pilots are the only pilots included in your complaints that have voted for concessions for airplanes. Make no mistake about it, you were voting for
growth airplanes, with your pay contingent on certain fleet targets.
Along those lines, you will be glad to know that ASA's contract effort appears to be moving along better now that SkyWest owns us. There has been a house cleaning over at our General Offices which has removed many of the road blocks in our effort to reach an agreement.
So use that PIC time you gained at CMR to fill out applications, or if you did not upgrade in 5,000 hours after your instructing gig, try to get in an upgrade class fast. Either way you should have your head in the books, not on Flight Info.
~~~^~~/~ (Fins with the knife in his back)
