Last but not least I think the major failure lies with ALPO. There are already two Spirit pilots' names published on the net who decided to fly instead of joining their colleagues picketing. If one decides to cross a picket line, your name will be out there until you retire. Management has been unscrupulous as expected but has also gotten away with things that would be deemed impossible at the legacy carriers, however a legal strike is still months away.Ī word people from Europe should become familiar with is the term scab. One prime example is a privately owned regional airline in STL. This process is much lengthier than in Europe (I admit I do not know a bit about labor laws in the UK) and certain airlines wanting to strike cannot do so right away but have to wait for years. The railroad labor act is another big hurdle for pilots to be legally allowed to strike. The new(-ish) corporate attitude in the US really scares me because many CEOs/upper management are just out there to rape the company. If I am not mistaken there is a significant financial difference in bonuses and salaries paid to upper management between the US and Europe. Do a bit of research.Īirline business in the US usually goes like this: After listening to how bad the financial situation is at airline XYZ, the pilot group votes on cutbacks and management then takes that money and uses it on their bonuses in form of cash, cars and other toys. The prime example in the US is the infamous "Mesa sucks" slogan that you still hear across the airwaves. That all depends how and when you look at it. I am sorry but I have no sympathy for anyone that goes on strike, certainly not under the current economical climate. PS - I turned down three calls to come for an interview with EAL during the strike. They are so far below that now and it's embarrassing to the entire profession. They aren't asking for pie-in-the-sky pay, just industry average. What they want is equitable pay and compensation for the work they do. They don't want to shut down the company - no striking pilot group does. At some point, you have to look into the abyss and stand your ground. This should have never happened, but Spirit management has chosen to not negotiate in good faith and has repeatedly stalled talks for years. Shut your Airline down, put most of your friends and colleagues out of work, and support your ALPO brothers and sisters by giving them more business and ergo job security. That, in and of itself, is a huge difference between then and now. EAL and CAL ended poorly, but the lessons to be learned include not fearing management's threats, not falling or sham contract offers, and not being afraid to call management on their lies and deceit.Īlso, times have changed and we're in the information age. You study previous battles, analyze them, and learn what worked and what didn't. In a war, you don't refuse to go into a skirmish because a previous skirmish ended badly. First, there is no Texas Air or Continental to siphon off resources to in this case. Flying flights under Spirit callsigns/flight numbers that puts money in Spirit's coffers would be flying struck work.įourth.Haven't the Spirit pilots learned anything from the CAL 83 and EAL 89 ALPO strikes?. If the revenue goes to the airline carrying the customers and not to Spirit, then it's not considered flying struck work. Thirdly.If all of the "support" is out there for your cause, according to the news reports, Spirit is rebooking their customers on other (possibly ALPO?) airlines.Isn't that flying "struck" work? I guess that means better "you than I", because I've still got a job. And, by the way, a lot of that support is coming from non-ALPA pilots. Check out or if you want to see overwhelming support for the Spirit pilots. What's your point, really? We don't see a lot of posts about European job actions on the US-centric boards, either. Second off.the fact that this thread has been posted here for so long indicates to me that there is not a lot of sympathy for these pilots among the PPRuNe.only 7 posts so far.
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