As a former Kalitta employee for 7 years, I can say that in the PAST, there were many incidents that made for good folklore. However, Things did change for the better, and in the end, it was a fairly respectable place to work. With that said, I have no other aviation experience than Willow Run airport, so my views may be a bit sckewed and not up to par with the rest of the world.. .As far as the seniority thing goes, we had a contract that was not based entirely on seniority as far as the upgrades went. Many folks were not ready for an upgrade and that was agreed to in the contract. So, that may or may not have been the reason for the upgrade out of seniority.
The Duty time enforcement has still not been solved, and will not for some time if history has anything to say about it. The Air Transport Association has too much pull with the congress and the FAA, and I think many more folks will have to die as a result before anything will ever be done. After the Gitmo accident, we had cart blanche to say the F word and nothing was ever said about it. that was the only good thing that came out of that incident.
Yes, the DC-8 had a totally mechanical elevator, only the ailerons and rudder were hydraulicly boosted for the flight controls.
At that time, the Lears were flown on the 135 certificate and the 135 rules a few years ago were much more lenient than the 121 rules were. As Mr. O'ride said, the FAA is more concerned with the rules than safety. The company was just using the rules to further the profit, just like every airline out there. If there were no pilot unions, these rules would be abused all the time by every airline out there.