nycbusdriver
Veteran
...and they can "read the tea leaves."AdAstraPerAspera said:Anyway, way to go Eagle pilots; you guys have balls.
AE Pilots say NO.
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RJcasualty
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FWAA's analysis fails to mention that all those regional a/c seating numbers weren't pulled out of the sky. They were a result of bargaining that set up a wage firewall between mainline and regional operations. Integrating the seniority list and extending the mainline pay band to 76 seaters would be a logical solution. In other words, merge regional and mainline and get on with running an airline--- instead of whipsawing wages through different and mostly indifferent vendors. DP will never agree to this. Maybe it will take a breathtakingly horrid, operational summer 2014 for AAG to see the light.
jimntx
Veteran
All depends on whether or not a member of Congress lives/shops/has family in an EAS town. If so, then air service to that town will become an issue of national security.
You leave out the fact that when they raised the mandatory retirement age to 65 it delayed the shortage we are seeing now. The FAA put in place what used to be the standard applied by the carriers themselves years ago, when wages and the number of people looking to become pilots were higher. The regionals lowered the hours and experience required to get hired in response to the fact they could not find pilots, and killed some people in the process by paying pilots wages so low they ended up with pilots who were not only inexperienced but physically unfit to fly because they could not live off the wages they paid.
The same thing has been happening in maintenance although it doesn't get the media coverage because they cant pin a smoking hole on it, yet. When I was hired by AA they required 5 years of Heavy Turbine experience, now they are down to two years period. For a while they lowered it to ZERO but their own management balked and they raised it back up.
Where has AA been getting their mechanics? From Eagle, so who does Eagle hire? Anyone they can, the FAA does not regulate any standards as far as experience for mechanics.
The FAA knows that low wages are creating the same problems for maintenance as what caused the crash in Buffalo and the shortage of qualified airline personnel, but the carriers and A4A are doing everything they can to block the FAA from addressing it, and unlike the ALPA our Union decided to side with the carriers in blocking moves that would result in a tightening of the supply of maintenance labor. Those people are gone and if the opportunity comes again, I believe the Unions will be on the side of the FAA instead of the A4A.
The choice is simple, maintain standards, or cheap labor which brings increased risk. you cant have it both ways forever and you have had it that way too long already.
WorldTraveler
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Bob is absolutely correct.
The mandatory retirement age combined with huge growth of the ME3 and other Asian airlines - which don't produce enough pilots in their own countries to staff their own airplanes combined with poor economics for the 50 seaters which are heavily used by US carriers are all converging to lead to dramatic reductions in air service in the US, much of it largely flown up to this point on 50 seaters.
costs have increased. The US market is not growing and small cities only work when connected to hubs... none of the interlining between umpteen carriers that existed before. The economics of operating a small station for a couple jet flights a day doesn't work in most cases... precisely because there are larger cities that have low cost carrier fares so that there can be no real difference between small cities and medium and large cities that are nearby and don't stand to lose service.
pilot costs even for mainline will increase. holding onto regional carriers to fly 76 seat aircraft is a stopgap measure that may buy another 10 years but ultimately the gap will close and mainline carriers will pick up flying at the expense of many small cities.
The result will be shrinkage in the domestic networks of carriers that can't move that flying to mainline.... and not every city will work. Reducing the number of hubs is the key ingredient that will allow legacy carriers to maintain service at small or medium sized cities that are heavily dependent on small RJs today.
Hubs will close and service will be reduced. Scarce resources will be pulled from the places where they generate the least value.
The mandatory retirement age combined with huge growth of the ME3 and other Asian airlines - which don't produce enough pilots in their own countries to staff their own airplanes combined with poor economics for the 50 seaters which are heavily used by US carriers are all converging to lead to dramatic reductions in air service in the US, much of it largely flown up to this point on 50 seaters.
AdAstraPerAspera said:
costs have increased. The US market is not growing and small cities only work when connected to hubs... none of the interlining between umpteen carriers that existed before. The economics of operating a small station for a couple jet flights a day doesn't work in most cases... precisely because there are larger cities that have low cost carrier fares so that there can be no real difference between small cities and medium and large cities that are nearby and don't stand to lose service.
RJcasualty said:
pilot costs even for mainline will increase. holding onto regional carriers to fly 76 seat aircraft is a stopgap measure that may buy another 10 years but ultimately the gap will close and mainline carriers will pick up flying at the expense of many small cities.
The result will be shrinkage in the domestic networks of carriers that can't move that flying to mainline.... and not every city will work. Reducing the number of hubs is the key ingredient that will allow legacy carriers to maintain service at small or medium sized cities that are heavily dependent on small RJs today.
Hubs will close and service will be reduced. Scarce resources will be pulled from the places where they generate the least value.
