Spinning one in will certainly scare the public. I wouldn't hold my breath on the regulators blaming it in on some SSTR pilot though. Don't forget the regulators approved that pilot's license. I have thought for a long time that an effective
PR campaign to let the public know that the right pilot contract can protect them might work. As far as the public is concerned all pilots are equal and flying any airline is 100% safe or the government wouldn’t allow it. (Actually not too far off the reality. Flying is safer and cheaper than it ever has being.)
Truth is if pilots, and other skilled labor groups want to get more $$$ they need to change the way the do business. Pilots do not have the chock hold they may have once had because the industry has moved away from being a regulated cost plus utility. Pilot training is also much more available than in the past. 30 years ago the only way to get it was through the military or an airline. No longer the case and that genie is not going back into the bottle.
Company bargaining is dying because managers can play one pilot workforce against another. The senority structure of airlines works against labor mobility and managers know this.
BALPA or ILPA could get some real leverage if they developed an available pool of trained pilots ready to go to work tomorrow for whomever meets their terms. The pilot union with leverage needs to get into the business of training and bonding pilots to be made available to contracted airlines. Don't sign our deal you don't get our pilots. A return to the old guilds system if you will.
Properly done, with realistic expectations and not the we will choke the chicken till we get the last egg attitude of the past such a plan could work. It would mean senior pilots giving something up, basically seniority, and helping fund this scheme. Certainly has a better chance than trying to tell the newbies at the bottom, go starve for an indefinite number of years to protect our T&C and maybe someday we’ll let you in.
Sorry, got to go, pigs are flying.