Gulfstream International Files for Chapter 11

The wackjob that flew into the IRS building was flying a Piper product. We Cirrus guys get hated on enough around here.
Back to the topic at hand.........

Don't get me wrong SR22, didn't mean to offend you there. The cirrus and the Cessna 400, Formally the Lancair Columbia 400 are two bad arse airplanes, fly high and fast and do it efficiently with one engine! I love em. The guy that flew the cirrus into that building in Austin could have just have easily been flying a piper arrow and it would have made the same point. Any airplane can be used as a weapon. Just trying to drive home the cockpit door part.
 
I dislike the pilots more than I dislike the company. Let me explain:

The management team wanted to sell a product- x hrs of flt time for y thousand dollars. That's what every management team does- they try to sell their product. If nobody bought it, the product would come off the market and die a natural death. No harm, no foul. However, there are consumers (pilots) out there who do not value their skill set, and they have chosen to disgrace themselves (and by extension every other commercial pilot) by "PAYING to do a job". Offering their services for free (eg. charity) would be one thing. But to "pay to do a job" is spitting in all of our faces.

The GIA management did nothing wrong. They simply crated a product and marketed it. It's the pilots who decide to buy their product who damage the industry.

That comment is so frickin' shortsighted and naive; there are so many intangibles involved in the airline industry being in the toilet right now, and for the most part, it is within the business/management side of the spectrum that caused this to occur and not the employees of which pilots PAID or PAYING are not to blame. Ludicrious thought.

Seems to me if your premise held true, there'd more MORE PFJ out there allowing pilots to build hours especially when pilot jobs are hard to find. Companies should increase PFJ position AND lowering wages. All I see now is lower wages.
 
Three questions:

1. Are any of you Gulfstream or EagleJet FO's?

2. If so, what was your rationale for going against conventional wisdom and involving yourself with a program like this?

3. Google much? :)
 
Anyone know the connection between Eastern scabs and Gulfstream?

Me thinks something else even though I can't support it with solid facts, but I was told by an old timer that the industry took a turn for the worse when the pool of 121 pilots came primarily from entities OTHER than the military. (Just a comment from a retired Pan Am pilot)
 
Me thinks something else even though I can't support it with solid facts, but I was told by an old timer that the industry took a turn for the worse when the pool of 121 pilots came primarily from entities OTHER than the military. (Just a comment from a retired Pan Am pilot)

Nah, just that if you look at the list, a handful of EAL scabs formed Gulfstream.
 
Three questions:

1. Are any of you Gulfstream or EagleJet FO's?

2. If so, what was your rationale for going against conventional wisdom and involving yourself with a program like this?

3. Google much? :)

(1) No.

(2) Devil's advocate. . .the same "wisdom" for attending the academies. The perception of short term financial sacrifice for long term financial gain. Prior to the recession, for many, it worked or have I missed something?

(3) Googled but can't find "substantive" data that says pilots with PFJ experience have destroyed the industry.

. . .I'll keep looking though.

No disrespect intended but these types of comments are the same TYPES of comments I heard about AA/EO 30 years ago. Systemically speaking, it's bad, because. . .etc. etc.
 
That comment is so frickin' shortsighted and naive; there are so many intangibles involved in the airline industry being in the toilet right now, and for the most part, it is within the business/management side of the spectrum that caused this to occur and not the employees of which pilots PAID or PAYING are not to blame. Ludicrious thought.

How is it short sighted at all? Management's job is to maximize profit for the company. They aren't there to make sure some pilot types don't like/don't agree with what they do to make money. If they felt the pay to be SIC program was going to make them money, it was brilliant on their part. Clearly it didn't make them enough money, but it surely didn't cost the anything to do.
 
(1) No.

(2) Devil's advocate. . .the same "wisdom" for attending the academies. The perception of short term financial sacrifice for long term financial gain. Prior to the recession, for many, it worked or have I missed something?

(3) Googled but can't find "substantive" data that says pilots with PFJ experience have destroyed the industry.

. . .I'll keep looking though.

No disrespect intended but these types of comments are the same TYPES of comments I heard about AA/EO 30 years ago. Systemically speaking, it's bad, because. . .etc. etc.


