Last weekend my husband called me to tell me they were "rolling" his days off, which was inevitably followed by a grown. I've probably mentioned it before, but my husband is on a "reserve" schedule, which means that on the days he works, he's basically on call and doesn't know where he'll be flying to til the last minute when they call him. The airlines keep a staff of pilots on reserve to fill in if someone calls in sick, gets stranded with a broken plane, or a variety of other scenarios where a trip might need a pilot to fill in. So anyway, when on reserve, you still get scheduled days off and each month, some of those days off are moveable, meaning, they can decide to take them away and put them later in that week if they need a reserve pilot for a trip on the days off he/she was originally scheduled off. Luckily, it doesn't happen that often, and he still gets blocks of days off that are not moveable.
So anyway, we knew he wouldn't be coming home when he was originally supposed to be. Or would he? The next call I received went something like this:
Him: Guess where I'm overnighting Sunday and Monday?
Me: Mexico? (He overnights there A LOT)
Him: Nope.
Me: Charlotte???
Him: Yup!
Me: YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!
Greg actually got to fly a trip to Charlotte. I think it's the first one he's had at Continental! To make it even better? It was a two night overnight with an entire day here with no flying. Swwwwwweeeeet! Dear Continental, you have my permission to roll Greg's days off anytime if you give him overnights in Charlotte when you do!
The other funny thing about this was that Continental got him a hotel room, since technically he's based in Houston, and don't plan for a pilot to stay at their own house on an overnight in their non-base city. While it would have been kind of fun to stay the night, it wasn't that realistic to do on a weeknight when I had work and also we have to think about Clyde. Plus, Greg LOVES sleeping in his own bed, so I knew he'd want to come home when given the choice between a hotel and home.
Ok, here's something that's a little bit TMI. Clyde is kind of a .....mood killer, if you catch my drift. While trying to conceive, the other biggest challenge besides Greg's schedule, was trying to... well you know, with our nine pound furbaby around. Clyde wants to be involved in everything we're doing, and obviously he's not going to be involved when that's happening. I immediately told Greg we should use the hotel for some alone time on Monday after I got out of work. Hehe :)
Monday night I got home from work and we headed over to the area where the hotel was. We decided to basically make a date night out of it and went to dinner at San Antonio's, a Tex-Mex place near the hotel.
I started of with a house margarita that came in a the biggest glass ever! (Yes, I used this picture in my last post!)
And we had the obligatory chips and salsa.
My hot date!
I ordered a fajita combo with chicken and vegetables. It. Was. Huge.
Seriously? This probably fed me for about four meals this week. I brought the leftovers for lunch to work twice!
After dinner, we had our alone time at the hotel. I know hotel overnights are an every day thing for Greg, but I don't get away that much, so I found it kind of fun. Plus I got to steal all the Aveda toiletries :)
So that was my Monday night date with my husband who was overnighting in his home city. :)
I thought it was probably time for an update on Greg's tumultuous career.
The good news is, Greg received his OFFICIAL recall letter to Continental last week. It confirmed his class date of January 3, 2011, just as we'd thought. Greg had been able to log into a system and see this listed a few weeks ago, so we've been cautiously anticipating that this was his actual recall date and the letter just served to confirm it.
Great news right? Well, hold your horses before you get too excited for us. Within days of the magical recall letter arriving, Greg heard the news that Boeing had announced they are delaying the delivery of 787 planes, that were supposed to be delivered to Continental very soon, for another 10 months.
This is bad, because back a couple months ago all the Continental pilots did a system bid for bases, planes, Capt/First Officer, etc... The bid was awarded based on these planes being at Continental for the pilots to be trained on and fly in the next couple months. If these planes are not at Continental, then all the pilots that were awarded to fly the 787 will have no planes to fly. Greg thinks it's very possible they will have to redo the system bid now since these planes are not going to be at Continental for a while. We don't think they would have recalled the furloughed pilots if they'd known these planes would not be coming for another 10 months. So, this again leaves Greg in a very vulnerable position.
We don't know what is going to happen now, but we are not counting on him going back in January, even though he received his recall letter. There's really nothing that says they can't retract it and tell him that the recall is off til those planes come. Originally, Greg was thinking about quitting his present job and taking a whole month off in between jobs to give himself a break, get stuff done, and be around for the holidays. Now, he said he's definitely not quitting until he's pretty sure his recall is still happening.
Am I surprised? No, not really. I hate to always be "Debbie Downer" when it comes to the aviation industry, but this kind of stuff keeps happening to us OVER and OVER again. I'll do what I always do and be cautiously optimistic that things will work out and his recall will still happen, but I'm still going to prepare for the worst like I always do now.
