Regional airlines cut costs at price of safety

[WacoFan]

Yeah, that might be a touchy subject for me.....I agree, on the whole. However, the problem is Pinnacle HASN'T been paying it's pilots properly.....for a long time. No, I'm not talking about pay rates....I'm talking about a paycheck being paid correctly and on time. Neither of which happen on a regular basis.
So I understand the premise of what's being said, it just gets old listening to some management-type espousing about how hard they have it and the little guy needs to understand. I call BS....the little guys have been getting pushed around far too long. Sorry, I am unsympathetic to the woes of management types.

Since we are bringing up old WacoFan screeds - I will remind you how every time Colgan management screwed up the payroll issue I would go on an extended rant about how inexplicably horrible it was and how if there is ever ANYTHING you screw up, it is not your employees paychecks. Called for CFO to be fired, etc. That is an inexcusable error.

 

[Screaming_Emu]

I've been avoiding reading this thread because I figured it would just turn into the usual "regionals suck" threads. But there have been some pretty good points made so far. I have a few things if like to add. My Internet isn't working, so this is being posted from my phone, so excuse any crazy autocorrect errors.

1) Before people get butt hurt about what I'm about to say, I want to preface it by saying that as pilots we aren't paid or treated at all the way we should be. BUT once you gain seniority, in most places it actually isn't that bad. Most of the people that rant about how bad regionals are, haven't worked at one. Instead they move from one job to the next, moving every year or two, living in FBOs because they are on call all the time. So many people focus in on first year pay, which absolutely does suck. And while not extravagant, second year pay is usually much better and you can live comfortably. Again, before people freak out, it should be much much higher with the level of responsibility we have. I'm not trying to say "look at me, I'm a baller RJ pilot!" Instead pointing out that I'm coming up on 5 years at my current place and I bought a house, drive a fun (but reasonably priced) car, and can afford to have the wife work part time so that we have more time to see each other.

The biggest downside to life at the regionals, in my opinion is the lack of consistency. Even with contracts, we are at the whim of our major airline partners. Look at what Delta has done to most of its regionals. They have all but closed the Comair base in CVG, and the PCL base in MEM. Only to move another airline into those bases, all of which fly the same airplane. This is all done on purpose. If you can get senior guys to quit, things get cheaper. Otherwise they will force lower costs on the company to force it into bankruptcy, or just create a new airline with all newhires and shift growth over to them.

2) For those who think management and labor need to be on the same side, I agree. However, the amount of waste and mismanagement you see on a daily basis makes you roll your eyes every time they talk of "being cost competitive." I want to be a good employee, I want to be able to say "I work for Expressjet!" and actually feel pride about the service that we provide. But I just can't. Every day at work is a battle. Things never happen the way they are supposed to. My domicile has been open for 2+ years and has been understaffed from the very beginning. They TDY people from other bases every day...which costs money. Yet every email or memo from the boss talks about being more cost competitive.

Then there is customer service. Last week I was taking over an airplane from a crew. One of the passengers deplaning didn't speak any English. Very nicely she asked me in German where she was to claim her gate checked bag. I surprised the hell out of her by answering her in German. She goes in to tell me that her daughter ordered her a wheelchair because she has a knee problem. I see an airserv employee walking away pushing an empty wheelchair while yacking away on her cell phone. I run up to her and tell her I have a passenger who needs a wheelchair. She says she needs to go to another gate and walks away. I go into the gate house to tell the gate agents. They tell me to have her WALK in and wait with them. Customer service is closer, so I lead here there. We wait 10 minutes while some nonrev tries to work something out. I finally leave her with a note explaIning what she needs because we were close to push time. Every day is like this. Whether it be fuel, getting rampers to park us, lav service, etc. Which leads me to my last point:

3)There have been some serious lapses in safety that have caused accidents, incidents, and fines over the last few years. They can be attributed to many things. Corporate penny pinching, crew inexperience, fatigue, etc. They really haven't been limited to the regional airlines. Our safety record has actually been pretty good. Especially considering how many more legs we operate in a day compared to mainline pilots. There can be only one explaination. Crews. When it comes down to it, from both an operational and safety standpoint, the buck stops with us. Whether it be with the power of the parking brake, or programs like ASAP, we are the ones who decide when enough is enough. Our companies will continue to push on us until the breaking point. Only then will it be no longer cost effective. Accidents are expensive.