I have a difficult time seeing how it is managments job to protect the profession of one of their most expensive labor types. If I'm managment I'm going full-on Lorenzo and hoping that I can break the unions and drive down costs for a long, long time. Or, I'm going full-on Kelleher and I'm giving just enough compensation and QOL/Work environment that I can keep long-term peace with my unions. Either way, I'm doing either of those things for my own ends - to provide maximum shareholder value - not because I care about the piloting profession in any way. To counter-balance this, I have ATN_Pilot and Jtrain and others that are fighting me. No matter what though, pilots have degraded the profession by taking the opportunities, not managment for offering them. Is it Lindsay Lohan's heroin dealer that is to blame for her problems, or is it LiLO?
 
"It has always been my view that the CAL scabs of 83 destroyed the profession more than any other group of pilots ever have. Sure, Lorenzo is evil, but the CAL scabs proved his business model and his idea that pilots will work for significantly less. PFJ is not good by any means but place blame where it belongs. As long as there are people lined up to take high responsibility jobs for very little pay you are going to have this. The allure of flying airplanes, for whatever reason, makes people fundamentally bad at personal economic math. Why would people borrow the outrageous sums they do to get a low paying job? Why would people spend what they do for their ratings (borrowed or not), then pay GIA for the privilege of doing work, so they could go to Colgan or Great Lakes for $19k annually? If you substituted "Flying" for "Work away from home on a boring job for food stamp wages" would you still pay for the privilege? None of this has ever made sense to me." Waco

They do it for the same reason football players do it, the potential to make a lot of money in the end for a lucky few. Now you could say that people play football for the fun of it but people also fly for the fun of it. The people I'm referring to are the individuals who spend 13 to 17 years paying for equipment, getting up early to practice, and staying late year after year for the chance that they will be able to one day play for the NFL. It's the same thing with flying, the potential is there if you meet the times, have the personalty, and get lucky.
 
I have a difficult time seeing how it is managments job to protect the profession of one of their most expensive labor types. If I'm managment I'm going full-on Lorenzo and hoping that I can break the unions and drive down costs for a long, long time. Or, I'm going full-on Kelleher and I'm giving just enough compensation and QOL/Work environment that I can keep long-term peace with my unions. Either way, I'm doing either of those things for my own ends - to provide maximum shareholder value - not because I care about the piloting profession in any way. To counter-balance this, I have ATN_Pilot and Jtrain and others that are fighting me. No matter what though, pilots have degraded the profession by taking the opportunities, not managment for offering them. Is it Lindsay Lohan's heroin dealer that is to blame for her problems, or is it LiLO?
:yeahthat:
 
I have a difficult time seeing how it is managments job to protect the profession of one of their most expensive labor types. If I'm managment I'm going full-on Lorenzo and hoping that I can break the unions and drive down costs for a long, long time. Or, I'm going full-on Kelleher and I'm giving just enough compensation and QOL/Work environment that I can keep long-term peace with my unions. Either way, I'm doing either of those things for my own ends - to provide maximum shareholder value - not because I care about the piloting profession in any way. To counter-balance this, I have ATN_Pilot and Jtrain and others that are fighting me. No matter what though, pilots have degraded the profession by taking the opportunities, not managment for offering them. Is it Lindsay Lohan's heroin dealer that is to blame for her problems, or is it LiLO?

Cmon now, I'm going to maximize income and minimize cost. That's a given. Break the union? I'm sorry but that's not my thought process. I'm with the Kelleher approach. Any problems with that?
 
Cmon now, I'm going to maximize income and minimize cost. That's a given. Break the union? I'm sorry but that's not my thought process. I'm with the Kelleher approach. Any problems with that?

No problem with that in any way - that's why I listed it as one of the ways to go. It is more difficult to pull off however because you have to at least appear genuine in your manner. It worked for Kelleher, but there is probably a reason most don't go that way even though he has laid the groundwork - it is more difficult and time consuming. Plus, you have to find the initial group to drink the Kool-Aid. But, if you can pull that off it is a wonderful strategy.
 
