Amerijet On Strike!

Baradium said:
As you said, it's an uneducated guess.

They can still make money that way since the normal COSTS also go away.

This is very important becuase you're putting pressure from multiple directions on the struck company. Increases in aircraft guage or frequency is a big deal from this perspective. Airlines also tend to let eachother buy discounted tickets. So while they might still be putting people on competitors, they are still making money doing so. This lets them run a strike much longer than they could otherwise.
Click to expand...

Gotcha...kind of. Although, while their costs go down, they would be absorbed by the carrier you would have to hire wouldn't they? I mean, if you hypothetically had $100 worth of freight, your costs to move that freight were $90, leaving you a $10 profit, I would imagine that you would now have to pay that $100 to another carrier because they would have $90 in cost to move the same weight, and they would also require a profit at least as good as yours...leaving the company that is being struck with all the admin expenses, and fixed overhead as well as lease payments for the planes and stuff. Not trying to be dense, just trying to understand. I also don't think that flying someone that was booked on Delta, then Delta strikes and I fly them on Air Tran as "flying struck work" if I am on a normal AirTran flight out of ATL or anywhere else. Hell, even if I am on a flight that Air Tran adds to compensate for the strike I don't view that as "struck work".
 
WacoFan said:
Gotcha...kind of. Although, while their costs go down, they would be absorbed by the carrier you would have to hire wouldn't they? I mean, if you hypothetically had $100 worth of freight, your costs to move that freight were $90, leaving you a $10 profit, I would imagine that you would now have to pay that $100 to another carrier because they would have $90 in cost to move the same weight, and they would also require a profit at least as good as yours...leaving the company that is being struck with all the admin expenses, and fixed overhead as well as lease payments for the planes and stuff.
Click to expand...

It's more like the $100 shipment costs $25 or $30 to move and the other carrier gives a discounted rate of $50 or less. So the struck carrier still makes a good amount of money.

Not trying to be dense, just trying to understand. I also don't think that flying someone that was booked on Delta, then Delta strikes and I fly them on Air Tran as "flying struck work" if I am on a normal AirTran flight out of ATL or anywhere else. Hell, even if I am on a flight that Air Tran adds to compensate for the strike I don't view that as "struck work".
Click to expand...

The rest of the industry does, so it's a good idea that you know this. When there's a strike going on you check and make sure your flight wasn't added after the fact. These days there's a phone number you can call to verify whether your flight is legitimate.

Not increasing capacity on the route will likely cause disruptions to the public, but that disruption of service is yet another point of area where a strike adds pressure. Customers put more pressure on the struck airline becuase they aren't getting around as easily.

So while you might think "an extra flight is good for my company" it is BAD for pilots overall since it causes a dramatic loss of effectiveness of any strike. This goes back to the large discounts airlines may give eachother as well.

Something you don't seem to be fully considering: during a strike airlines tend to be willing to "share the loss" somewhat to try to break the strike. If the strike is broken or the union settles for much less, it helps the other airlines' (your airline's!) negotiations later on. When comair went on strike even the nonunion skywest pilots refused to fly the struck work.

Back in the old days the airlines used to have a fund where they would literally all get together to pay for the costs incurred by a strike so that they had a better chance of breaking it. Strikes back then could go on for years easily because of this!
 
Baradium said:
The whole point of this is to avoid the company being struck from being able to get through the strike easier. Carrying any struck freight is counter to that. Every piece of freight you carry is a piece that isn't sitting there putting pressure on the company to end the strike.
Click to expand...


I slightly disagree. Amerijet probably has to pay twice as much to have another company carry their freight. Pressure is still being applied to the company through the strike. I used to work for a freight company that did a lot of "substitute" work. If a fedex feeder had a pilot call in sick, and they couldn't find a replacement crew, they'd call us and we'd cover their run. Companies lose a lot of money doing this, and it's completely unsustainable. It would be way cheaper in the long run for Amerijet to just give in to their pilots and give them all their demands and then some, rather than continuing to contract their work out through other companies.

