H46Bubba
Well-Known Member
I know, I'm with ya all the way!Hey I'm not talking about the mechanics of how to make it happen, I'm just talkin' about how to stop the slide!
Use MESA as a time-building tool?
- Thread starter av8sean
- Start date
Seggy
Well-Known Member
ALPA needs to be at regionals to raise the bar. Crap rolls uphill in the airline busniess, the better the work rules are at the regionals, the better they will be at the majors.
That is what I am saying.
You wouldn't be the first nor would you be the last to time build at Mesa-
- you know you will be under a 1 year training contract - a lot of FO's leave Mesa anyway with less than 1 year - your year starts upon passing your checkride, not your class date. The training department is currently stretched thin and can't really train the replacements it needs so you may actually have a significant amount of time between your groundschool and your actual checkride date. As long as you're willing to live with the consequencies of leaving early, this shouldn't matter much to you. Mesa tries to collect first by holding your meager last paycheck, then they sell your contract to a collection agency who screws up your credit history.
- will you really get the time you need in 1 year at Mesa to get hired at Skywest? How much time do you need? How much flight time do you expect to get at Mesa in the one year? there are FOs who have been at Mesa for a year and haven't even gotten 200 hours in their first year - all they have to show for their year is a year's worth of airport appreciation on ready reserve
- can you make it through training? If you fail training, it is a 121 training failure and it is reported to every airline you apply to in the future when they ask for your PRIA records. It's not a show stopper, but you will need to be able to explain it to your future employers.
- you know about the lifestyle - 8 days off, never more than 2 days off in a row, noncommutable schedules, poor utilization, contract that is continually ignored, etc.
- Do you have your CFI already? if you are a CFI, you'd be better off instructing to get your time. Buy your time if you need to - fly IFR cross countries, work the national airspace system.
- Do you have the finances to survive two years of 1st year FO pay, and pay back any loans you've acquired to finance your flight training, living expenses, pay your car note, and the training contract?
Skywest hires a lot of Mesa pilots, so you wouldn't be doing anything different if you came here, but I don't think it's worth it to time build here.
A lot of pilots are doing exactly what you're proposing. If you look at Mesa's seniority list (1600-1700 pilots) - the bottom 1000 pilots have less than 3 years seniority with Mesa. the bottom 700 pilots have less than 2 years seniority with Mesa. They leave for ExpressJet, Skywest, and Republic.
By going to Mesa, you're not helping things at Mesa - JO never has to pay FO's any more than $23/hr because his FO's are always 1st year FOs.
What is happening at Mesa during your 1 year here:
- continued pilot attrition - pilots making lateral moves (what you are contemplating)
- contract negotations
- Mesa moving the 50-seat jets out of the US and into China.
What does that mean to you?
Despite the high pilot attrition Mesa has right now, Mesa really has about 1000 surplus pilots. Every newhire Mesa gets are additional surplus pilots. As Mesa moves its 50-seat jets to China, I think Mesa will go from 200 CRJs/ERJs/1900s to 50 CRJ-900s and 30 CRJ-700s over the next few years.
Mesa doesn't have enough pilots to staff its current flying, but Mesa DOES have the staffing to fly the 80 remaining jets for at least two to three years with the current attrition rate offset by new hiring.
As Mesa moves it's CRJs to China, the amount of flying left for the pilots at Mesa will decrease as the jets leave. Although the jets are leaving for China, I don't think there will be any Mesa pilots flying in China. The pilots left will be spending a lot of time on reserve or ready reserve - not being utilized and not flying.
Mesa has no incentive to negotiate a new pilot contract and there are no more programmed pay raises in the contract after Sep 2007 - so while pilots are under pressure to negotiate a new contract, Mesa does not. The pilots think they have leverage with the attrition rate and Mesa not being able to staff current flying - but in reality they don't.
Mesa's CEO is all about making money - if he can make money without pilots he'll do it and this China thing is all about making money without the pilots.
So after this long post, in short - if you want to work here, work here, but don't time build here at Mesa.
mtsu_av8er
Well-Known Member
So, instead of choosing an airline that I'd enjoy working for, I should just take whatever I get, and then fight for QOL?
Bumblebee
Commodore
No!
mtsu_av8er
Well-Known Member
Seggy
Well-Known Member
No, it is up to the individual. However, understand that QOL will most likely change WHILE you are at the regional. It will be different as you spend some time with the company.
Lloyd it will change for better or worse.
Like I said, when I applied at Colgan, who in their right mind would have thought they would be opening up EWR as our 'main' goforward base, 30 minutes from my house?