"It has always been my view that the CAL scabs of 83 destroyed the profession more than any other group of pilots ever have. Sure, Lorenzo is evil, but the CAL scabs proved his business model and his idea that pilots will work for significantly less. PFJ is not good by any means but place blame where it belongs. As long as there are people lined up to take high responsibility jobs for very little pay you are going to have this. The allure of flying airplanes, for whatever reason, makes people fundamentally bad at personal economic math. Why would people borrow the outrageous sums they do to get a low paying job? Why would people spend what they do for their ratings (borrowed or not), then pay GIA for the privilege of doing work, so they could go to Colgan or Great Lakes for $19k annually? If you substituted "Flying" for "Work away from home on a boring job for food stamp wages" would you still pay for the privilege? None of this has ever made sense to me." Waco

They do it for the same reason football players do it, the potential to make a lot of money in the end for a lucky few. Now you could say that people play football for the fun of it but people also fly for the fun of it. The people I'm referring to are the individuals who spend 13 to 17 years paying for equipment, getting up early to practice, and staying late year after year for the chance that they will be able to one day play for the NFL. It's the same thing with flying, the potential is there if you meet the times, have the personalty, and get lucky.

So, like professional football players, you're comparing "professionalism" to financial status? Generally speaking, I think people wanna work. The football "scabs" from years ago degraded the sport of professional football as well , huh? So, it does come down to money, huh? I'll keep that in mind should I ever decide to work the prostitution route for sex.:bandit: (No, I won't compare pilots to prostitutes either, but everybody's gotta eat.)
 
(2) Devil's advocate. . .the same "wisdom" for attending the academies. The perception of short term financial sacrifice for long term financial gain. Prior to the recession, for many, it worked or have I missed something?

See here's the thing... You are comparing apples and oranges but due to your outsiders view you don't even know it. I know you are just "asking questions" but after awhile it becomes pretty apparent that you don't even know what questions to ask.

A PFJ scheme like the one Gulfstream had run in the past is nothing like a student plunking money down at a flight academy in exchange for short term sacrifice and long term gains. The airplanes at a flight school aren't going to go anywhere unless a student needs to get in them to earn a rating or build time. The 1900s at GIA would be flying around with paying passengers in the back even if somebody wasn't paying to sit in the right seat. That airplane HAD to be up flying as passengers needed it. If nobody was paying for the right seat then the company would have to actually go out and hire somebody for the right seat.

I don't really like the idea of super low time "students" building time in a high performance aircraft like that, but during the hiring boom of 2007 and 2008 guys were doing the same thing in even higher performance aircraft like RJs. Except of course, they were being paid to do it instead of paying to be able to have the "experience".

Cmon now, I'm going to maximize income and minimize cost. That's a given. Break the union? I'm sorry but that's not my thought process. I'm with the Kelleher approach. Any problems with that?

What do you think one of the easiest ways to minimize costs (in the short term, which is all most CEOs care about right now) is?
 
So, like professional football players, you're comparing "professionalism" to financial status? Generally speaking, I think people wanna work. The football "scabs" from years ago degraded the sport of professional football as well , huh? So, it does come down to money, huh? I'll keep that in mind should I ever decide to work the prostitution route for sex.:bandit: (No, I won't compare pilots to prostitutes either, but everybody's gotta eat.)
The first paragraph was Waco's the second was mine. I'm not use to the new forum setup yet. I'm not sure how you arrived at professionalism compared to financial status as I never mentioned professionalism at all.
 
My God.

To the thread in general:

I can't believe in 2010, during a recession, some are still deadset on trying to justify giving a company $30K to play airline pilot for 500 hours.

And the business model, as we've seen with JetU and Gulfstream, does not work.

For the love of Jesus/Allah/DietyOfChoice/None, listen people.

PFJ = Assinine

period.

Hup Hup Hup... I don't care... If you can't get that thru your head, please stick to flightsim.
 
My God.

To the thread in general:

I can't believe in 2010, during a recession, some are still deadset on trying to justify giving a company $30K to play airline pilot for 500 hours.

And the business model, as we've seen with JetU and Gulfstream does not work.

For the love of Jesus/Allah/DietyOfChoice/None, listen people.

PFJ = Assinine

period.

Hup Hup Hup... I don't care... If you can get that thru your head, please stick to flightsim.

...and I'm the one coming off pain killers Mr. Cranky. :)
 
Not cranky, it just reminds me of when a parent tries to negotiate with a precocious 10 year old.

"Clean your room"

"Technically I already did"

"It's not clean enough. Go clean your room"

"By who's standard?"

Beat his ass, show him what time it is and then make him do it! :)
 
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