In the meantime, I'll keep living life like I always do: smooching my dog, enjoying time with Greg when he's home, running, hanging out with my friends, cooking, and keeping my sanity in check!
Well, there's been a little bit of news on the furlough front, so I figured it was about time I gave the update on that, since this is a pilot's wife blog and all, even though my focus has shifted in much of what I blog about. You pilot wife readers might be getting tired of looking at pictures of food and running related paraphernalia, so I apologize if you're looking for more aviation related content- sorry!. Likewise, I apologize to my Healthy Living Blogger friends if aviation news bores you!
But, the blog is about my life, and this is potentially life changing news for Greg and I, so I thought I should give an update on what's happening.
According to my hubby, Continental is in the process of having one of their system bids, which is when the pilots all choose (bid) what plane they want to fly and where they want to be based. Likewise, the company comes out with their projected staffing needs and says how many planes they will have and how many spots open in different bases, etc... Then everything is resorted based on the needs and seniority and eventually the pilots are all told whether they will be flying at all, where they are based, what plane they will be flying, and whether they are Captain or First Officer. Right now, it's still getting sorted, but they came out with a preliminary "glimpse" the other day where the pilots could see, based on what pilot bids they have already received, what plane they would be in and where they would likely be based. As of yesterday, my hubby was slated for First Officer in the 737 in Houston. He was pretty psyched to hear that, as he pretty much hated Newark as a base and was thinking he might end up in a completely different plane this go around if he got called back. As I said, this is just a preliminary look based on what information they have so far, so this may change once the final bids are in.
The other thing is that the news is somewhat anti-climactic because the company can say they have recalled the pilots, but not give them a class date as to when they start actually working again. This actually happened once already, when a couple months ago they said 15 pilots were recalled, and those 15 pilots have yet to receive a class date or fly for Continental again. So, until Greg actually receives a class date or starts flying at CAL, I'm hesitant to jump for joy. I'm in that jaded "I'll believe it when I see it" mentality. Right now they are projecting classes for the furloughs to begin in November through January.
Also, the merger with United is still in progress, so if the merger is finalized before Greg returns to work, we foresee that potentially affecting things. He has a better chance at having a job with Continental/United if he's back flying before the merger happens.
So that's the current news on that. Until we know for sure, Greg's going to keep doing flying at his current job and things will pretty much stay business as usual.
We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming ;)
My day started off ok. I made a smoothie with Stoneyfield vanilla yogurt, blueberries, cherries, some raw granola, chia seeds and a little vanilla whey protein. I drank that along with some Chai (instead of coffee), just to mix things up. (I have pictures, but it'll have to wait til later!)
This morning I heard the news that a new airline merger may be happening, between ASA and Express Jet, two Regional airlines. I saw that a few pilots wives were nervous about it in some online forums. I ended up getting into a conversation about airline mergers with my friend (not in the airline industry) about it. And I proceeded to get really ticked off!
I haven't really written about airline related stuff lately, because not much has changed. Greg is still flying for the same company. He is home a couple days a week and flying a couple days a week, same old same old. He is still on furlough status at Continental though and still follows the news about the merger and looks to see if there will be a recall and when. The Continental and United merger is still being worked out and we have heard different scenarios in terms of how things may turn out with the pilot merger. Possibly all CAL pilots will come back first if there is a recall. Possibly a 1 to 1 recall of CAL/UAL pilots. Possibly the seniority will be awarded based on hire date, meaning that even if CAL pilots were recalled first, once UAL guys are called back they would be senior to the existing and recalled CAL pilots if their date of hire at United was prior to the CAL guys hire dates. Continental is supposed to have another big pilot bid come out within the next month, and we should know more then. I never hold my breath with this kind of news, because things usually seem to take longer than they predict to figure it all out and let everyone know. We probably won't know anything for a while still. I hope for a recall, but I am in no way thinking it will happen or planning on it happening. It very well may never happen.
When this blog was conceived, almost a year ago, my feelings about the industry were like an open wound. It didn't take much to irritate it. Now, almost a year later, most of the time I have a strange peace with the state of where things are. I just feel like it is what it is. I've learned not to put much of my hopes into thinking the airline industry will do good things for us. I got tired of it letting me down all the time and just became focused on other things in my life instead like my social life, running, yoga, my VERY cute puppy, my husband, and blogging about healthy living.