Now, if for some reason Amerijet was paying the same price for another company to ship their stuff as it costs them to have their own pilots fly the cargo (which is extremely unlikley), then you could argue that the second company was undermining the Amerijet pilots.
 
The real problem is that Amerijet planes are still flying according to flight aware...

How many have crossed? Last I heard a couple days ago was 11 but Ive seen quite a few Amerijet flights on flight aware. Have more crossed?
 
Baradium said:
As you said, it's an uneducated guess.

They can still make money that way since the normal COSTS also go away.

This is very important becuase you're putting pressure from multiple directions on the struck company. Increases in aircraft guage or frequency is a big deal from this perspective. Airlines also tend to let eachother buy discounted tickets. So while they might still be putting people on competitors, they are still making money doing so. This lets them run a strike much longer than they could otherwise.
Click to expand...

Well, no matter what the definition, the chance that you will be able to escape the scab status is pretty small because chances are that if Amerijet contacts your company, you're gonna fly their routes.
 
nbv4 said:
I slightly disagree. Amerijet probably has to pay twice as much to have another company carry their freight. Pressure is still being applied to the company through the strike. =.
Click to expand...


Exactly. Frankly, I don't know what Amerijet is doing. They can't expect to keep this going any longer. They are just wasting time and money, especially against a pilot group that has nothing to lose. It's just amazing after watching that video that a 50 person pilot group would have ANY crossers. Sad.
 
Socal321 said:
Well, no matter what the definition, the chance that you will be able to escape the scab status is pretty small because chances are that if Amerijet contacts your company, you're gonna fly their routes.
Click to expand...

My situation is a bit differant. IBC flies already has scheduled runs to a couple of the same places Amerijet flies to. Kingston and Port-au-Prince come to mind. So if Amerijet wanted to send a few boxes on one of those trips all the way would have to do is contact IBC and pay us to ship them there.

Now let me explain why it would be difficult for someone in my situation to refuse to fly without getting fired.

When I show up in the morning half the plane is usually loaded, So they could have already loaded some Amerijet cargo in there without me knowing. Also they could wrap their boxes with IBC plastic or put them in IBC bags and I wouldnt know without actually opening the bags.

At this point the only way for me to know there is amerijet cargo on board would be for me to have the loaders unload the whole plane and reload it so I can watch, or wait for the paperwork to come and go through the airway bills.

Unloading half the plane would cause a bit of a problem and would be hard for me to explain to the bosses. Even if I spot an Amerijet airway bill, I wouldnt see it until the plane is closed up, W&B is done and we are starting engines. The cargo at this point is going, all I can do is suddenly become unfit to fly, and I am sure you can see how doing that at that stage of the game would probably get me fired.

So now you know where I am coming from.

In the end, we probably wont get any Amerijet freight because the volume they move is too much for us to carry. We could only carry a small amount in addition to what we already carry.

In other news, I am going to PAP tomorrow and I will bring a camera to take pictures of any scabs I see down there.
 
Baradium said:
It's more like the $100 shipment costs $25 or $30 to move and the other carrier gives a discounted rate of $50 or less. So the struck carrier still makes a good amount of money.



The rest of the industry does, so it's a good idea that you know this. When there's a strike going on you check and make sure your flight wasn't added after the fact. These days there's a phone number you can call to verify whether your flight is legitimate.

Not increasing capacity on the route will likely cause disruptions to the public, but that disruption of service is yet another point of area where a strike adds pressure. Customers put more pressure on the struck airline becuase they aren't getting around as easily.

So while you might think "an extra flight is good for my company" it is BAD for pilots overall since it causes a dramatic loss of effectiveness of any strike. This goes back to the large discounts airlines may give eachother as well.

