Here's a better example of what I'm trying to convey...Let's take the example of a wholly-owned pilot at U flies left seat such as Piedmont for the past 4 of 10 years of service. Let's just say for the sake of argument that there is a "flow-through" when there is an opening at mainline. His seniority of 10 years only holds right seat f/0...should he be entitled to a captain's position just because he held left seat at the regional????
Bad example, PITbull - a flowthru would have the PDT guy coming into mainline at the bottom of the mainline list. A better example would be a merger between US and Mesa. Should a 30 year Mesa CRJ Captain expect to step into an A330 Captain job just because he worked for Mesa 30 years? If Mesa has 100 CRJ Captains with over 28 years, should the 27 year 364 day US guy (who was next in line for A330 Captain) wait until all 100 of them are A330 Captains before he gets a shot at it?
In the case of USAirways pilots, if an East pilot has 18 years of service and hold left seat, why would an AWA pilot who has 10 years who flies left seat at AWA take that seniority and bump a 15 [did you mean 18 as earlier?] year pilot out of left seat, so that the AWA pilot of 10 years can still fly captain?
If that's what you think this award does, you're greatly misinformed. If the 18 year East pilot can hold Captain, he can still hold Captain. No one is bumping him out of it
just because of the combined list.
There is an East pilot who just e-mailed me. He said if you look at the combined list, he dropped 700 numbers, and he has 23 years flying as an East pilot at U.
And I suspect that that is all most East pilots are looking at. That pilot may have dropped 700 numbers, but the combined list doesn't take anything away from him - he can still hold the job he held on the East list. There's more people in front of him because the number of jobs available increased.
What that pilot
didn't get is the ability to take a West pilot's job away.
You've got to stop looking at it as if it were F/A's merging lists. With your former group, longevity is really all that mattered. A F/A with 10 years had the same pay rate irregardless of whether that 10 years put them at the top or bottom of the list. Payments to the pension plan were based on the same pay rate irregardless of whether 10 years meant the top or bottom of the list. Etc, etc.
With pilots, it's different - one's position on the list determines pay, pension contributions, etc irregardless of how long it took to reach that position. The arbitrator's award keeps everyone in the same relative position on the list, meaning they have the seniority to do what they were doing on the two individual lists the arbitrator used. In fact, most East pilots are higher on the combined list than on the East list, while most West pilots are lower on the combined list than they were on the West list.
Tell me this - in the F/A merging of lists, did you insist that those West F/A's move backward several steps on the pay scale "because the East F/A's have been here longer?" Somehow, I doubt it yet that is exactly what you're saying should happen with the pilots. You're saying that a West pilot doesn't deserve the pay/benefits he has "because the East pilots have been here longer."
Jim
but I feel extremely lucky given the complete shortsighted outlook of those in my profession to have spent 31 years somewhere, and will retire as 74 captain and dodged the major setbacks of many of my fellow pilots. Unfortunately, I have three sons I couldn't talk out of being pilots, who I really feel saddened for. I know without a doubt, they won't come close to enjoying the career I had, and pilots are to blame, myself included.