I realized today that my feelings about the airline industry are still really strong though. My friend started giving his opinion about how airline mergers do/should work, what makes sense, how it will likely happen. I told him it's very silly of him to make statements about what will happen, should happen, or likely happen, because in my eight and half years of experience with this industry, the one thing I have learned is that it's completely unpredictable. You can't ever predict what will happen. A lot of the time what happens is the opposite of what you think will or should happen. Companies that are seemingly doing fine one day collapse the next. Companies that are chugging along on their own suddenly merge with another. Planes are sold at a moments notice and suddenly 100 pilots are no longer needed. This stuff happens ALL THE TIME. I have seen it, been a part of it, and lived it. My husband has stood at crossroads where he has had to decide between two airlines to work for and picked the one he thought to be more stable with the better future and picked wrong. I just know that you can't bank on anything for sure. My friend said it was a pessimistic way to look at an industry, and I say, well, I think it's NECESSARY to be pessimistic when it comes to this industry. I think you have to be to survive it. You have to always think worst case scenario, because if you think you can just float along and think that your experience with the airline industry will be all roses and butterflies, you are going to get your heart severely broken. Maybe that's a weird way to live, but it's about surviving. I really think I keep a pretty positive outlook in the other areas of my life, and I've just learned to not put all my happiness stock in this industry, because it is too volatile. I do HOPE for the best though. I will state it again and again, prepare for the worst and hope for the best. I think that's all you can do to survive the industry.
So, we've known that CAL recalled 15 pilots for a week or two now: Article
It is anticipated and rumored that ALL of the furloughed CAL pilots will be recalled in the next couple months. What does this mean for us? Well, we will have a decision to make. Take the recall or not take it.
Here's kind of how it breaks down:
CAL
Pros-
1. If he goes back, he'll almost immediately be at second year pay, which is about double first year CAL pay (and like 3 times current airline pay), and that alone will probably be worth taking the recall.
2. Better working conditions at CAL.
3. Better planes!
4. We might go ahead and try to have a baby finally.
Cons-
1. Zero guarantee that he keeps his job. We fully anticipate that once the merger with UAL happens, it's possible or even probable that he may get furloughed again. If that happens, we have no idea what he'll do and could be back in awful furlough limbo again, with not much hope of ever going back to CAL/UAL, assuming he's bumped by UAL guys.
2. If he leaves current airline, he's probably burned that bridge forever and will not be able to come back. That's pretty much how it works in the airline industry.
3. He might get based in Guam. It's the junior base and right now that's what they are offering to recalled CAL guys. haha! Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeah....
So, I'm not sure what I think. I know his current airline is not where he ultimately wants to be, but he actually does have one thing there- relative job stability. Well, more than he'd have at CAL anyway. Stability in aviation is a relative term, right? The problem with his current gig is the pay is SO LOW. I don't know if we can ever start a family on what he's making right now, and the pay scale sucks. It would take forever for him to make much more there.
I just think CAL is a big gamble and he stands to lose everything AGAIN if he takes the recall. We'd really just have to bank as much of his income as possible if he went back and was making good money again, knowing he might lose his job again.
His other strategy is to try to get hired at another airline all together. He's still working on that, and if he got hired at another good, relatively stable airline, that could solve all our problems. Maybe (yeah, like it's that easy...lol).
So that's what's going on with that. He still probably won't get recalled for a couple months, but we're already thinking about everything and playing out scenarios. We'll see what happens...
Continental Airlines Inc. and UAL Corp.'s United Airlines are expected to announce Monday that they are merging to form the world's largest airline, people familiar with the matter said.
UAL's board of directors is meeting Friday, while Continental's board is meeting Friday and Sunday to discuss the deal, these people said.
These people cautioned that negotiations could still fall apart as they did in 2008, when Continental backed away. But after a hiccup over pricing, the talks appear on track, they said.
The combination would leapfrog over Delta Air Lines Inc. as the biggest airline by passengers carried.
United is much stronger financially than it was in 2008. This week, United posted a narrower first-quarter loss of $82 million, compared with a year-earlier loss of $382 million. Revenue rose by 15%, to $4.2 billion.
A weekend impasse over which share-price ratio should be used to calculate the deal's value appeared to resolved itself as UAL's share price declined this week. The market is now expecting a swap of about 1.057 UAL shares for each share of Continental.
Journal Community
United had wanted the exchange terms to be based on the closing price of its stock on the day before any agreement is signed. But that would lower the value for Houston-based Continental shareholders, since UAL shares have climbed more than Continental's since United's interest in a merger was disclosed earlier this month.
Continental's board met Wednesday and agreed to continue the talks. It was also asked to consider a range of prices in an effort to resolve the share-swap disagreement, those people said.
