If 9E's still around in 2015, it's gonna be a completely different airline than it was when I started 6+ years ago. When I started, it was just 50 seaters for NWA. Then we bought Colgan as a whipsaw to be used against us in contract negotiations. Then we got 16 -900s to fly for Delta. Than Colgan killed the whipsaw plan by voting in ALPA. Then we were shotgun wedding with Mesaba. Through ALL of that, I've seen some of the WORST management decisions and money handling that would make accountants cringe. A huge shell game with profits to hide the fact that contracts signed after 2008 were all, more or less, money losers. When we finally get a contract in place that brings us up to right about industry average, the shells weren't big enough to hide the losses anymore. Sure, when we were under a 1999 agreement, they had the financial ability to hide the losses. Now, with better pay, work rules and training costs, they couldn't hide it anymore, and now we are where we were pretty much destined to be the second Trenary signed the agreements with United and Delta.
We might be more expensive than GoJets, but I honestly doubt our pilot and labor costs are any more expensive than Skywest or ExpressJet's. It's our administrative costs and the extremely inefficient way things are run around here. We've got guys that were awarded class dates to be trained on aircraft weeks after those aircraft were to be parked. So, what happens now? Those guys are either paid monthly guarantee to sit home (which is what I'd be doing), stay in their current positions (thus making that position overstaffed) AND paid at the higher pay rate until each person junior to them is finished with training. For the pilots, this is all pretty fair. It's in the contract to protect us from being screwed. However, the company is still running things like we're under the old contract. Huge vacancies make no sense when you've got that contract language. Run smaller, more frequent vacancies to keep your costs low. Nope. They want everything already done on paper. It. Make. No. Sense. Unless management already has positions waiting for them at other companies and they need to finish destroying everyone else's livelihood first. This of course AFTER they take their 60 and 40% pay raises in addition to whatever golden parachute they have worked out.
I'm tired of seeing people here beat down and worried over where they'll be in 3 months, much less a year. I'm in the same boat myself. With no class date on the horizon and a potential merger with AMR heating up, I'm not guaranteed anything at jetBlue yet. I'm taking the stance that until I hear anything else, I'm still stuck at Pinnacle. Losing the -900s is going to hurt me....badly. See, those guys can't even bid the aircraft their currently flying thanks to the Bloch award. Everyone gets dumped on the -200 because Bloch didn't take into account the fact we weren't properly staffed at the time of the merger. I guess that's ANOTHER thing we can thank those wonderful "leaders" who are no longer here for. So, as a result, I'm staring at the very real possibility of being displaced to the right seat after nearly 7 years at the airline. Meanwhile, guys junior to me would stay CAs on the -900s in MSP, DTW and MEM. The only consolation is that the training backlog is going to be so MASSIVE, it's probable it will take them 6+ month just to get TO me after I get the displacement notice.
This doesn't even take into account the raking over the coals we're likely to get in bankruptcy. I'm hopeful an ALPA lawyer is going to go to bat for us with the contracts of the other airlines we're competing with for Delta flying and show in court that we AREN'T above industry average. We're right there with the rest of them. If we get that done, maybe we stand a fighting chance. Then again, the judge may be golf buddies with the Pinnacle execs, and we're screwed anyways. Either way, this isn't going to be pretty, and I hope everyone lands on their feet. We know management will. They've already seen to themselves.....