Stop the Whipsaw

Binet-Simon

Binet-Simon

Well-Known Member
A growing number of regional airline pilots are becoming increasingly frustrated with managements' attempt at forcing a B-scale, seeking concessions from pilot groups, threatening reductions of pilots, and whipsawing pilot groups against each other with promises of larger aircraft. Some pilots have started a website to bring the regional groups together. The vision is to stand in solidarity with each pilot group facing pressures, provide a place to foster discussion, and bring to light the struggles of the regional pilot. The website and Facebook pages were created less than 24 hours ago but is rapidly gaining support.

http://www.stopthewhipsaw.com/Who_we_are.html
https://www.facebook.com/stopthewhipsaw?skip_nax_wizard=true

Mods: I wasn't sure if this was the right thread to post this in but thought it would gain the most exposure here. I checked the Terms and Conditions and I believe this post doesn't violate them. Message me if it does.

S
 
I believe it goes beyond airline pilots though. Both aviators and the general public needs to be aware. The industry is degrading from within. Everyone stands to be affected.

S
 
It has nothing to do with the people in the back. This is about saying NO! as a unified front. USair is trying to keep the race to the bottom going. They want to dangle their very last carrot - Re-fleeting, in exchange for deep concessions and a B scale. It started with Pinnacle getting backed into a bankruptcy corner and giving in to concessions, which Delta has used to beat up their other regionals. Now Usair is using it as a crutch to continue to push wages lower.

We have the cards in our hands for once - There isn't a regional out there meeting hiring quotas right now. That is only going to get worse. The training pipeline not only just lengthened greatly with the advent of the 1500 hour minimum, but it is more empty than ever. The only way regionals will survive is to get some of the people back who have left the industry, and attract what little is available in the pipeline - They will have to move wages back up. They know it. They are just lowering the bar while they can.

That is the point of www.stopthewhipsaw.com. Show some unity and push the dog back out into the yard.
 
LoadMasterC141 said:
The only way regionals will survive is to get some of the people back who have left the industry, and attract what little is available in the pipeline - They will have to move wages back up. They know it. They are just lowering the bar while they can.
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100% agree with you. I don't plan on ever going to a regional aside as an act of desperation. Until they raise their wages and treat their workforce more humanely, they're welcome to foxtrot themselves.
 
Lot's of luck. Pilot unity is a myth. Pattern bargaining is a failure. GoJet's and Gulfstream (silver) will always be there to pick up the flying for less, and toe the line or your mainline company will drop your feed. Best part is, as long as your cheap and awful they'll never get rid of you.

PSA brought to you by Pilots For Getting Ahead of You by Paying for a Job (PF-GAY-PJ)
 
When I first saw the link this afternoon, it was at 1,500 likes. Now it's almost 2,000 likes. How many regional airline pilots are there in the U.S. workforce anyways?
 
jynxyjoe said:
Lot's of luck. Pilot unity is a myth. Pattern bargaining is a failure. GoJet's and Gulfstream (silver) will always be there to pick up the flying for less, and toe the line or your mainline company will drop your feed. Best part is, as long as your cheap and awful they'll never get rid of you.

PSA brought to you by Pilots For Getting Ahead of You by Paying for a Job (PF-GAY-PJ)
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I guess I could disagree with you but then I would just be proving your point?

It was a myth when the average regional pilot could be built from the ground up in less than a year. Not the case anymore.

Anyway, hey whatever...The Stop the Whipsaw is a good idea. It sure the heck can't hurt.

2000 likes in 24 hours. Keep it going - get your friends on board. At the very least we will see a central location to view how relations are going at different regionals.

Just added - There is a great video of Scott Kirby from USair arguing why he needs to screw over more pilots - and makes no sense.
 
Proving the point? I don't know. Like it up if that is what works for ya. It doesn't build, foster, hint at, etc... unity. If all the pilots stood up tomorrow and said "pass the word along, we're all going to wildcat," I'd laugh but if everyone started doing it I'd follow along still laughing.

I think it would be GREAT if there was a universal pilot contract in the US. A single seniority list. Whatever, I'm happy to see it come. It won't. We don't do that in this country because we are too stupid. It's no ones fault, the previous generation in this country detonated the unions and laughed all the way to the bank. Furthermore, even though unions are almost gone, they are still (somehow) responsible for everything that is wrong in this country.

It's fine. Carve out a little life for yourself and enjoy. Or cry havok and let slip the dogs of war. I'm too old and I'm fine either way. This industry is a joke, and if you're smart, you'll laugh and go along with the punch line.
 
Love the idea of this page. As a future regional guy seeing what US Air wants to do kills me. I would love to see every regional stand up and refuse to damage this career more than it already is. I cant wait until classes go empty and planes end up sitting without a crew. Maybe then we will have some progress and can get what is deserved!
 