 

[O&M]

Since we are bringing up old WacoFan screeds - I will remind you how every time Colgan management screwed up the payroll issue I would go on an extended rant about how inexplicably horrible it was and how if there is ever ANYTHING you screw up, it is not your employees paychecks. Called for CFO to be fired, etc. That is an inexcusable error.

No excuse? Really? You guys complain about the human factors of your job all the time. You think those factors don’t apply to the low or mid-level clerk processing your payroll? They get sick. They get tired. They have personal issues. But, unlike pilots, they don’t get to work behind a closed and locked door. There is not an entire legal or operational framework that governs the environment they work in. They don’t get to call in fatigued. They don’t get to ignore certain distractions. How often do you think their phone rings, or they get a new email or someone drops by to discuss something? How many mistakes do you think you would make if you had to deal with those things?

Consider also the added complication of the numerous and complex union rules that dictate pay; minimum guarantees, cancellation pay, block or better, trip and duty rigs, overtime/premium pay, sick pay, non-flight aircraft movement pay, training pay…the list goes on. And of course, no two pilots fly the exact same schedule, or get paid the same rate, etc. I worked in the airline industry for a dozen years, in both union and open shops. I never had a payroll problem. But the rules governing my pay didn’t take up 20 pages in a union contract or GOM, either.

And of course, the payroll clerk’s job is dependent on everyone else doing theirs correctly. The payroll clerk is simply the final link in a long daisy chain of events regarding your pay. If you forget to sign in/out, or if a scheduler makes forgets to update a flight record a mistake, or if a station agent puts in the wrong times, you’re going to have errors. Garbage in, garbage out.

Granted, if the problems are systemic, the CFO needs to be instituting controls. But unlike your jobs, changes don’t happen quickly nor are the results seen immediately. And, of course, whatever changes are made are probably going to cost money. Payroll departments have budget constraints too.

Don’t misunderstand; I am not defending or making excuses. I’m just pointing out that, just like yours, their job has unique and varied difficulties. If you want respect for the work you do, perhaps you should start respecting the work of others.

 

[Screaming_Emu]

If you want respect for the work you do, perhaps you should start respecting the work of others.

Says the guy with an obvious vendetta against pilots, especially unionized ones.

 

[WacoFan]

No excuse? Really? You guys complain about the human factors of your job all the time. You think those factors don’t apply to the low or mid-level clerk processing your payroll? They get sick. They get tired. They have personal issues. But, unlike pilots, they don’t get to work behind a closed and locked door. There is not an entire legal or operational framework that governs the environment they work in. They don’t get to call in fatigued. They don’t get to ignore certain distractions. How often do you think their phone rings, or they get a new email or someone drops by to discuss something? How many mistakes do you think you would make if you had to deal with those things?

Consider also the added complication of the numerous and complex union rules that dictate pay; minimum guarantees, cancellation pay, block or better, trip and duty rigs, overtime/premium pay, sick pay, non-flight aircraft movement pay, training pay…the list goes on. And of course, no two pilots fly the exact same schedule, or get paid the same rate, etc. I worked in the airline industry for a dozen years, in both union and open shops. I never had a payroll problem. But the rules governing my pay didn’t take up 20 pages in a union contract or GOM, either.

And of course, the payroll clerk’s job is dependent on everyone else doing theirs correctly. The payroll clerk is simply the final link in a long daisy chain of events regarding your pay. If you forget to sign in/out, or if a scheduler makes forgets to update a flight record a mistake, or if a station agent puts in the wrong times, you’re going to have errors. Garbage in, garbage out.