In 4 p.m. trading on the Nasdaq Thursday, UAL shares were down 1.3% to $21.47, while Continental shares were up 2.4% to $22.70 on the New York Stock Exchange.
Continental already has agreed in theory to allow the combined airline to be based in Chicago, United's home base, and to retain the United name, according to those people familiar with the matter.
Jeff Smisek, Continental's chief executive officer, would become CEO of the merged carrier; Glenn Tilton, UAL's CEO, would become non-executive chairman for two years, after which Mr. Smisek would take over that role too, those people familiar with the matter said.
Sooooooooooooo... This is not good news for us at all. Even though Greg is employed by a certain Regional (he asked me not to specifically name them in the blog anymore), we were really counting on hoping for Greg to eventually get called back to Continental. This is probably NEVER going happen with a merger with United. The main reason is that United has a huuuuuge pilot base and actually has pilots furloughed with hire dates all the way back to 1998 or so. It is more than likely that the pilots will be merged based on date of hire, which means Continental pilots stand to lose out big time unless they are VERY senior and have been around a long time. We don't think a lot of Continental pilots realize this (Greg seems to be one of the only ones concerned according to what he's reading on his CAL forum). I'm surprised more Continental pilots aren't more concerned! Not only will Greg not get called back, but it is VERY likely that many more Continental pilots will be furloughed and United guys will be brought back if seniority is based on date of hire. United is Greg's least favorite airline. They are kind of "the bully" of the commercial aviation world. We see them totally taking advantage of this situation. If the merger didn't happen, rumors had previously hinted at the CAL furloughs getting called back towards the end of the year. This was supposed to be our "green light" to start a family. It's going to be back to the drawing board on that now. Good thing I'm too busy running, seeing my friends, and taking care of the puppy to dwell on it. It's not like I haven't heard bad aviation news before. Same ol' thing!
So, I'm definitely not the first one to bring up this piece that Frontline did called Flying Cheap. I didn't have a chance to watch it until Friday. Greg and I were actually home together that evening so we decided to watch it online. My impression? Well, I know the general public doesn't know much about the airline industry but I can say the two of us were NOT sitting there going, "OMG I can't BELIEVE this, how shocking!!!". Meaning, in reference to what was brought up about pilot's rest and pilots being pressured to fly despite imperfect conditions, this is nothing new to us. That is fairly universal in our experience. My husband has been with at least 4 airlines now (I say at least 4, because one was an airline that sort of became another airline, so if you count them separately, that would be 5): a couple regionals, a start-up, and most recently a major/legacy. Some people might think this kind of situation would only exist at a very lowly bottom-feeder type of operation, but in our experience this is pretty universal and standard operation no matter what kind of airline you're at. It mainly comes down to pilots knowing their rights and exercising good discretion. Most airlines want their pilots to fly as much as they can get them to. The scheduling department people relentlessly try to get the pilots to fly, be it more time in an already jam-packed day, on a day off, etc... With airlines now all operating with the bare-minimum of pilots to keep their costs down, the existing pilots are going to get kind of "abused" in order to keep things running, when they don't have extra pilots around to pick up the slack. We're not sure if it's just that schedulers don't know the pilot work rules (possible) or they do and just hope the pilots don't their rights and possibly the schedulers are being pressured by the higher ups to get pilots to work more. My husband has always been really good about knowing his work rules and standing up to the companies when they have tried to get him to fly when he doesn't have to. I think that is very key. Not that it is right for airlines/scheduling to be trying to get their pilots to fly illegally, but as a pilot you should become as familiar as you can with your contract/work rules, etc... and not be afraid to cite them when you need to and say "no, I'm not legal for that" when the company comes calling on you with some shady assignment.
Same goes for maintenance/weather issues, which is another point that I believe they brought up in the piece. A lot of maintenance falls to pilot's discretion on whether they will fly or not. In the case of the Colgan 3407 flight, they were legal to fly under FAA and company policy, but the pilot needed to be the one to make the judgment call on whether they felt safe to fly or not based on conditions. I think this is one area where the pilots' inexperience really showed. They maybe shouldn't have even been flying in crappy conditions in the first place. There have been many times my husband has received a plane with maintenance issues and refused to fly it though other pilots have signed off and flown it. Such an example would be the APU being broken. FAA and company policy will allow you to fly a plane with a broken APU, which is the equipment that regulates the temperature/air conditioning in the cabin. Well, on a 95 degree day, it might be kind of essential to have a working APU so your passengers aren't going into heat stroke. Technically you can fly, but should you? Or the American flight that crashed in Jamaica- should they really have landed on that runway despite high winds that hindered their ability to land safely? I think pilots need to speak up if there are issues like these that might become a problem.
