Ironbutt and Gang: I was with some regionals and never had anything against the widespread use of RJs, whether as turboprop replacements or not. Shall I repeat that? It is too bad that there are some guys who look down on the regionals getting jets (as if pilots would not naturally want to fly them), and my brother, who flew twin Commanders on mostly all-night freight schedules, was turned down once years ago for a jumpseat, by a (ORD or DEN-based, 737 crew in MCI: maybe the two mainline pilots did not like men that day...whoops...). But I guess that people read into these topics whatever they are imagining at the time. One of our mainline FOs, who used a very derogatory comment for the fact that regional pilots fly RJs on former mainline routes, in front of a few of us, was not only ignorant but very arrogant-and he came here from a military IP job. But you can't reason with people like that, having tried, very tactfully.
Some of my statements were somehow misunderstood. I've always been for a flow-through agreement (check previous Pprune topics...), but did not know if the main problem was basically with our mostly wide-body negotiators (I forgot my prayer rug today
), or the company. They might not care what many of us think about these issues, anyway. My company was bought in a merger years ago. Ok, the question about fewer mainline jobs in the future might be purely academic, but I had always assumed that majority of US regional pilots were attracted to higher pay elsewhere. My point was that the rewards might be mostly short-term for some, regarding the resumes, if many of the higher-paying jobs somehow disappear. That's was my only point on that. And, if ALPA has been discriminatory against the regionals, then the national leadership should be criticized, but maybe it should be done in private, and via e-mails between us.
None of that was meant as a veiled or subtle critique of RJ operations-I was cheering for COMAIR to somehow prevail in its battle against Delta's discriminatory bargaining positions, and wondered how those COMAIR folks could prevail, with the industry leaning very hard on Delta, "...oh, a call from THE Senate Aviation Subcommittee Chairman"?! I felt bad for the Comair results, and was dismayed that US courts, labor judges or not, seem to always rule in mgmts' favor.
Is my use of English (as a furst langwidge) really that bad, or too subtle? If so, as Lynyrd Skynyrd said in the song about redneck bars, 'Give me three steps', "excuuuse me!"