A proposed sick-out?

Doing 300 knots at 200' in an 800,000 pound moving building? You've probably done one too many low passes if you don't think it'd at least be interesting.
 
jtrain609 said:
Things ARE in fact fairly dire at a lot of regionals right now. Poorly run management groups have treated people like absolute crap for over a decade at this point, and with the stagnation that has occurred, you've got entire corporate cultures that have bred some very, very, very angry people.

Mainline carriers are eventually going to have to hire these people to fly their airplanes, and there is a developing chance that by outsourcing so much flying, for so long, to places that treat their employees so poorly, that you may have a bunch of people with regional airline PTSD moving forward.
Click to expand...

That's actually kinda funny. I described how one thing TOTALLY unrelated to Pinnacle that I had made relevant (my scheduling ring tone) still haunts me to this day. Friend said, sounds like you've got PTSD. It's a minor sympton, but it's on the list. Good news, at least I wasn't getting shot at and I don't have flashbacks. Does make watching any Star Wars movie made post 1981 difficult, though. Or at least watching it and not having my heart go racing and my BP jump every time a certain part of the score from the movie plays. Why? Because I knew there was about a week long amount of abuse that followed that ring tone. Fast forward years later, and I still have that reflexive reaction.

Or said another way, these mainline carriers might have poisioned their own cultures over the next 20 years as these people get into mainline jobs, but continue to expect to get beaten up by management, and will continue to want to burn the place down at the hint of any bad conduct by management.

Or maybe everybody will be happy and cash their huge paychecks. Who knows.
Click to expand...

It's also possible that we don't see as many advances in the industry pay and benefit wise because so many of the regional guys are happy to be out and treated like human beings rather than immigrant labor building a railroad (or World Cup stadiums). I know for me I was "You don't realize how bad it is! Why are you rocking the boat!" guy for about 6-12 months over here. If we didn't have glaring labor issues and some blatant misrepresentations by management, I'd probably still be that way.
 
Derg said:
Let me clarify that I'm completely sympathetic and understanding of the work conditions at the regionals, I wasn't born a mainline 320 captain. But you gotta do this stuff correctly or there will be a lot of shattered expectations at the end of the day.
Click to expand...

This. If you want to shake your hand at the sky and yell at God to "give me justice!", that's fine.

But there are forms to fill out first....in triplicate. Press hard, you're making many copies.

As a rule, watch out for single issue folks, those with suspiciously vague plans, or those with an unstated agenda. They tend to travel along a ballistic arc, and you really don't want to be in the zone of impact, wherever that may be.

Richman
 
Derg said:
Let me clarify that I'm completely sympathetic and understanding of the work conditions at the regionals, I wasn't born a mainline 320 captain. But you gotta do this stuff correctly or there will be a lot of shattered expectations at the end of the day.
Click to expand...

Not only shattered expectation, but in some cases shattered lives. I've seen families torn apart because a pilot wanted to be the big tough guy and got himself fired, then refused to take my advice or the attorney's advice to work out a settlement. Bankruptcy, house foreclosure, and divorce follow. It's ugly, and usually happens because the tough guys are just trying to impress the louder tough guys who didn't put themselves in the line of fire.
 
jtrain609 said:
Things ARE in fact fairly dire at a lot of regionals right now. Poorly run management groups have treated people like absolute crap for over a decade at this point, and with the stagnation that has occurred, you've got entire corporate cultures that have bred some very, very, very angry people.

Mainline carriers are eventually going to have to hire these people to fly their airplanes, and there is a developing chance that by outsourcing so much flying, for so long, to places that treat their employees so poorly, that you may have a bunch of people with regional airline PTSD moving forward.

Or said another way, these mainline carriers might have poisioned their own cultures over the next 20 years as these people get into mainline jobs, but continue to expect to get beaten up by management, and will continue to want to burn the place down at the hint of any bad conduct by management.

Or maybe everybody will be happy and cash their huge paychecks. Who knows.
Click to expand...

I have a lot of friends that have moved on lately and one of the first comments I've heard from every single one of them is something along the lines of "They treat us so nicely its like they actually want us to be here!"

One of those was even at USAirways back before the merger was even on the horizon and things weren't so good.
 
jtrain609 said:
Doing 300 knots at 200' in an 800,000 pound moving building? You've probably done one too many low passes if you don't think it'd at least be interesting.
Click to expand...

Nope, not really. I'm guessing my 'thrill' threshold is probably a little higher than most civilian pilots. Probably even higher than some military pilots, too.

300 knots is the normal cruise speed below 10K (and in the pattern) for both of the jets I have most of my time in. Hell, 300 knots is the gear speed in the F-15E. I can post my 683-knots-at-500-feet photo again -- now that was a thrill. Had several near-death experiences in Eagles and Talons down at low altitude, from nearly getting shot down by SAMs or AAA, to nearly missing getting my wing sliced off by a radio tower guy-wire, and many places in between, that made my adrenaline shoot through the roof -- those were definitely exciting. One of the Strike Eagle's main mission sets was low level flying; usually 500 feet and 420 knots, but sometimes faster. Even better: we often did it at night. "One too many low passes"? Yeah -- that was my job, except during my low passes, the bad guys were shooting at me, and at the end of that pass I got to drop a bomb and blow something up.

I suppose I'm fortunate that I know nothing I can do voluntarily in a transport-category airplane will ever match the types of excitement I've had flying military pointy-nosed jets for 17 years. I will never be able to go faster, roll faster, turn tighter, pitch higher, or climb further than I all ready have in military jets. I'll never again have the need to use all that great performance to employ weapons that destroy things at the other end...and that's okay by me. I know what I'm getting into when I step over to airline or corporate flying, and I'm well ready for it.

<shrug>

IMHO, that knowledge means I am not going to ever find myself tempted to do something stupid in an airliner to try and chase that high again.

I sure as hell wouldn't be willing to bet a career on it.
 
Last edited:
Hacker15e said:
IMHO, that knowledge means I am not going to ever find myself tempted to do something stupid in an airliner to try and chase that high again.

I sure as hell wouldn't be willing to bet a career on it.
Click to expand...

You'll find most guys at the airlines are like that, even with out having had the past experiences you've had. It's a job. You get paid to fly a plane a certain way and you damn well better do it that way. End of story. I get my thrills in life somewhere else (rappelling 300+ foot waterfalls or jumping off 40+ foot cliffs for now). There are a few guys out there who don't get that, but they are few and far between (and interestingly enough all of the ones I can think of right now are ex military pilots who think their "skill set" acquired on their former rides allows them to do stupid stuff in their current ride.
 
Good luck with this. Ask the Comair folks who legally struck back in the early 2000s how that worked out for them.
 
They were wholly owned. And as long as there are separate seniority lists and independent scope clauses that create competition, that risk will be present, especially for wholly owned carriers. But that is only as relevant as we make it. There are plenty of variables that can be traced back to a strike. It's a risk, even after the other side concedes.
 
pljenkins said:
We were inverted
Click to expand...
inverted.jpg
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top