AE/Envoy Pilots Reject AIP

[La Li Lu Le Lo]

Doesn't suprise me that EO would be championing indentured servitude, but he just doesn't get it. Basically they already had that, except they did it with the Regionals. They aren't showing up any more. They aren't showing up at the regionals because the end game, a job at a major, simply isn't that appealing anymore. Same thing is happening to the Regionals and the MROs with mechanics. At one time these were good jobs, always had its trade offs, but that's all thats left now. The know it all frat boys got their way, now they don't know what to do. The only thing saving them is the old guys wont leave, they cant. Eventually they will have to but they are definately staying longer than they used to, in fact the oldest guy started with AA in 1942. That's right 72 years on the job! He said it was never this bad before, he would leave but he doesn't think anyone else would hire him!

Bob if you are getting what amounts to a free education or MORE then that is a good deal. 
 
The debt will still be there and the low salary job will still be there regardless of the path you take.
 
Better to have a job lined up and a place to build experience.
 
The airline should have a right to realize a return on their investment.
 
Would you go further into detail why you are so against this?

 

[RJcasualty]

Bob if you are getting what amounts to a free education or MORE then that is a good deal. 
 
The debt will still be there and the low salary job will still be there regardless of the path you take.
 
Better to have a job lined up and a place to build experience.
 
The airline should have a right to realize a return on their investment.
 
Would you go further into detail why you are so against this?

Now if you offered a living wage, the airlines wouldn't have to go through all the aggravation to circumvent their own myopia.

 

[WorldTraveler]

Interesting. Consolidation wont require as many hubs?  Tell that to the AA DP facilitators. I guess that hot potato was discussed ad nauseum on another thread. The RJ boom is ending?  Tell that to all the bond holders and tax payers who underwrote the nation-wide RJ facility infrastructure at the behest of the industry. How do you propose to keep a regional airport alive with your minimums?  This is looney.

whether DP has admitted it or not, AA will not have as many hubs as it has today. It has too much internal network competition between its hubs today. I'm not going to get into an argument of what will stay and what will go but part of the point of consolidation among network carriers is to create more efficient and larger hubs. Much of the RJ networks at the network airlines came about because every airline felt they needed to have enough hubs to cover the US. Now with consolidation, there are multiple hubs that cover the same geographic area.

Whether DL intended for that to happen when it merged with NW or not, the 50% or so increase in the cost of jet fuel between DL's merger and when it started aggressively cutting CVG and MEM forced a reduction in hubs.

By the time UA and CO merged, those economics of small RJs were known and they are very obvious with AA/US.

RJs won't be completely eliminated but the 50 seater's days will be maintained only because there are enough relatively new 50 seaters that they can't be parked in the next few years without taking a significant hit to the finances of the carriers that operate them.

The facilities that can support 50 seaters can largely support larger RJs as well.

Further, as much as some people fail to see it, the economics of mergers at the network carriers is AIDED by eliminating small hubs that are heavily dependent on small RJs and forcing traffic over larger hubs where mainline employees can carry those passengers.

Within the next 10 years, maybe less, you will not see 50 seat aircraft flying in the US aviation network.

The primary network difference between the legacy carriers (AA/DL/UA) and WN is that the legacies will use at least some RJs - large RJs likely - to serve cities that otherwise would receive no airline service at all and to fly point to point routes which are too large for mainline aircraft of any carrier.

 

[mwa]

Eastern used Turboprops in the 50's to connect to mainline jets. Little known or mentioned fact - narrated by Arthur Godfrey - a one line blurb and pic in flight

 

[eolesen]

Just about everyone used turboprops in the 50's...

 

[mwa]

Fair enough
50secs into Flying with Arthur Godfrey Pt II
The original is 48mins but it is also in 2 parts with the second 10 min section
Shows the concept of feeding the Connies with a small TP
Silver Falcon 40 seat light twin - successor to DC3

 

[PullUp]

...Shows the concept of feeding the Connies with a small TP
Silver Falcon 40 seat light twin - successor to DC3...

Not a turboprop. From wikipedia:
The Martin 404 was an American pressurized passenger airliner built by the Glenn L. Martin Company.
EAL operated their 404s in the eastern USA using the class name "Silver Falcon". The first EAL schedule was flown on 5 January 1952 and retirement came in late 1962.
The 404 was a cantilever monoplane with a standard tail unit (cantilever tailplane and single vertical stabilizer). It had an airstair in the lower tail section for passenger loading and unloading, retractable tricycle landing gear and was powered by two Pratt & Whitney R-2800-CB16 radial piston engines.
Turboprops debuted around 1955. Prior to that was the mighty piston.
Cheers.

 

[mwa]

I just looked out the window with Arthur and assumed it was a TP. Thx for the correction - the point was the concept of feeding the larger fleet was early.

 

[mwa]

BTW Pilots are now voting on the AIP/TA since mgmt. threatened the MEC with not representing the pilots interests
MAR 13 to 28

 

[eolesen]

How can management threaten the MEC with not representing the pilots interest?...

The harsher reality of the situation seems to be that AAL issued an RFP within the last 10 days to the various independent regionals, soliciting bids for three tranches of 20 aircaft each.

My guess is once the MEC saw AAL wasn't bluffing, someone decided it might be better to find a way out... They met with management on Wednesday and Thursday, and then the decision was made to put the offer out for vote.

Meanwhile, the RFP's are still out for response. If the pilots don't ratify, AAL won't have lost any time, and they can choose to accept the bids from Republic, Mesa, Skywest, or whomever else might have received it.

 

[will fix for food]

If they are just putting those out now they must not have been prepared for the pilots to vote no.

 

[eolesen]

If they are just putting those out now they must not have been prepared for the pilots to vote no.

The math and calendar disagree with you...

Have you ever written or responded to a RFP?... I've done both, and something of this order would take about 45-60 days to prepare, have reviewed by Legal and Purchasing, and issue to the vendors.

Based on that, it sounds to me as though this RFP was well along the way to being issued when the MEC acted three weeks ago.

 

[jcw]

Not really - AA just brought in additional regional carriers in a the past year or so - it's very easy to copy and paste from prior RFP's you can get an RFP out in a couple of days if you just use other recent RFP's - I've issued many RFP's in a couple weeks time

 

[will fix for food]

[quote name="eolesen" post="1070757" timestamp="1394419821Have you ever written or responded to a RFP?... I've done both,.........[/quote]

No I haven't. Mechanics generally don't do that sort of thing.

But congratulations on that.

BTW, that was a very 700 sounding response.

 

[RJcasualty]

How can management threaten the MEC with not representing the pilots interest?...

The harsher reality of the situation seems to be that AAL issued an RFP within the last 10 days to the various independent regionals, soliciting bids for three tranches of 20 aircaft each.

My guess is once the MEC saw AAL wasn't bluffing, someone decided it might be better to find a way out... They met with management on Wednesday and Thursday, and then the decision was made to put the offer out for vote.

Meanwhile, the RFP's are still out for response. If the pilots don't ratify, AAL won't have lost any time, and they can choose to accept the bids from Republic, Mesa, Skywest, or whomever else might have received it.

You can "issue" an RFP to a ham sandwich, that doesn't mean that those independent regionals can just accommodate AAG's whims. Hello, there's a pilot shortage.