Eagle "thrown under the bus"? You decide.

mikecweb said:
Don't you fly one of those prop planes, sounds dangerous.
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Well, every once in a while you have to fly a prop plane, which, yes, is terrifying. But it happens so seldom that the risk is pretty well mitigated. I won't lie and claim that you won't have to worry about bed sores, though. That's a real threat.

Edit: The onesie protects against them, though. I'm trying to get permission for us to get a patch for "1 year jock-itch free".
 
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My favorite was when I was on the ramp and the door code was something where you had to press multiple buttons at once. Pretty much guaranteed your ass was walking all the way over to the jet bridge instead of just signing the code.
 
Boris Badenov said:
If I ever think again of going to regional to get that shiny 121 time, someone punch me in the face. Hard.
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Granted, I worked for a bottom feeder 135, and now I work for a lower tier regional (according to some, depending on how you want to define it), but my QOL and paycheck have improved, the former by a heck of a lot (even sitting reserve with 11 days off), the latter by not so much.

As for myself, a medevac job in the middle of nowhere, flying 200 hours a year, and topping out at 90K sounds like torture. Sure, I'd make it to 90 a lot faster if I did that, but I doubt I'd see much rise above that.

You look at the lay of the land, you take your chances, and 30 years from now we know if it worked or not.
 
TallFlyer said:
You look at the lay of the land, you take your chances, and 30 years from now we know if it worked or not.
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Oh, I was mostly being funny. Or what I conceived to be funny, anyway. It's a total crapshoot, any way you go. I might very well find myself pounding the pavement in 6 months after having flown a single engine aircraft for the last two years and not even "current" by the standards of many flight departments due to how little we fly. That said, while I'd almost certainly jump like a scalded cat if SWA called tomorrow, I can't really see giving up being for all intents and purposes retired at 37 to go play the hardcore FFD musical-chairs-with-a-gun-to-your-head game. Not that I don't understand the attraction, mind you, and I'm certainly not (seriously) slagging on anyone else's choices. To each their own, and all of that.
 
Boris Badenov said:
Oh, I was mostly being funny. Or what I conceived to be funny, anyway. It's a total crapshoot, any way you go. I might very well find myself pounding the pavement in 6 months after having flown a single engine aircraft for the last two years and not even "current" by the standards of many flight departments due to how little we fly. That said, while I'd almost certainly jump like a scalded cat if SWA called tomorrow, I can't really see giving up being for all intents and purposes retired at 37 to go play the hardcore FFD musical-chairs-with-a-gun-to-your-head game. Not that I don't understand the attraction, mind you, and I'm certainly not (seriously) slagging on anyone else's choices. To each their own, and all of that.
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Gotcha. At the same time, here I am at 35, doing it. It does kinda suck to fly with some guys that got hired at 21 and have been Captains for the last 4 years, but I'm adjusting. I don't envy them their debt loads though.

If I were ten years younger right now I'd be at someplace like SkyWest or Horizon in a heartbeat and just camp out.

Have you tried chatting with our "no college degree" friend from the other site? Seems like they may be doing some hiring in the future. A DC-9 would look good on you.
 
Maurus said:
Two different situations. Eagle is under bankruptcy, PSA is not. Not easy to retain a contract with the type of bankruptcy judge that AMR was working with.

Also the first round of negotiations for Eagle were with AMR. The second was with US Air management which in my opinion shouldn't be negotiating contracts until this merger stuff is taken care of with the DOJ.
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I get the BK judge and all of that... But it's even less easy to retain a contract when your pilots vote for a worse one. I dunno. If it comes to a vote, there's only one party you can blame. I'm not trying to throw stones, It just seems to me that I've seen an awful lot of chest-thumping from a group that voted for concessions the one time they were allowed to vote in recent history. The "Stop-The-Whipsaw" thing comes to mind.

My only point is that everyone likes to think that their pilot group "held the line." Nobody has. Eagle didn't, Pinnacle didn't, PSA probably won't, and most of the rest had sub-par contracts to begin with or have been in negotiations for almost a decade. (RAH) Sure, Eagle's MEC rejected a proposal. Why the heck would they accept one given the fact that their pilot group had so recently demonstrated a lack of voting strength?

Heck, I wouldn't want my own pilot group to have an opportunity to vote on concessions. The only reason we got a raise instead of a cut the last time was because the arbitrator ruled in our favor.

USMCmech said:
Also, Eagle is one of the higher paid regionals even after they gave up the concessions. PSA is one of the lower paid regionals and they are asking for even more concessions.
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I wasn't familiar with the exact numbers, so I looked at the payscales. Eagle and PSA are dead even on the FO side, with the only differences being the top out is a whole dollar higher at Eagle, and first year pay is two bucks more. It looks like Captain pay at Eagle is on average 3-4 dollars higher, but that's listed as an RJ-700 scale, while PSA's is for the -200's. Correct the rates for seat count differences between a -200 and a -700, and you get a different answer. But looking at the fleet types for each company, I'm not sure the payscale labeling is correct, so the CA pay at Eagle is likely a couple of bucks better. Not a huge margin, to say the least.
 
TallFlyer said:
Granted, I worked for a bottom feeder 135, and now I work for a lower tier regional (according to some, depending on how you want to define it), but my QOL and paycheck have improved, the former by a heck of a lot (even sitting reserve with 11 days off), the latter by not so much.
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Nice working for a place with an ALPA contract, eh?



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk - now Free
 
mikecweb said:
I wish I was happy with what I have, I won't squirt one but it's probably a dream job for a lot of people. It's not bigger airplanes it's more work rules and "stability". Oh and not answering stupid emails at 6am.
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Exactly why I like 121. My bosses have no idea who I am. The work is very routine, but also low stress. Everything that is not related to just flying the airplane is taken care of by others.

Yeah the pay isn't great and QOL sucks until you gain some seniority. But I'm quite enjoying my 4 days off.

Throw in the fact that (if you give yourself the required flexibility) you can get damn near anywhere on earth with your travel benefits, this can be a pretty sweet gig. Very easy to have a work to live attitude with this job.
 
pete2800 said:
I read this WHOLE thread, and I have one question.


Everyone keeps talking about how Eagle turned down the concessions, and now PSA needs to do the same.... but I seem to recall Eagle voting in a round of concessions not too long ago? Am I that far off, or is the collective regional airline memory that short?
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To better explain- Eagle took concessions under bankruptcy because it was either come up with a negotiated set of contractual concessions with the company- or let them abrogate our entire contract and leave us with absolutely nothing. No work rules, no defined pay rates, nada. We actually didn't do that bad, considering how bad it could have been. Then, the company came around, gave a bunch of flying to Skywest and Republic, and then said, "Hey, we're parking a bunch of Embraers. You guys are up for the next round of bigger airplanes, but only if you take on a B scale for all future Eagle pilots."

Read up on the history of 'B scales' at AMR and you'll see why the MEC threw that right back that them.

So now, to keep pressure on Eagle and everybody else, AMR has offered a crappy deal full of holes to PSA, hoping they'll bite, thereby making us feel like we missed some sort of opportunity while further depressing labor costs and bargaining leverage.

It's a giant crap sandwich, and we're all gonna take a bite.
 
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