The Colgan crew's inexperience also showed in their reaction to the problems that occurred. My husband told me about how in most training programs in a stall situation they train you to absolutely not lose altitude (which he disagrees with), which caused the Colgan capt. to react in the opposite way he should have to their problem (I think he pulled up instead of down or something). Greg said since the crash, some airlines have actually amended their training and let up on that altitude issue (he has a good friend in the training dept at Trans States that said they changed their training).
I know Greg has said for a while that he hopes for big changes in the work rules and rest rules. He said from day one of the crash that he hoped that it would be the positive change to come out of that crash. Eight hours of rest from the time a pilot gets off the plane is not nearly enough when you have to wait for a hotel van, check in at the hotel, get to bed, and be up the next morning and shuttle back to the airport. Not only would better rest rules be good for pilot rest, but it would also be good for furloughed pilots and hiring in the industry, because existing pilots wouldn't be able to fly as long or as much and therefore it would require airlines to increase pilot staff in order to keep flying as much as they currently are. This would be such an overhaul and expense to the airlines that they are definitely fighting the idea of the work/rest changes though, so it remains to be seen if it will ever happen.
Bottom line, it was an interesting program to watch but we definitely felt like they dumped a lot of bad press specifically on Colgan for things that many many other airlines do as well. It's more of an aviation industry issue than an issue with this specific airline. I'm glad woke some people up to some of the issues of the profession, but I hope that the people don't think that these issues are only specific to Colgan or even to regional airlines. Even majors/legacies have low pay the first year, about $30,000 at best. There are a lot of issues in the industry in general that are not just on the regional level.
I need to vent. I was reading an airline forum and clicked on a thread that was about Michael Moore's movie "Capitalism". I haven't seen this movie yet, but I have heard that apparently he talks to some pilots who are on food stamps. Anyway, the thread was started just to make the point that pilot pay scales are sad. A few posts into the thread someone wrote this: "Its not sad at all. If you look at the resumes stacked on Colgan's desk you'll understand that the regional salaries are justified."
This really pissed me off. You could take this to mean two things: One, there are a TON of applications coming in, so based on supply and demand, the salaries are justified because pilots still apply and want to work there even though the pay sucks. Two, the resumes of pilots that apply justify crappy pay- IE they don't have enough experience to be paid better than they are. In both cases, this struck a cord with me.
Regional pilot pay in most cases is still ridiculously low. I realize that in a perfect world pilots could take more of a stand against low pay and refuse to consider working at airlines do not pay their pilots more. The thing is, when your choice is between driving a hotel van or flying a plane and you are trained to fly planes, I think you're going to choose flying planes, even if it goes against your principles that this and other airlines are not paying their pilots enough. Or, if you are a newly trained pilot- what other choice do you really have? It kind of puts all that in to perspective. Which is not to say that it's not still very wrong that a lot of airlines don't pay their pilots enough. Because I personally thing it is wrong that they pay so little. I get why it is that way, since regional airlines under bid each other to keep their contracts with the majors, and therefore to keep the costs low, they have to pay their pilots less. I still think it's wrong though and don't agree with the statement that it's justified. Pilots go through a lot to get trained to fly planes. It's a big responsibility, whether it's a huge 777 or a Dash 8. I think there should be a minimum acceptable pay level and that pay level is not $20,000 a year.
Now, taking it to mean the latter- that all pilots that apply to certain regionals have resumes that should warrant low pay- I obviously disagree with this as well. I think there's an awful lot of pilots that have been cruising along with a career that started at A and is progressing towards B without much of a bump in the road and are sitting pretty with six-figures plus, just thinking "if I did, so can they". My husband, on the other hand, has a career that looks like a game of Chutes and Ladders. He was moving along the board nicely climbing ladders, moving up to Captain, then bam a chute: your airline went out of business, go back to start. You got furloughed, go back to start again. It's hard for a pilot that hasn't had this happen to understand that the entire pilot population is not made up of pilots that had a smooth career and are right where they should be in the hierarchy/seniority. It's easy to judge and say that everyone at the bottom deserves to be there because they MUST only have 500 hours of flight time and not know how to tell their left from their right yet. Well, those people need to wake up and see that the industry actually has a lot of very qualified, hard-working, pilots that maybe just weren't in the right place at the right time. Even if Atlantic Coast Airlines/Independence hadn't gone under in the first place and Greg was still a Captain there, there would still be a lot of major/legacy pilots that would be judging him and saying he deserved less pay than them. There are tons of regional pilots that have a lot more experience, hours, and years of flying than major/legacy airline pilots. I just want them to think about this stuff before they generalize and say that everyone on the bottom of the totem pole deserves to be there. A lot of this industry is being in the right place at the right time, luck, and who you know. In the end pilots just want to fly and want to be able to provide for themselves and their families. It seems to me that if you have that, you should want the same for your fellow pilots. This whole fraternity-hazing mentality of the bottom people getting abused with work hours and pay and justifying it with the "well I paid my dues and now they have to pay theirs" attitude is just selfish and wrong. What about guys in my husband's situation who already "paid their dues"? How many times do they have to keep paying their dues because of bad luck/timing? The salaries are not justified. People are applying/going to airlines, because they love to fly and need a job. And I bet you will find a lot of passion and heart among the pilots there, since they were willing to work there even though the pay was not what it should be, because they love the job.