There's an easier way to do this than asking every current or future pilot to resist market forces and human nature. Simply eliminate the multi-step pay scale. The reason flying gets shifted from one regional to another is because the multi-step pay scale creates an automatic cost advantage for the new entrant carrier. Employees at the new entrant carrier come on at the bottom of the pay scale, while the incumbent carrier has employees at or near the top of the pay scale. This is what happened to Air Wisconsin a few years ago. There was no way they were ever going to be able to compete with GoJet, Mesa, and whoever else, Even if they had had the exact same pay scale and work rules as AWAC, they still would have had crew costs that were roughly half of AWAC's. Eliminate the pay scale, create a single pay rate, and you remove the financial incentive to shift flying from one carrier to another.
 
rocketman5150 said:
There's an easier way to do this than asking every current or future pilot to resist market forces and human nature. Simply eliminate the multi-step pay scale. The reason flying gets shifted from one regional to another is because the multi-step pay scale creates an automatic cost advantage for the new entrant carrier. Employees at the new entrant carrier come on at the bottom of the pay scale, while the incumbent carrier has employees at or near the top of the pay scale. This is what happened to Air Wisconsin a few years ago. There was no way they were ever going to be able to compete with GoJet, Mesa, and whoever else, Even if they had had the exact same pay scale and work rules as AWAC, they still would have had crew costs that were roughly half of AWAC's. Eliminate the pay scale, create a single pay rate, and you remove the financial incentive to shift flying from one carrier to another.
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I grew up in a union house, and there is only one union that everyone is a part of for X miles, and then it's just the next local(for this type of work). Everyone who works in this area that is union has the exact same pay rate regardless of company worked for. If someone gets laid off, they don't have recall rights to just one employer, but ALL of them.

If the regionals were the same way, which they need to be, everyone would be ALPA or teamsters, or whatever, everyone would belong to one seniority list, everyone would have the same pay scale relative to the seats(or years worked) in the airplane and if you got laid off at express jet you go on the back of the list of laid off people. If the list was 50 long, and air Wisconsin said they were hiring 50 pilots, all 50 of those pilots would come from those 50 laid off, or they would have first shot at it before hiring, regardless of who they worked for before. Pension is held by the union, not the company, so the company can't rob it like every airline ever, when they literally stole from their employees. It's not possible, they have no access to the money any more than some guy from Vietnam does.
 
rocketman5150 said:
There's an easier way to do this than asking every current or future pilot to resist market forces and human nature. Simply eliminate the multi-step pay scale. The reason flying gets shifted from one regional to another is because the multi-step pay scale creates an automatic cost advantage for the new entrant carrier. Employees at the new entrant carrier come on at the bottom of the pay scale, while the incumbent carrier has employees at or near the top of the pay scale. This is what happened to Air Wisconsin a few years ago. There was no way they were ever going to be able to compete with GoJet, Mesa, and whoever else, Even if they had had the exact same pay scale and work rules as AWAC, they still would have had crew costs that were roughly half of AWAC's. Eliminate the pay scale, create a single pay rate, and you remove the financial incentive to shift flying from one carrier to another.
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I couldn't agree with you more, but good luck convincing the masses. I recently made this same argument in another thread and was immediately told why it won't work.
 
Honest question, and I will almost certainly prove my naïveté for asking... is refleeting (which I presume means getting new jeeeeeeeets) that big of a benefit that pilots are willing to not only screw over other pilots, but themselves? Over the past several weeks in various threads I've seen on JC about this topic, it seems to me that some pilots are willing to sacrifice hard cash just to fly a newer version of the little airliner they are currently flying. Really? Is there something I am missing here? I'd take more money over flying a shinier new airplane every day of the week and twice on Sunday. I must be missing something here.
 
SteveCostello said:
Honest question, and I will almost certainly prove my naïveté for asking... is refleeting (which I presume means getting new jeeeeeeeets) that big of a benefit that pilots are willing to not only screw over other pilots, but themselves? Over the past several weeks in various threads I've seen on JC about this topic, it seems to me that some pilots are willing to sacrifice hard cash just to fly a newer version of the little airliner they are currently flying. Really? Is there something I am missing here? I'd take more money over flying a shinier new airplane every day of the week and twice on Sunday. I must be missing something here.
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Problem is the "more money" you make on that old plane is being parked. To get the new planes you have to bid against every other group. It's not status quo or something new, it's goodbye status quo and accept new reality and if your real lucky and slit your own throat enough you MAY get that 1 jet that will replace the 3 you are parking.

That help sweety?
 
jynxyjoe said:
Problem is the "more money" you make on that old plane is being parked. To get the new planes you have to bid against every other group. It's not status quo or something new, it's goodbye status quo and accept new reality and if your real lucky and slit your own throat enough you MAY get that 1 jet that will replace the 3 you are parking.

That help sweety?
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That's just straight up turrrbl.
 
Another remedy to the problem? Recapture scope! When all of us whiners make it to a legacy our number one priority should be recapturing scope from the bottom end so we can fly CRJ-900s at DC-9 rates. Also helps to have more aircraft come on property so more people can come in behind you on that seniority list.

But I'm at legacy now... why should I care whats happening to the regionals? What? ALPA represents them too? Are you sure?

I'm with jynxyjoe all of our talk on here is a pipe dream. Get what you can for yourself and move on because that's exactly what everyone else is doing no matter how much chest thumping they might be doing.
 
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