We should FIGHT to raise the bar and make this industry better for all of us. The easy thing to do is to sit there and select what places WE want to go. We should raise the bar, so no matter if you are at Colgan, Expressjet, Skywest, CHQ, etc, THEY, the companies, should want US.
Sarcastic, rhetorical question, Dale . . .
Gotta hit that
tag bro!I've seen more sandbox fights over undetected sarcasm than anything else!
it's in the JC Best Practices Guide! Wait... there isn't one. DOH!
Brand X
Well-Known Member
Two points to make.
1. ALPA has been doing a bang up job at raising the bar!
2. With newbies continually dreaming of flying an RJ, there is absolutely no incentive on the part of management to increase pay and benefits. ALPA is powerless to force them to do so. Management will just play one regional off against another to get the lowest overall cost. Like I've said before, regionals never where meant to be and will never be a place to make a career. NONE of you on this message board can HONESTLY say that you got into flying with the intent of becoming a regional lifer. Use the regionals like the regionals use you.
CapnJim
Well-Known Member
Two points to make.
1. ALPA has been doing a bang up job at raising the bar!
2. With newbies continually dreaming of flying an RJ, there is absolutely no incentive on the part of management to increase pay and benefits. ALPA is powerless to force them to do so. Management will just play one regional off against another to get the lowest overall cost. Like I've said before, regionals never where meant to be and will never be a place to make a career. NONE of you on this message board can HONESTLY say that you got into flying with the intent of becoming a regional lifer. Use the regionals like the regionals use you.
I've solved for X.
X = Clueless.
Bumblebee
Commodore
My dad was clueless when I was 15
Bog
New Member
1) Do not view working at a scheduled airline as an alternative to training. The people in the back are counting on you to know WTF is going on and get them to their destination safely. It's a job, not a class.
2) Irrelevant of #1 ... no no no no no no no no no do not go there. Click the link below for the Mesa Hub and learn all about why you don't want to work there.
Mesa has earmarked 28 aircraft for China. 4 are already in the prep stages to go there; one (parked at CKB) isn't even listed on the FAA website as a valid registration anymore. As these aircraft go (and they'll start going fast), you'll be furloughed ... along with 500+ other MAG FOs who are more qualified than you, and will get hired before you. Keep that in mind, too.
The CRJ-900s will be sent somewhere eventually; Airways wants them gone (along with the rest of MAG). IMHO, there will not be a Mesa Air Group in 5 years, if it even takes that long. The ball has already started rolling, and it gains speed every day.
CapnJim
Well-Known Member
The full quote from Samuel Clemens is:My dad was clueless when I was 15
"When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much he had learned in seven years."
One can only assume that Mark Twain's life experience during that time was comprable to what his father had experienced, and his father before him, and so on. By contrast, I have not met one person who has not worked for a decent regional airline speak intelligently on the subject.
Chris_Ford
Well-Known Member
Eh, I disagree. X seems to know what he's talking about.
Look at how ALPA has helped out the good folks at TSA and Mesa. The only "real success" story in the past 5 years with ALPA is XJT.
With the recent development on the age 65 rule, lots of people are losing their faith in ALPA leadership as well.
CapnJim
Well-Known Member
Damn. Ford might, just might, be right on this one. I've been filtering from my own experience to the exclusion of the big picture.
I might owe X an apology!
Seggy
Well-Known Member
Getting Continental back in ALPA as well as FEDEX in recent times are successes of ALPA. Look at the FEDEX contract! Also I am sure there are thousands of guys out there, that thanks ALPA, have their own little successes. Perhaps saving their job, certificate, or helping them out when they were in a bind. It would be impossible to see all the real successes of ALPA.
If you look at the past five year to, it hasn't been exactly happy go lucky times at airlines.
Its cyclical.
ALPA really can't control much with the age 65 rule. IT IS COMING THANKS TO THE FAA.
CapnJim
Well-Known Member
I have no bad things to say about ALPA, but you have to admit, when it comes to the majority of regional airline contracts that have been negotiated with ALPA, brows have been alternately raised and furrowed.
This, of course, is an entirely superficial observation without the benefit of details in each and every instance.
This, of course, is an entirely superficial observation without the benefit of details in each and every instance.
Seggy
Well-Known Member
Oh yeah 90 percent of them suck. But when you have guys willing to 'fly a cooler plane', how much bite do the regional airline pilots really have? Management knows this, and they get excited because of this.
Today there is a shortage of pilots willing to go to regionals. It is up to us to put the ball back in the pilots court. Crap rolls uphill in the airline business, raise the bar at the regionals, it will be raised at the majors.
The other thing to is look at how long regionals really have been around and ALPA has been able to negotiate these contracts compared to majors.