Welcome to the Rest of your Career: Redux

Firebird2XC

Well-Known Member
Five years ago, I posted an op/ed piece here titled 'Regional Airline Pilots: Welcome to the Rest of Your Career'.

In that piece, I opined that while career progression to 'destination jobs' would continue for many, that the growth of outsourced airline flying with increased aircraft size would be the predominant area in domestic U.S. air traffic.

In other words, I saw the future as a place where Legacy carriers shrank to largely international-only operations with brand names being their primary commodity of business.

Since then, due to industry trends, global economics, as well as pilot and industry lobbying, the landscape has shifted somewhat. While many Legacy scope agreements have been renegotiated, amended, or even abrogated, Regional fleets have seen a shift towards larger aircraft, as predicted. However, with growth at the mainline Legacies being driven largely by consolidation and partly by fleet renewal, the next five years are yet to be determined.

The point of examining this is to understand why the trends in airline fleet and subcontract planning matter to us- at any level. While previously, in 2008, the intent of my article was to help pilots see the need to advocate for their rights even at the 'transitory regional Jobs', this essay suggests that vigilance of all levels is required for all levels now.

With cost structure at the Regional carrier affiliates rising in response to new first officer hiring requirements and industry-wide rest rule revisions, cost parity with mainline carriers may produce scenarios where mainline carriers may eventually be on equal footing in terms of personnel costs. What this means is that while five years ago I scolded the common trend of "trying to raise the roof while the floor is being cut out from under us," airline labor has in fact realized the need for a defensible baseline and reacted accordingly.

Now that that is coming to fruition, it's time to put our collective gaze on the horizon again. As mainline carriers continue to consolidate and regional carriers adapt to new regulatory requirements directly affecting their cost models, it is important to remember that the rules that protect us are the same rules that industry lobbyists fight day in and out to undermine.

I still believe that 'middle-sizing' of airline fleets is likely, and the push to the 100 to 140 seat market is the largest domestic growth sector, and that subcontracting and outsourcing of that sector from mainline carriers will continue. In the long run, to protect our baseline of employment standards, it is as vitally important to fiercely lobby in defense of Regional pilot work rules and compensation as it is on the Legacy level of things.

While we have indeed succeeded in many ways of preventing the 'floor from being cut out from under us,' that was only half the battle. Now that the ship isn't being cut out from under us, now is truly the time when "a rising tide lifts all boats."

Many of us are far removed from where we were in the industry five years ago. Some of us have upgraded in familiar equipment or moved on to 'destination jobs'. Some of us have completely left the industry. Others, like myself, have seen the normalization of movement to upwards of five to seven years. The culture of 'rapid upgrade' and all of its misleading statements and expectations appears to finally be past. While relatively brisk turnover in current regional ranks might bring that five to seven year period down, that moment is likely to be very temporary. As airlines gather personnel and resources to meet their needs in the future, eventually Regional airlines will find ways to fill their ranks again. Either through ab initio training programs with service contracts or finally raising wages to attract more pilots, the Regional ranks will continue to swell as long as a cost difference with Legacy pilot groups exist. In the next five years, however, I think we'll see a continued narrowing of that gap.

In that, I press all of you to remember that while things are improving, that improvement can be short lived. A sudden and dramatic economic reversal for unknown reasons could easily send our employers scrambling to court to try to take more away from us- again. Now is the time to stand your ground, more than ever. Stand your ground on contract issues, and if forced to comply, grieve them. If you don't have union representation, I strongly urge you to organize your fellow aviators for the times ahead. Collectively, pilots have a made a strong push in legislative areas in the past five years, but let us not forget the cost. Much of those changes were made with ink from the 'sacred inkwell of change' filled by the blood of our fallen brothers and sisters on either side of the armored door, as well as the passengers we all pledged to protect. Our new opportunities were forged from the smoking ruins and tragedies of those lost by assembling the discarded wreckage into something workable, defensible, and new.