Greg heard that Continental has a system bid coming out in the next couple weeks. He said then the company will show what planes/positions/hubs they have available and how many in each place, and then everyone will bid for what hub/plane/seat they want. We're hoping this will give us some idea of what is happening at CAL and when/if Greg will get called back. Or at least we might see that it looks totally hopeless based on the projected plan for 2010, and we can assume he's not getting called back. It probably won't change much for us, but it's still helpful to have SOME information rather than none.
It's looking like Regional hiring may be picking up. We've heard that a bunch of Regionals are calling back their furloughs and may start hiring soon. That could work out for Greg... The only thing is that then he may have to make a choice between staying at CAL and going to a Regional, which he feels most are unstable in the long run. He'd most likely have to officially resign from CAL in order to go to another airline, which has been an issue ever since furlough. Well, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it if the decision has to be made.
Oh- an update on the dog situation. Apparently having Rascal for the weekend actually worked to my advantage. Greg did some thinking after spending a weekend taking care of a dog and agreed with me that he isn't sure he wants one just yet either. He realized the work that went into taking care of Rascal. I think he also got scared about how the house could get torn up if we were house training a puppy. As much as it was fun to play with a dog, we will hold off for now. I'm glad he's on the same page with me about it now. So to those of you looking to break the dog desires of your significant other- borrow one for the weekend and see if they still want one after! Haha!
I miss Greg on this schedule he's on. He's working evenings and I go to work when he's still asleep and he gets home after I've gone to sleep so we don't see each other much on days he's working. Lately I've been stopping by the hotel on my way home hoping to see him for a few minutes. Last night I did. I don't want to bother him while he's working, but I think he likes seeing me, and I'm always tempted to stop in since his hotel is on my way home, so I usually end up stopping by to say hi.
I decided on a plan for this weekend for Christmas. It's been a debacle because my parents have been to our house twice in the last month or so (for Thanksgiving and when my bro was here), so it's really my turn to go there. I'm going to stay home Christmas Eve and have Christmas morning with Greg before he goes to work and then leave for my parents' after we do our Christmas. I think it's important that I spend part of Christmas with Greg so we can do our presents and have breakfast together before he works. I'll spend the rest of the weekend hanging out with my parents. If I stayed in Charlotte for the weekend I wouldn't have much time to spend with Greg because he's working all weekend anyway. I haven't been down to Hilton Head in a while, and I'm itching to go. I think it'll be a good weekend. I wish Greg could come, but at least he was off the last two weekends with me and I'll still do Christmas morning with him and make him his favorite blueberry pancakes for him :)
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
The other day Greg and I went for a walk. The conversations on these walks are almost always initiated by Greg sighing loudly and saying how he wished he was flying again. Then he says some variation of "I wish I had a crystal ball so I could see when I'd be called back". He's kind of like a broken record. We still have no indication of when or if Continental will call the furloughed pilots back. Right now it's even looking like a merger with United could happen at some point, which is scary. The outgoing Continental CEO was against the merger (Greg really liked the guy), but the new one actually has a legal background in mergers and acquisitions, so it's looking like he might want to help the whole deal along. If a merger with United happens, I don't know if Greg will ever fly for the company again. United has tons of pilots furloughed- all the way back to guys that started at the company in 1998. So if they merge seniority or give United the upper hand (which they always seem to get), than Greg would be so far down on the totem pole under their furloughed guys it would be hopeless for him to get to fly with them again.
