Well, what exactly was the initial reason being against Norwegian shuttle in the first place? It was the fear of a shady operation registered in one place, titled in another (if you will), crews under a Thailand contract, and sub-standard conditions compared to western airlines.
But now that they are offering American contracts, in full accordance with American labor laws, based at Fort Lauderdale, paying a rate they think will get American pilots to work for them, what's wrong with that? If the conditions or pay are truly substandard, no one will go there and the pay will have to come up.
There are plenty of widebody CAs in FLL/MIA flying at US carriers like Amerijet (767), Florida West, Centurion, and the other widebody cargo outfits out of Florida, and they all pay less than what Norwegian may offer. Add the other fact that guys for any number of reason(s) never get the call to fly for a legacy, are they supposed to just not accept any job in order to ensure Legacy pilots aren't harmed?
Sorry, but I can't get on the ALPA Armageddon boat of Norwegian anymore. Not since they are offering American-based jobs for American-certificated pilots.
And don't forget.... a lot of pilots here (through ALPA) were against my current employer. Lawsuits were filed. Huge petitions and screaming done in DC. It worked well enough to put my company under the citizenship test. It successfully delayed our launch from the initial target of 2005/2006 into Aug 2007.
Make no mistake. If ALPA pilots had it their way, my employer wouldn't have existed and I wouldn't even have a job. No, Virgin America wasn't a foreign airline. No, Branson wasn't going to create the next Delta here. No, it wasn't going to set up more foreign rich businessmen to start airlines in America. No, we weren't going to be foreign citizens working in the USA. Instead, we hired US pilots, with US certificates and medicals, US citizens, and earning US dollars, based in the USA. In fact, we became a safe haven for the tons of permanently furloughed pilots from ALPA carriers like Aloha, Midwest, and those airlines that went belly up in 2006-2008. Our payrates weren't great (pretty bad actually), but the market tanked 6 months after we started. Once it turned around, we did get pay raises. Our pay didn't hit legacy wages, but did fall competitively in the jetBlue-Spirit-Frontier-Allegiant-Sun Country LCC market rate. And in the end, we became a successful Major airline that caught the attention of one legacy airline that ended up buying us.
Happy ever after? Who knows. But if ALPA had it its way, we would have never been here.
When it comes to certain airlines, ALPA loves to scream them some bloody murder. I take the good ol step back and ask myself, "Is this something that basically affects only legacy pilots, especially widebody ones?" Once that musters a "yeah" I pretty much move on.
ME3 is a big-3 legacy airline threat. The other majors (Alaska/Virgin/jetBlue types) all codeshare with them. And why not? If someone has to get from Spokane, WA to Dubai, why not be able to buy a ticket on Alaska that moves them from GEG to SEA, and then connect to an EK 777 from SEA-DXB? This way both Emirates and Alaska profit from it. It's not like Alaska/Virgin/jetBlue types are going to Europe or the Middle East or Asia any time soon. So may as well let the airline codeshare and make money through connections. The ones that stand to lose are legacy widebody pilots. Since that doesn't apply to me, why should I be against something that directly profits my employer?