Nobody invests the time and money to become a licensed Airman to work for a Regional carrier. Regionals are stepping stones, as such when the objective becomes less desirable the Regionals will be the first to get hit. Less and less people want to work for Delta, AA and UA so less are willing to work for the experience at the Regionals. The only way to preserve service is to have the fares on the long hauls subsidize providing service on the short hauls and reduced frequency. Is there really a need for 20 flights a day out of Lincoln Nebraska? It will take at least 5 hours to drive to the nearest city anyway so waiting a few hours for a flight is not that much of an inconvenience where everyone will switch to their car.
FWAAA claims that the increased requirements are driving the shortage, while it helps the fact is if you look at the number of people seeking a commercial transport pilots license the number has been in steady decline for years, the carriers artificially hid the decline by lowering standards and raising the retirement age. What's the term they use for that in Economics? Substituition? Replace a quality product with an inferior one.
What made flying accessible and affordable to most American was not low wages for Airline workers , but high capacity aircraft that could move hundreds of people at a time. I'm not going to drive to LAX or MIA when there are seats available but only three flights a day. The scheme of having super low wages and high frequency flights on small capacity aircraft is coming apart at the seams because the scheme is inefficient, dependent on cheap labor and the labor, even after the effects of substitution are played out, is becoming scarce. Unfortunately AA is once again on the wrong side, instead of going for bigger aircraft they are going for smaller.
FWAAA claims that the increased requirements are driving the shortage, while it helps the fact is if you look at the number of people seeking a commercial transport pilots license the number has been in steady decline for years, the carriers artificially hid the decline by lowering standards and raising the retirement age. What's the term they use for that in Economics? Substituition? Replace a quality product with an inferior one.
What made flying accessible and affordable to most American was not low wages for Airline workers , but high capacity aircraft that could move hundreds of people at a time. I'm not going to drive to LAX or MIA when there are seats available but only three flights a day. The scheme of having super low wages and high frequency flights on small capacity aircraft is coming apart at the seams because the scheme is inefficient, dependent on cheap labor and the labor, even after the effects of substitution are played out, is becoming scarce. Unfortunately AA is once again on the wrong side, instead of going for bigger aircraft they are going for smaller.
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RJcasualty
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The billions spent on regional infrastructure--- with modernization and expansion projects still in place and more planned for the future, runs headlong into the "new thinking". Has anyone thought to give the bond holders and taxpayers a heads up on this brave new world of larger RJ's, reduced frequencies, and outright withdrawal of service? Are the airlines ready to forgo that certain segment of business and leisure flyers who tend to fly on a whim and have little patience for the additional time required to negotiate increasingly heavier highway traffic to a more distant and invariably crowded terminal?
nycbusdriver
Veteran
Bob Owens said:
Not quite. There may be other instances, but as I recall a relatively inexperienced mechanic screwed up the control linkages on the US Express BE-1900 that crashed into the hangar in CLT on takeoff.
There have been other "smoking holes" blamed on maintenance issues, but not necessarily inexperienced mechanics.
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The beech was vendored out.
The investigators determined the crash to have been the result of two separate issues. After take-off, the plane climbed steeply as a result of higher than expected weight on the aircraft. Even though both pilots pushed on the control column forward, the plane did not respond to their input, and this led to the stalling of the aircraft.
The aircraft's most recent service involved adjusting the elevator control cable, and was performed two nights before the crash at a repair facility located at Tri-State Airport in Huntington, West Virginia. During the investigation, it emerged that the mechanic who worked on the elevator cables had never worked on this type of aircraft. Investigation revealed that turnbuckles controlling tension on the cables to the elevators had been set incorrectly, resulting in insufficient elevator travel, leading to the pilots not having sufficient pitch control. Although normally a post-adjustment control test would be conducted to ensure that the maintenance had been carried out correctly, and that the surface was operating properly, the maintenance supervisor who was instructing the mechanic decided to skip this step. The NTSB noted that the FAA was aware of "serious deficiencies" in the training procedures at the facility, but had done nothing to correct them.[8]
Although the pilots had totaled up the take-off weight of the aircraft before the flight and determined it to be within limits, the plane was actually overloaded and out of balance, due to the use of incorrect but Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)-approved passenger weight estimates. When checked, the National Transportation Safety Board found that the actual weight of an average passenger was more than 20 pounds (9 kg) greater than estimated. After checking the actual weight of baggage retrieved from the crash site, and passengers (based on information from next-of-kin and the medical examiner), it was found that the aircraft was actually 580 pounds (264 kg) above its maximum allowable take-off weight, with its center of gravity 5% to the rear of the allowable limit.
It was determined that neither problem alone would have caused the loss of control, which explains why it departed Huntington, West Virginia safely.