It has bothered me at times to see so many of this profession embattled. It seems unfair that we must continually picket, litigate, and arbitrate just to hold on to what we have already negotiated. But we must press on.

I'm curious what everyone else here thinks the future holds. Please- express your opinions, your desires, and your theories. And certainly don't be shy about the outlandish ideas you might have. You'll have to defend them- but I'm certainly far from able to knock coming from left field. ; )
 
My biggest fear is gulf carriers entering into the US/Euro market. Add in them getting feed from a company like RAH flying cheap CS300s and we'll have a real mess. Oh and snakes, fearful of those too.

I'd say that's a reasonable concern. Cabotage has long been a problem for U.S. airlines.
 
Now. But as history has shown us, scope is something that can be taken away, either by coercion or court order.

Nah, the Delta and United contract are VERY similar in scope. The A4A understands they can't run a 50 seat jet from LGA to RDU every hour and make money. Both Delta and United are putting mainline service back into cities that were outsourced to regional carriers. There is a bottom line with outsourced flying and we are at it now. Yes, a court order can change things, but it is going to be hard for the airlines to get back there with the consolidation we have seen.

Furthermore, like my esteemed counterpart flying for 'Merican pointed out, the BIGGEST threat is the Gulf Carriers. I am not a fan of Moak, but he has done a great job of partnering up with the A4A on that front.
 
Nah, the Delta and United contract are VERY similar in scope. The A4A understands they can't run a 50 seat jet from LGA to RDU every hour and make money. Both Delta and United are putting mainline service back into cities that were outsourced to regional carriers. There is a bottom line with outsourced flying and we are at it now. Yes, a court order can change things, but it is going to be hard for the airlines to get back there with the consolidation we have seen.

Furthermore, like my esteemed counterpart flying for 'Merican pointed out, the BIGGEST threat is the Gulf Carriers. I am not a fan of Moak, but he has done a great job of partnering up with the A4A on that front.

I'm not suggesting that mainline carriers would try to use contracts to run 50 seaters. I'm suggesting they'd try to undermine existing legacy contracts to get 100 to 140 seaters outsourced. We've seen consolidation as a means to capture market share, but I think that the next growth wave may involve mainline carriers gradually pitting the largest outsourced aircraft they can muster against their competitors.

As far as foreign carriers, I'm inclined to agree. The labor base in countries like Qatar, are, from what I've read, largely akin to indentured servitude. It's bad there. With arrangements going on there and coupled with oil profits, undercutting domestic airline prices while costing Americans their jobs is a very real threat.
 
Furthermore, like my esteemed counterpart flying for 'Merican pointed out, the BIGGEST threat is the Gulf Carriers. I am not a fan of Moak, but he has done a great job of partnering up with the A4A on that front.

Holy crap, he's brainwashed you too?! If I have to listen to another speech about Emirates or Qatar, I'm going to club a baby seal.

The "threat" of the Gulf carriers is a business problem. In other words, it's an A4A issue. The A4A, and the brilliant Richard Anderson in particular, has co-opted our union to do their lobbying for them. Meanwhile, they sit back and laugh as we're distracted from our issues because we're too busy lobbying for theirs. As this goes on, they pit regional against regional, continue to use the bankruptcy code to gut contracts, and continue to take advantage of non-union carriers.

Sorry, but we have many problems, and the Gulf carriers are far down the list as far as I'm concerned.
 
Holy crap, he's brainwashed you too?! If I have to listen to another speech about Emirates or Qatar, I'm going to club a baby seal.

The "threat" of the Gulf carriers is a business problem. In other words, it's an A4A issue. The A4A, and the brilliant Richard Anderson in particular, has co-opted our union to do their lobbying for them. Meanwhile, they sit back and laugh as we're distracted from our issues because we're too busy lobbying for theirs. As this goes on, they pit regional against regional, continue to use the bankruptcy code to gut contracts, and continue to take advantage of non-union carriers.