Something you don't seem to be fully considering: during a strike airlines tend to be willing to "share the loss" somewhat to try to break the strike. If the strike is broken or the union settles for much less, it helps the other airlines' (your airline's!) negotiations later on. When comair went on strike even the nonunion skywest pilots refused to fly the struck work.

Back in the old days the airlines used to have a fund where they would literally all get together to pay for the costs incurred by a strike so that they had a better chance of breaking it. Strikes back then could go on for years easily because of this!
Click to expand...

Thank you for your perspective on this issue - still trying to figure out what is, and isn't, acceptable in these areas.
 
tonyw said:
I see it as similar to printing pictures of johns in the newspaper. The only thing is, instead of soliciting a hooker, the scabs are w---ing themselves out.
Click to expand...

:yeahthat:Must be my quarterly time of month...I am agreeing with Tony.
 
Socal321 said:
If that happens you will be a scab. Flying their cargo on their route.
Click to expand...

IBC already flies that route. It's entirely possible that the plane is filled with cargo that IBC would be flying down their even if AMJ wasn't on strike. Now, if IBC was to start flying extra sections to PAP to cover for the lack of AMJ flights then, yes, their pilots would be considered scabs.

Now, if there is AMJ cargo on that pre scheduled flight, well, technically yes, their pilots are scabbing as well, but they'd have to know the cargo was on board and still not make any effort to either have it removed or not fly the flight to fall into that status.
 
3enginejock said:
The real problem is that Amerijet planes are still flying according to flight aware...

How many have crossed? Last I heard a couple days ago was 11 but Ive seen quite a few Amerijet flights on flight aware. Have more crossed?
Click to expand...

Since the strike began 11 crossed, which included management. One flight operated empty last Friday and a crew from Aeroservices was hired to Part 91 ferry an empty airplane from Venezuela to Miami.

All flights operated for them by ABX have stopped, except for one trip operated by the ABX chief pilot and another management scab. One scab flight was chartered and operated by CargoJet of Canada.

That's it.
 
nbv4 said:
I slightly disagree. Amerijet probably has to pay twice as much to have another company carry their freight. Pressure is still being applied to the company through the strike. I used to work for a freight company that did a lot of "substitute" work. If a fedex feeder had a pilot call in sick, and they couldn't find a replacement crew, they'd call us and we'd cover their run. Companies lose a lot of money doing this, and it's completely unsustainable. It would be way cheaper in the long run for Amerijet to just give in to their pilots and give them all their demands and then some, rather than continuing to contract their work out through other companies.

Now, if for some reason Amerijet was paying the same price for another company to ship their stuff as it costs them to have their own pilots fly the cargo (which is extremely unlikley), then you could argue that the second company was undermining the Amerijet pilots.
Click to expand...

This is different than your substitute work, unless you're saying you were with a company that specialized in scab flying.

Striking is different han normal operations. Kind of like how most pilots won't have much of a problem starting a new route that their company is using to push a competitor out of a market but then we refuse to do the same thing during a strike. The companies might compete or charge eachother normally, but some companies have been known to add a little extra freight onto their flights if there is spare room for FREE to help the struck company out.

This thought process that you think amerijet is probably paying enough to not make it worth while does NOT excuse willingly helping them do it.
 
Socal321 said:
Well, no matter what the definition, the chance that you will be able to escape the scab status is pretty small because chances are that if Amerijet contacts your company, you're gonna fly their routes.
Click to expand...

As has been said before, if you add sections or capacity, it's definately a scab run. If it's a normal flight, you should pay attention and then if you see anything, don't take it. You aren't expected to pull it all off the airplane if it's all loaded to CHECK it. But if you see one before the door is shut and you're still at the gate...
 
Has anyone cross-checked the names of these scabs against former scabs to see if there are any two-fers?

I support the strike, and don't like scabs...but I will say this, if my name were already on the list I would probably do it again. I mean, walking the line on one strike isn't going to take you off the list...so what would be the point. So, for any Scabs that crossed the line again, it really shouldn't be a shock and they had little to gain by not scabbing.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top