My main worry is still having kids. Greg's 37 and will be 38 in a couple months. At this point it's looking like the soonest we'll have our first kid will be when he's 40, so he's going to be even older when/if we have a second kid. I also still have no idea whether we'll have trouble getting pregnant or not either, so it makes me really nervous to keep putting the whole process off. My instincts are telling me that it would be a good idea to do this soon if possible. I just don't want to wait forever to start a family. It'd be nice to have kids when we're relatively young and less complications can arise. I feel like we're ready in all other aspects other than Greg's job situation.
I told Greg again that he probably needs to really start planning on an alternate career. He agreed (I don't know if he'll actually DO anything about it). I've said it before and I'll say it again, but I figure he should start planning as if he's not getting called back or getting hired to fly again, and if he does get called back- great, but if he doesn't have the opportunity to fly again he's got a real shot at an alternate career. These jobs he's been doing this past year are just to hold him over til he gets to fly again (truck driving, van driving), and I think he's making a mistake to not really pursue an actual career type job because we don't know what kind of time line we're dealing with, and the longer he continues to do a job like he's got at the hotel, that's just more time taken away from time he could be accumulating in a career type job. I know initially he tried to find some jobs like that, but after a while of it not materializing he resigned to just applying for pretty lowly jobs. I feel like now the job markets is slightly better and he should try again to find a job that would allow him to apply his smarts. I do want to say though, that I am really proud of him for doing what he had to do for us and not being one of those guys that said "No, I won't do anything else but fly" or "I won't do _______ (fill in the blank) because my standards are too high". I also think people with that attitude are making a huge mistake. The reality is that the job market does suck and flying jobs or any sort of jobs are hard to find. Greg tells me that there are still some furloughed guys who haven't found jobs and are in dire straights because of it. And a lot of them have kids/families to support. I feel like if Greg found work- even if it's not ideal work, than they can too. They're just not going outside the box. While I want Greg to continue to look for better jobs, I am glad he's doing SOMETHING right now, even if it's on the lower end of what he's capable of and what pays well. These dudes need to wake up and realize that ANY job is better than no job and they should do something to bring in money.
Last night he called to tell me that his boss told him that they decided not to train him to work the front desk at the hotel. Initially when he started he was kind of excited at the prospect of driving the van and getting tips, but also at the prospect of working at the front desk when he has down time, which he has a lot of. Some nights he only has two runs to the airport, so that's like 7 hours worth of time he has nothing to do. He would like to contribute, especially since the front desk is often really busy. We don't know the reason that his boss opted not to let him work the desk. It may be because other desk clerks don't want him there, it might be because the other van drivers don't want to, we don't know why. It was a blow to Greg's ego though, because he's got a business degree and can fly friggin airplanes, but the hotel people don't want him applying any extra brain power other than driving the van. He was also sort of hoping they would see he was smart, capable, and responsible and working the desk might also lead to a management opportunity or promotion of some sort. I told Greg this is why he needs to be looking for a job that is not minimum wage and entry level. Hopefully this kind of wakes him up to that reality and prompts him to keep applying for other things while he does this in the mean time.
They have been cool to look at and occasionally post to. There do not appear to be a lot of women on them that are in my situation though, with a pilot husband on currently on furlough. A lot have husbands that have been on furlough at one point or another, but aren't currently. There are some good threads to read though.
First, I apologize for the formatting/gaps in my article post. I tried to edit them out, but they appeared anyway once I posted the article. I have never read this guy's column before, but really liked this article explaining furlough/seniority and how generally screwed up the whole airline profession is. I felt the author very accurately described the industry, better than I can, and also shares my general opinion and point of view on things. The author's history with airlines seems kind of similar to my husband's.
My husband's history is as follows: In high school he took his first flight lesson, got hooked, and then his parents basically continued to get him trained as a pilot. He went to college, but actually didn't major in aviation. He's got a BS in MIS (management information systems- which is kinda computer science mixed with business). This is kind of funny because we had always said that it was a good thing that he majored in something other than aviation, so that he'd have that to fall back on if his aviation career crapped out, but it turns out, it hasn't helped in the least to have a degree in something else. We think the reason is because MIS is the kind of degree you graduate with and immediately apply the degree in your field. He's been a pilot since graduating college (15 years), so he never went out and got a computer or business related job. With a field like computers that is ever changing, have a degree in MIS is kinda useless if you've never worked in the field and the programming you know how to do is stuff learned 15 years ago. I digress. So anyway, he graduated from college and did what I gather a lot of pilots do and became a flight instructor. From there he got hired at a small freight operation, flying a prop plane that carried bank checks and lab samples. It was dangerous work and he flew alone at night a lot. He built up his hours and then applied to several airlines, mainly regional carriers, which is where many pilots start their careers before going to major airlines. He got hired at a regional (ACA) and within a couple years made Captain. He was a Captain for 7 years, which is what he was doing when I met him. At the time I met him, he was basically making as much as he's made in his career (we didn't know that at the time!).