Sorry, but we have many problems, and the Gulf carriers are far down the list as far as I'm concerned.

I wouldn't call it brainwashing Todd. It is a serious issue. In IAH alone there are two Emirates flights and one Qatar flight a day....WTF...It becomes a labor issue VERY quickly when the business can't compete fairly with those carriers. They are socialized and our airlines simply aren't. The ALPA Magazine did do a nice job of showing the similarities of the US Shipping Industry and the aviation industry.
 
I don't always agree with Seggy, but when I do it's on the threat that Middle Eastern Carriers pose to the US Airline industry.

I'd say there's a lot that a lot of us don't agree about, but this is one thing a great many of us can. Five years ago, the Middle Eastern Carriers weren't even on the figurative radar. Now they're potentially a biggest problem U.S. pilots face.

That's actually a problem bigger than domestic mainline outsourcing to regional carriers. If operating cost and the rules of the operating environment are the things that level the playing field, and the Mid-East carriers are a group playing by no rules but their own, that's a pretty serious disparity.
 
In IAH alone there are two Emirates flights and one Qatar flight a day

Who the ^&*@ cares?! This is a manufactured problem, just like the DPA. US carriers have been competing against foreign subsidized carriers for decades. Before the Gulf carriers, it was the European carriers. It's not like we're looking down the barrel of 9th freedom rights here. The idea of Emirates being allowed to fly a revenue flight from IAH to EWR is pure fantasy. It has no chance of becoming reality anytime in the next 30 years. Meanwhile, we have real problems right now. While you're busy buying der fuhrer's grand distraction, the regionals are being decimated, the ACMI carriers are dropping like flies, the bankruptcy code leaves us just as vulnerable today as we were 10 years ago, and our union has shrunk in size from 66,000 members to 50,000 members in the span of just a decade while we have absolutely zero organizing activities going on. And you think a pre-clearance facility in Abu Dhabi is top priority? Snap out of it!

October can't come soon enough.
 
Who the ^&*@ cares?! This is a manufactured problem, just like the DPA. US carriers have been competing against foreign subsidized carriers for decades. Before the Gulf carriers, it was the European carriers. It's not like we're looking down the barrel of 9th freedom rights here. The idea of Emirates being allowed to fly a revenue flight from IAH to EWR is pure fantasy. It has no chance of becoming reality anytime in the next 30 years. Meanwhile, we have real problems right now. While you're busy buying der fuhrer's grand distraction, the regionals are being decimated, the ACMI carriers are dropping like flies, the bankruptcy code leaves us just as vulnerable today as we were 10 years ago, and our union has shrunk in size from 66,000 members to 50,000 members in the span of just a decade while we have absolutely zero organizing activities going on. And you think a pre-clearance facility in Abu Dhabi is top priority? Snap out of it!

October can't come soon enough.

I am not saying there aren't other issues, but he is trying to see what the next big problem is and get ahead of it.

Speaking of which, who is going to run against him?
 
@Seggy @ATN_Pilot

You two seem to be pretty well versed in the upper level union issues of pilots. Do you think that a lack of focus among pilot unions are a problem? If not the foreign carriers, what would you have them focus on?

And what about regular line pilots? What about the issues that they still face in day to day operations and long term career planning?
 
@Seggy @ATN_Pilot

You two seem to be pretty well versed in the upper level union issues of pilots. Do you think that a lack of focus among pilot unions are a problem? If not the foreign carriers, what would you have them focus on?

And what about regular line pilots? What about the issues that they still face in day to day operations and long term career planning?
Those are not upper level union issues. Those are 50,000 ALPA pilot issues. @ATN_Pilot is right, we are not here to be the A4A lobby. ALPA needs to focus on organizing in house as well as bring other carriers into the fold. If all airline pilots were part of the same union and demanded the same basic foundation we will not have to worry about the whipsaw.
 
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