A response from Eagle to ALPA: (posted on another board)
[The following is a draft version of a letter I intend to send to ALPA's Executive Board. Please send me your concurring or dissenting opinions so that I might incorporate your feedback into my final version.]
To the ALPA Executive Board --
John F. Kennedy once remarked that “a rising tide lifts all boats.” Given Captain Moak’s remarks in a recent letter to the American Eagle pilot group I question whether ALPA’s leadership is aware of this concept, and its inverse.
It appears from Captain Moak’s communiqué that ALPA is content to allow Regional Airline pilots to ‘wallow in the whipsaw’ and that ALPA leadership does not desire to lead the regional workgroups in a proactive fashion consistent with an upward trajectory. It is instead content to watch various Association pilot workgroups vie for each other’s flying. It only counsels the most conservative course of action when dealing with management (namely: accepting concessions and weakening hard-fought contracts).
This behavior certainly does not represent the best interest of the regional Pilot, but perversely, it also damages the worth of the mainline Pilot that ALPA seems so interested in representing.
In my opinion three very important shifts are about to play out in the air transport industry:
1) Vertical Integration: In a desperate attempt to keep “entry level” Part 121 pilot salaries as low as possible mainline management will try to provide the mirage of “cradle to grave” career progression with the philosophy of paying substandard wages earlier in the career with the potentially false promise of higher than average wages later.
2) Pilot Qualifications: No longer can any warm body serve as a First Officer on Part 121 flights and no longer are young men & women investing the time and treasure necessary to become pilots working for subsistence wages. It seems word has finally reached the public that new-hire positions in the regional airline industry are not worth the investment.
3) Monster Regional Jets: Passengers can’t tell the difference between an E175 and a 737. But the pilots can sure tell a difference in their paystubs. As “regional jets” grow larger more downward pressure is exerted on “mainline jet” pay.
Given only the above (and ignoring all the other positive signs for our industry) I should think ALPA’s national leadership would be very interested in protecting the value of mainline pilots, pilots who are only now beginning to claw their way back to deserved compensation and benefits, yet who still lag behind in purchasing power when compared to similarly skilled peers such as doctors and lawyers. And the best way to enhance the mainline Pilot’s worth is to correspondingly enhance the worth of regional Pilots (for only by enhancing the worth of regional employees will mainline negate the constant downward pressure that results in placing ever larger hulls at segregated regional carriers).
The qualifications to fly large transport category aircraft have changed and thus the worth of a Part 121 Apprentice Pilot has changed, yet ALPA’s valuation of a new-hire has not changed. ALPA must get out of the past and quickly capitalize on the market forces. Part 121 new-hires are worth more, but only if we demand it.
For these reasons, I urge ALPA Leadership to reconsider the policy of devaluing the regional airline career and immediately cease cheerleading as various regional ALPA work groups continually undercut each other in the vicious race to the bottom. This doesn't serve the regional Pilots ALPA represents, and long-term it damages and undercuts the mainline Pilots.
In Unity, and respectfully,
XXXXX
American Eagle LEC 121 Vice-Chair