The investigators determined the crash to have been the result of two separate issues. After take-off, the plane climbed steeply as a result of higher than expected weight on the aircraft. Even though both pilots pushed on the control column forward, the plane did not respond to their input, and this led to the stalling of the aircraft.
The aircraft's most recent service involved adjusting the elevator control cable, and was performed two nights before the crash at a repair facility located at Tri-State Airport in Huntington, West Virginia. During the investigation, it emerged that the mechanic who worked on the elevator cables had never worked on this type of aircraft. Investigation revealed that turnbuckles controlling tension on the cables to the elevators had been set incorrectly, resulting in insufficient elevator travel, leading to the pilots not having sufficient pitch control. Although normally a post-adjustment control test would be conducted to ensure that the maintenance had been carried out correctly, and that the surface was operating properly, the maintenance supervisor who was instructing the mechanic decided to skip this step. The NTSB noted that the FAA was aware of "serious deficiencies" in the training procedures at the facility, but had done nothing to correct them.[8]
Although the pilots had totaled up the take-off weight of the aircraft before the flight and determined it to be within limits, the plane was actually overloaded and out of balance, due to the use of incorrect but Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)-approved passenger weight estimates. When checked, the National Transportation Safety Board found that the actual weight of an average passenger was more than 20 pounds (9 kg) greater than estimated. After checking the actual weight of baggage retrieved from the crash site, and passengers (based on information from next-of-kin and the medical examiner), it was found that the aircraft was actually 580 pounds (264 kg) above its maximum allowable take-off weight, with its center of gravity 5% to the rear of the allowable limit.
It was determined that neither problem alone would have caused the loss of control, which explains why it departed Huntington, West Virginia safely.
RJ;
You just don't get it. The "billions spent" was more of a way of transferring tax dollars out of the Treasury and into banks than providing needed infrastructure. Its called "pork". Case in point is the way they keep building and tearing down terminals.
Now the government is targeting LGA, after just sinking millions into refurbishing it they are planning on tearing it all down. LGA isn't pretty but it is functional and millions of people go through it every year. Any inconveniences the current setup has could be fixed by providing more people to man the security checks and putting in walkways that connect the fingers so you don't have to exit the secured area to connect. The project will generate jobs, but more importantly be very expensive, the money would be better spent and just as many jobs would be created by putting that money into the bridges, tunnels and roads, maybe a rail line to LGA to connect it to JFK and eliminate all the Busses and cabs.
Some may claim that the Port Authority funds these projects but any costs they have is passed on to consumers, most people aren't aware that they and other airports have jacked up landing fees by over 30% since we gave up 25% in concessions in 2003, our concessions went to fund their increases, these costs are being passed from the Airports, to the Airlines and on to us in the form of decreased compensation. The airlines point at labor as the source of their ills but we are pretty much the only ones in this game, other than travel agents, that have seen our share of the wealth our "product" helps produce go down, everyone else is getting a windfall, even in BK.
You just don't get it. The "billions spent" was more of a way of transferring tax dollars out of the Treasury and into banks than providing needed infrastructure. Its called "pork". Case in point is the way they keep building and tearing down terminals.
Now the government is targeting LGA, after just sinking millions into refurbishing it they are planning on tearing it all down. LGA isn't pretty but it is functional and millions of people go through it every year. Any inconveniences the current setup has could be fixed by providing more people to man the security checks and putting in walkways that connect the fingers so you don't have to exit the secured area to connect. The project will generate jobs, but more importantly be very expensive, the money would be better spent and just as many jobs would be created by putting that money into the bridges, tunnels and roads, maybe a rail line to LGA to connect it to JFK and eliminate all the Busses and cabs.
Some may claim that the Port Authority funds these projects but any costs they have is passed on to consumers, most people aren't aware that they and other airports have jacked up landing fees by over 30% since we gave up 25% in concessions in 2003, our concessions went to fund their increases, these costs are being passed from the Airports, to the Airlines and on to us in the form of decreased compensation. The airlines point at labor as the source of their ills but we are pretty much the only ones in this game, other than travel agents, that have seen our share of the wealth our "product" helps produce go down, everyone else is getting a windfall, even in BK.
WorldTraveler
Corn Field
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RAH pilots also say no.
The regional airline industry will either disintegrate in labor turmoil or as fast as their mainline partners can pull the plug on the RJ industry.
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/republic-airways-4-year-pilot-labor-contract-rejected-by-ibt-local-357-2014-04-04?reflink=MW_news_stmp
The regional airline industry will either disintegrate in labor turmoil or as fast as their mainline partners can pull the plug on the RJ industry.
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/republic-airways-4-year-pilot-labor-contract-rejected-by-ibt-local-357-2014-04-04?reflink=MW_news_stmp
