Cargo Jock
Your calling mainline pilots "rats" is obviously not a term of endearment or meant to be funny. Your hostility towards them is transparent to myself, Parabellum and others I am sure. They are just pilots like us trying to make a living with the system they are handed. I assume you feel that "mainline rats" are guilty of various infractions such as taking our choice trips, getting all the good deals etc...Assuming that these infractions are actually true, shouldn't your anger be directed at the system that allows these things to happen? The mainline pilots did not create the system, they are just working within it and if the system allowed them to bogart a trip away from us, well do you blame them for doing so? Or are we to infer that should the tables have been turned, that your high sense of right and wrong would never have permitted you to do the same to a mainline pilot?
Pilots in general are out for themselves and will use the system to their own selfish advantage if able to do so. I think the better phrase for venting your anger should be "management rats".