NWA pilots offer to fly small jets - Interesting..

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What do you all think about the, for lack of a better twrm, "pickle" that ALPA gets in when it represents the interests of both mainline and regional pilot groups? In the sense that it's nearly impossible to please both?

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It's called a conflict of interest and is the foundation of the RJDC's lawsuit against ALPA.

http://www.rjdefense.com/

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Interesting. I'll look into that more. The reason I ask is that I've wondered how ALPA can do this type of representation.

For instance:

At AMR. American is represented by APA, American Eagle is ALPA. So you have ALPA supposedly fighting for the regional rights here.

But what about where ALPA represents the mainline and the regional (Continental, maybe?). It just seems an interesting position they put themselves in. Do this for mainline and not for regional, or vice versa. Is ALPA national's officers primarily mainline personnel, or a combination of mainline and regional? How to resolve this kind of pickle? Did scope begin this pickle problem or have any part in it?

[legit questions by me since my familiarity and knowlege of the union practices isn't, admittedly, all that up to speed]
 
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MikeD, without realizing it, you are opening up a can of worms larger than PFT!!

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I'm not really trying to, truthfully. I just began looking at some of this stuff, and being a military pilot who doesn't deal with or know union issues all that much, it sparked some questions.

I didn't realize anything could be more of a can of worms than PFT! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif
 
ALPA purports to represent its member groups equally but when dues are a percentage of a pilot's salary, ALPA knows where its bread is buttered. As you'll read on that site, restrictive scope at Delta was the catalyst for the RJDC suit; the lead players in the RJDC are senior captains at Comair and/or ASA who have no intentions of moving to a mainline carrier and thus, they want growth at their respective carriers unhindered by the contracts of other pilot groups at other companies (which is another ball of wax because Delta, Comair and ASA are one corporate entity).

I can't say I entirely agree with the RJDC because scope is the only thing keeping the industry from being 80% RJs, 20% mainline jets (I'm not opposed to that ratio per se, but to the junior league wages that presently go along with it). This is why I say that ALPA screwed the pooch; I believe in brand scope, in that all flying under a single brand should be flown by pilots on a single seniority list and paid on the same sliding scale. RJs would be just one more aircraft type in a company's fleet; new Capts and FOs would simply start out in RJs instead of 737s.
 
Re: NWA pilots offer to fly small jets - Interesti

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I can't say I entirely agree with the RJDC because scope is the only thing keeping the industry from being 80% RJs, 20% mainline jets (I'm not opposed to that ratio per se, but to the junior league wages that presently go along with it). This is why I say that ALPA screwed the pooch; I believe in brand scope, in that all flying under a single brand should be flown by pilots on a single seniority list and paid on the same sliding scale. RJs would be just one more aircraft type in a company's fleet; new Capts and FOs would simply start out in RJs instead of 737s.

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Yup. Comair and Delta pilots should be working together to get one list going but doubt either side sees it that way.

ALPA is in a unique position though. It's rare that these conflicts come up and if Comair wasn't represented by ALPA they wouldn't have been able to affect their strike/pay raise a few years back and bring first-year pilots up to a wage where first-year flight attendants now make less than them (as had been hte case previous to the strike).

Infighting is really what the problem is (pilots v. pilots) and management sure isn't going to do anything to stop it because it makes the pilot groups weak ...
 
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