Granted, if the problems are systemic, the CFO needs to be instituting controls. But unlike your jobs, changes don’t happen quickly nor are the results seen immediately. And, of course, whatever changes are made are probably going to cost money. Payroll departments have budget constraints too.

Don’t misunderstand; I am not defending or making excuses. I’m just pointing out that, just like yours, their job has unique and varied difficulties. If you want respect for the work you do, perhaps you should start respecting the work of others.

Dude - I run businesses with many, many employees and tens of millions of sales per year. I DO NOT have a tolerance for a CFO that would Eff up payroll. When my people aren't getting paid because something got messed up - perhaps a clerk, perhaps something else - then the CFO's head needs to roll. Period. If I can't trust a CFO to get payroll correct...do I really need to listen to them about anything else? Paying your employees is fundamental. Nowhere did I say "fire a clerk". You fire the person in charge of the department that makes the mistake. I hold my employees to a very high standard - I expect a lot. I expect the most - close to perfection - from the senior-most executives and myself. I expect to reap the lions share of the rewards - but I accept a corresponding amount of the responsibility. Execs below me a proportionate amount but you get the picture. One missed payroll - the CFO is no longer my CFO. If Colgan/Pinnacle had any amount of business acumen it would have worked the same way. There is no room for debate on the issue.

 

[O&M]

Dude - I run businesses with many, many employees and tens of millions of sales per year. I DO NOT have a tolerance for a CFO that would Eff up payroll. When my people aren't getting paid because something got messed up - perhaps a clerk, perhaps something else - then the CFO's head needs to roll. Period. If I can't trust a CFO to get payroll correct...do I really need to listen to them about anything else? Paying your employees is fundamental. Nowhere did I say "fire a clerk". You fire the person in charge of the department that makes the mistake. I hold my employees to a very high standard - I expect a lot. I expect the most - close to perfection - from the senior-most executives and myself. I expect to reap the lions share of the rewards - but I accept a corresponding amount of the responsibility. Execs below me a proportionate amount but you get the picture. One missed payroll - the CFO is no longer my CFO. If Colgan/Pinnacle had any amount of business acumen it would have worked the same way. There is no room for debate on the issue.

I was talking about paycheck mistakes, not missed payrolls. I agree with you; there is no excuse for the latter.

As for the former, I ask you this: Do you, or whoever is responsible for payroll, have to deal with the complexities I described? Payroll is a fairly simple process when all your employees are either salaried or hourly. It's pretty easy to multiply a payrate by the number of hours on a timecard. But when you have many and varied employee groups, all covered by different labor contracts, each of which contains unique payroll provisions, I imagine that the process becomes considerably more involved. I didn't even get into the tax and withholding aspect of it.

As I said, in all my years as a salaried and hourly employee, I never had an incorrect paycheck. But at every place I worked, and most of them were considered reputable carriers, pilot payroll errors were commonplace. Again, I'm not defending it, but when it occurs industry wide, that suggests to me that the problem is just a bit bigger than an incompetent CFO.

 

[WacoFan]

I was talking about paycheck mistakes, not missed payrolls. I agree with you; there is no excuse for the latter.

As for the former, I ask you this: Do you, or whoever is responsible for payroll, have to deal with the complexities I described? Payroll is a fairly simple process when all your employees are either salaried or hourly. It's pretty easy to multiply a payrate by the number of hours on a timecard. But when you have many and varied employee groups, all covered by different labor contracts, each of which contains unique payroll provisions, I imagine that the process becomes considerably more involved. I didn't even get into the tax and withholding aspect of it.

As I said, in all my years as a salaried and hourly employee, I never had an incorrect paycheck. But at every place I worked, and most of them were considered reputable carriers, pilot payroll errors were commonplace. Again, I'm not defending it, but when it occurs industry wide, that suggests to me that the problem is just a bit bigger than an incompetent CFO.

