United reaching out to ALPA FFD Carriers

Pretty sad that they couldn't manage to setup extra capacity for this. They had to figure at least 8,000 or so people were gonna be sitting there hitting the site at the exact minute it opened.
 
bronco21016 said:
Pretty sad that they couldn't manage to setup extra capacity for this. They had to figure at least 8,000 or so people were gonna be sitting there hitting the site at the exact minute it opened.
Click to expand...

"Yeah, how dare you offer free food to 10,000 homeless people, you should have had enough to give 100,000 homeless people, you rat bastard!"

:rolleyes: No good deed goes unpunished.
 
ATN_Pilot said:
"Yeah, how dare you offer free food to 10,000 homeless people, you should have had enough to give 100,000 homeless people, you rat bastard!"

:rolleyes: No good deed goes unpunished.
Click to expand...

That's fair. I am being critical.

We don't know the whole story but on the surface it really looks like they made no plans for extra capacity for what was sure to be a pack of rats scraping for the last crumb.

Important to note I'm not saying give away more slots to this event for free. I'm saying setup the site to handle the traffic generated by registration which is something that would not have taken too much extra time.
 
Here is a new angle....
ATN_Pilot said:
Captain Heppner is running for ALPA President, but he's always been more of a trade unionist and "true believer" than a certain other administration, so I think this is genuine and not a bid for votes. Frankly, I don't think he needs to do much more than show up in order to get FFD votes over his competition.
Click to expand...

While Captain Heppner may be a true trade unionist as, Jay is taking advantage of mistakes in Herndon. It is not hard to see that ALPA national under Lee Moak has missed the bus with regards to the pilot shortage. ALPA national is solely focused on the threat posed by the Norwegian Airlines issue. ALPA has totally missed the boat on the pilot shortage and Jay Heppner is attempting to make a difference in that regard.

He is to be commended; Moak is definitely out to lunch at the regional pilot level.
 
bronco21016 said:
That's fair. I am being critical.

We don't know the whole story but on the surface it really looks like they made no plans for extra capacity for what was sure to be a pack of rats scraping for the last crumb.

Important to note I'm not saying give away more slots to this event for free. I'm saying setup the site to handle the traffic generated by registration which is something that would not have taken too much extra time.
Click to expand...
Don't act like you've been wronged, hell, an ALPA guy who helped organize this didn't even get to register and he was logged on 20 mins prior! Maybe you'll have to work at obtaining your next job instead of convientely walking into class one day. This is a great thing, no one should be critical about what United is trying to do, sucks how it went down but the effort by them should be recognized as only positive. I thought you were getting out of flying anyways?
 
Last edited:
I'm not at all acting like I've been wronged. I didn't even try to register after waiting like 15 minutes. I'm really not worried about it. I'm simply pointing out that there is no reason it should've crashed the entire ALPA site. Pretty much nothing was available on any part of the ALPA domain.

Honest question: do the other sites offering registration for job fairs suffer the same fate when registration opens? This is the first one I've tried registering for.
 
As far as having to work for my next job I'm aware of how the system works. You don't see me whining and crying that I have to fly Delta's passengers without a flow like many of my co-workers do you?
 
The ALPA Volunteers who came up with this idea knew at the point it entered their heads for this idea that demand would be very high for this type of event. They engaged the ALPA IT Department early on as well as looked at other options to host the registration portion of the event. As ALPA is a union with by-laws and policies, you can't just go to godaddy.com and ask them to design and host a website for this type of registration. You need to have requests for proposals, bidding timelines for these proposals, and then approval to get an outside vendor (I may be missing a few steps in that as well). As the ALPA Volunteers knew demand would be high, if they waited for these proposals to come back, they were concerned they would not have been able to have as many of the events that are being offered because the approval process to get an outside vendor for the registration process would have taken to long. So they would rather have more events first and worry about registration problems second. Not only that, but as the UAL ALPA MEC is footing the bill for this, the event would not have happened if money was going to be spent on an outside web hosting company instead of using the free ALPA support. Before anyone complains that it is the ALPA IT Department at fault here for this, they aren't. They have great systems in place with plenty of capacity. Just no one knew exactly where that capacity ended if they got a large number of hits all at once to support the membership. Now they know!

Further proof the ALPA Volunteers who are planning this knew there would be IT issues was in the communication sent out on July 2nd to the Fee For Departure ALPA MEC Chairs. That communication was distributed to a large number of pilots so, the bottom line is, the information was out there that IT problems were expected because of high demand.

The other portion to this is some are grumbling that a lottery system would have been a better way to go instead of first come, first serve. It isn't. There are numerous problems with that type of system, the first one being is guys/gals who have flow numbers to Delta or American would have sent an email to get placed in the lottery 'just in case', even though they have no desire to work at United That would have hurt the chances of those who want to work for United and attend this open house. There are other problems with the lottery system, but no need to bore everyone with more details on why it would not have been the best way to go. The one I mentioned was enough to quickly discard the lottery system as a viable way of registration for this event.

So that is what happened. I can assure everyone that the planning has been and will continue to be meticulous for this event. It hasn't been thrown together like some here may be suggesting. The ALPA Volunteers planning this event are going about this the most fair way to get as many folks at these events as possible.
 
Thank you @Seggy. I knew there was obviously a lot more to the story and I didn't realize there was such a process to do all of this IT stuff. I'll admit, I was too quick to judge.

Hopefully some lessons are learned and in the future things will work out better. For ALPA and myself.
 
Derg said:
Let me preface this by saying that I'm not a fan of Lee Moak.

However, how in the world is it national's concern about a possible pilot shortage?
Click to expand...


I believe in Capitalism and the invisible hand of the marketplace as described in 1776 by Adam Smith. The "invisible hand" at this time for the is working for the piloting profession. The excesses of the past decades have led to a dearth of pilots entering the profession and there is a scarcity of pilots willing to work for wages and conditions of employment as currently offered by the regional airline industry.

The industry is not responding as Adam Smith described with raising wages. The industry responds with lowering standards so as to increase supply and remove the shortage. Unions have the tide of the "invisible hand" working in their favor for the first time in my lifetime and they should not squander the opportunity to use market leverage in their favor.

The RAA is using all it's influence and political capital to change the rules and rig the game. Organized labor should not hesitate to use its leverage where it can.
 
Zapphod Beblebrox said:
I believe in Capitalism and the invisible hand of the marketplace as described in 1776 by Adam Smith. The "invisible hand" at this time for the is working for the piloting profession. The excesses of the past decades have led to a dearth of pilots entering the profession and there is a scarcity of pilots willing to work for wages and conditions of employment as currently offered by the regional airline industry.

The industry is not responding as Adam Smith described with raising wages. The industry responds with lowering standards so as to increase supply and remove the shortage. Unions have the tide of the "invisible hand" working in their favor for the first time in my lifetime and they should not squander the opportunity to use market leverage in their favor.

The RAA is using all it's influence and political capital to change the rules and rig the game. Organized labor should not hesitate to use its leverage where it can.
Click to expand...

This is such simplistic thinking that it's barely worth addressing. The pilot labor market is not purely subject to the "invisible hand," especially at the regional level. With things like the National Mediation Board, the Railway Labor Act, and and oil price instability, it's a lot more complicated than you understand it to be. YOU DON'T HAVE LEVERAGE!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top