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On 1/5/2003 11:18:14 AM ONTHESTREET wrote:
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On 1/5/2003 2

03 AM Yankee Air Pirate wrote:
ALPA should demand one carrier, one certificate, one seniority, one product in return for all these pay cuts and furloughs.
You are correct...they should.
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In the meantime, it would be quite helpful if ex-mainline pilots could sit tight until we sign a contract.
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Did Mesa pilots do this for CCAir? It seems Mesa boys were eager enough to start flying CCAirs routes.
Or how about all the old 737 routes you guys now fly. How is that different?
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pilot to the contrary is self-serving drivel.
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Mesa pilots have their share of questionable ethics during all of this also.
In essence Freedom is doing the same thing to Mesa that Mesa is doing to Mainline. Outsourcing.
Also the whole CCAir mess, ALPA National is to blame for the shutdown...however it would not have been possible without Mesa pilots willingness to fly CCAirs routes! Fellow pilots who supposedly are on the same Senority list as the MESA pilots. What happened to your "combined list" If you were holding up to your high standards that you want everyone else to adhere to, the 20 plus year CCAir pilots should be flying as senior captains at MESA, and the junior mesa pilots should be furloughed. You have had a combined senority list for 3 or 4 years now. Why did you allow the CCAir guys to be furloughed out of senority? Mesa pilots need to be careful of the accusations that they throw out at other groups. Their targets may be a mirror of themselves.
No I am NOT a Freedom pilot or a CCAir pilot. Just asking questions that lots of people seem to not want to be asked!!
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Hi ONTHESTREET,
You have some excellent points which on the surface seem damning for my previous post. Is it possible that under the RLA there wasn't much for YV pilots to do other than symbolically merge seniority lists with CCAir? Management still does not recognize the list, that is part of our current contract negotiations. The two ALPA groups stood together all the way through the process. If and when the contract is signed, the CCAir pilots left will come to the YV seniority. CCAir's contract was rejected by ALPA national for reasons I don't fully understand. One rumour was that the final agreement sent to DW was drawn up by YV lawyers from a bullet point agreement. According to the rumour, the language in the document didn't match the bullet points and was rejected. I don't know of anyone who celebrated taking their flying. Most of that flying was Jetstream, now Beech, or Dash flying, some of which was briefly flown by YV Dash 8s, probably flown now by Piedmont, another ALPA carrier. Certainly not flying that would move us in a direction most pilots want in terms of renumeration. If you have some pointers as to how things could have been done differently, please offer them. I would be more than glad to hear them.
The SJs were brought to the USAir operation from what was originally a Mesa stand alone operation at Fort Worth Meacham. Whether the FTW operation would have ever been successful is anyone's guess. It never had a chance because YV management at the time was depending on revenue from the United Express contract which was terminated mostly due to management negliegience. The aftershock of that event nearly sent YV into bankruptcy. The SJs were brought to US by Ornstein/Gangwal/Wolf with the acquiesence of the mainline pilots. Blaming the Ants for the dance of the Elephants is a little high-handed. Outsourcing begins and ends at the top. Mainline carriers are the only pilot groups that have the clout to make/change ALPA policy. If ALPA drew a line in the sand during this restructering dictating a one carrier/one seniority policy for any paycuts or concessions the Regionals would become a thing of the past. That hasn't happened so the only fight going on now is at the bottom of the pile. Mainline furloughees can make choices about whether they go to Freedom, particularly former Mesa pilots who left Mesa in search of greener pastures. Had I made a legal choice to do anything to harm CCAir pilots futures, then I would be just as culpable as a Freedom pilot. In the end, pilots at Freedom choose to help management undermine the meager contract Mesa ALPA is struggling to sign.