A competent CFO will put in place a team and will put in place systems that will make payroll mistakes not happen. That's what you pay a CFO for. The idea that Colgan for example had a payroll dynamic that was "too complex" is not really a starter - because it pales in complexity to any of the large, international 121 carriers. If Delta or FedEx, with their international structure, significantly larger number of checks to process and myriad other factors can find a way to get the employees paid on time, every time, I find it difficult to fathom how a small regional can not accomplish the same thing. Clerks and such are generally never to blame, at least in my view. The idea is that you try to create a system that the average idiot could operate and accomplish the task at hand. Basically idiot-proof your systems to the greatest extent possible - and that's the CFO's job - to create those systems.

 

[Ian_J]

Dude - I run businesses with many, many employees and tens of millions of sales per year.

Holy smokes... I thought you just ran a (one) business. Tens of millions in top line revenue? Wow, you never think a (multi?) millionaire CEO would post frequently on some internet forum and call people "dude." Pretty cool.

 

[WacoFan]

Holy smokes... I thought you just ran a (one) business. Tens of millions in top line revenue? Wow, you never think a (multi?) millionaire CEO would post frequently on some internet forum and call people "dude." Pretty cool.

Not a multi-millionaire. I've got thousands though. Medical Practice, outpatient clinics, equipment leasing, and acquisitions of business services/management companies in the on-deck circle. Kind of a vulture investor of the last couple years. It could work out, or it could go pear shaped just as easily. It's fun though. It simplifies my life that I only post on JC - not Twitter, FB or anything else - JC is all of those things rolled into one so it is more efficient - I bet I spend less time doing "social networking" than most, simply by limiting my activities to JC. Also, it doesn't take that much time - even with the length of many of my posts it is fast because I don't have to form my thoughts, they're already formed - and what isn't already formed I have preconceived notions about or simply use stereotypes. Stereotypes are a great time-saver I find.

 

[SteveC]

...Also, it doesn't take that much time - even with the length of many of my posts it is fast because I don't have to form my thoughts, they're already formed - and what isn't already formed I have preconceived notions about or simply use stereotypes. Stereotypes are a great time-saver I find.

QFT...and a chuckle.

 

[O&M]

A competent CFO will put in place a team and will put in place systems that will make payroll mistakes not happen. That's what you pay a CFO for. The idea that Colgan for example had a payroll dynamic that was "too complex" is not really a starter - because it pales in complexity to any of the large, international 121 carriers. If Delta or FedEx, with their international structure, significantly larger number of checks to process and myriad other factors can find a way to get the employees paid on time, every time, I find it difficult to fathom how a small regional can not accomplish the same thing. Clerks and such are generally never to blame, at least in my view. The idea is that you try to create a system that the average idiot could operate and accomplish the task at hand. Basically idiot-proof your systems to the greatest extent possible - and that's the CFO's job - to create those systems.

As I said before, I agree with you on missed payrolls. I'm talking about the little mistakes. I find it very easy to "fathom," at least at the regional level. I keep in touch with my old regional buddies, and they all tell me stories of cutbacks and downsizing and cost cutting measures. There's no money in the regional model anymore, as today's news about Comair suggests. I'm guessingthat people who are qualified to be CFO's probably avoid the regional airline industry for the same reason.

 

[WacoFan]

As I said before, I agree with you on missed payrolls. I'm talking about the little mistakes. I find it very easy to "fathom," at least at the regional level. I keep in touch with my old regional buddies, and they all tell me stories of cutbacks and downsizing and cost cutting measures. There's no money in the regional model anymore, as today's news about Comair suggests. I'm guessingthat people who are qualified to be CFO's probably avoid the regional airline industry for the same reason.

I'm sure they have CFO's - perhaps not major 121 carrier type CFO's - but they have CFO's. The mistakes you cite by clerks/worker bees should never really get to my desk. They should all be handled at some level below me. If I am finding out about them...then it is clearly the guy under me who is at fault and I crap on his head...he craps beneath him...and on and on until it is solved. The underling has the least responsibility in the chain generally - unless they are just a screw up - in which case they get canned (unless they have big bewbies). I usually only have one or two people I need to cuss at, be rude to and abuse - the people directly under me. This allows me to be nice to the rest of the workers.