Now, at this point I feel like I need to explain Regionals vs. Major carriers and what I know of that dynamic. This is all information I've gathered from my husband and/or what I know of the industry and I'm just going to give the "big picture" as I know it. I'm not sure I know whether Regionals created themselves and marketed themselves to the Majors or if the Majors expressed the need for Regionals and then they were created (kind of a chicken/egg question). All I know is that at some point they were created and mainly handle the flying to and from smaller airports for the Majors. Regional pilots are paid much less than major airline pilots. Literally, starting pay is less than $20,000 a year, and this is common. The reason is (at least the way I understand it) that there are now a LOT of Regionals and they compete with each other to get the flying contracts with the various Major airlines. Well, the most attractive thing they can do is say "hey, I'll fly for you for less than the others will" to get a contract, which in turn translates to paying their pilots peanuts in order to do so.
Which brings me back to my husband's career. He was at one of the highest paid Regionals. Which spelled disaster, because it meant that no Major would want to keep them despite their professionalism and good track record, because they were too expensive. Might as well go with a low-paid cheaper Regional to save money. Which, let's face it, all airlines need to save money! So, my husband's Regional fought with their major carrier and decided to do something different. They created their own airline called Independence Air.
They already had a huge amount of employees and planes and they decided to go ahead and separate from the Major airline and become their own airline. It was a good idea in theory. They got very creative with the marketing and the cool thing about them was that all the employees were totally psyched about it as opposed to most airline employees around at the time who were totally disgruntled in a struggling industry. My husband loved it. He was happy to go to work and excited that they were trying something different. The problem was, Independence failed. They ran out of money. Their strategy had been to do the low-cost thing and instead of slowly growing as business got better, they started out with so many people and planes that they were too big and were flying half empty planes around while they tried to build recognition and get people to fly on them. They failed. So like the author of the article explained, my husband, with tons of flight time at this point, and 7 years as a Captain, was forced to find employment at the bottom again. Which he did. He actually found a job within two weeks of Independence going under, which made me so proud. The problem was that it was another Regional Airline, and he was a First Officer again, and had the worst schedules, crappy pay, and also all the guys he was flying with were totally disgruntled. He hated it there.
Then he heard about another airline starting up that was trying to do the new/modern progressive thing. It was called Skybus, and they had a lot of the ideas Independence had, only this time they would not start out huge, they would grow gradually, so he thought it could work.
He weighed his options and decided to go there because he was already at the bottom at the Regional so he wouldn't be taking a pay cut, he knew upward movement was looking to be very slow at the Regional, and if he got hired at Skybus and they succeeded, he'd be very senior and be upgrading to Captain quickly in an Airbus (big plane!). He went for it. My husband is obsessed with following airline news, which I think a lot of pilots are. He was like this when I met him and still remains so, even furloughed. Well, he closely followed Skybus's financials, and eventually decided that things were not going well and started predicting they would probably end up tanking like Independence had. Luckily, based on the applications he had put out to a lot of airlines a couple years before, he ended up getting a call from Continental right as he was starting to worry that Skybus didn't have a future. He took the job at Continental and again was at first year pay (this is three years in a row now). After 9 months they furloughed him.
He hasn't flown since.
If you're a pilot, no matter how much skill you have, or how many lives you've heroically saved, the only thing that matters is seniority.
By Patrick Smith
March 20, 2009 | Let me start by repeating something from last time.
"Also bear in mind that salary or tenure is nontransferable," I wrote in my March 6 discussion about the deterioration of pay and benefits faced by airline pilots in recessionary America. "If a pilot who is furloughed or otherwise cast off from one airline chooses to work at another, the seniority system dictates that he begin again at probationary pay and benefits, regardless of experience."
I'm repeating this passage because too many people seem not to believe it. I received a multitude of e-mails from incredulous readers. Such a statement must be false, they contend, or at least exaggerated. Yes?
Well, no.
Imagine you're an airline captain. You've been with the same company for 20 years now, and you're making a respectable if not spectacular six-figure salary. Then one day this airline goes bankrupt and closes its doors, Ã la Eastern, Braniff, Pan Am and no doubt others still to come. Suddenly jobless, you apply for a position at one of its competitors. Lo and behold, you're hired. Back to normal, right? Not quite. I'm sad to report that, in addition to the routine challenges faced by anybody who takes up residence with a new company, you will not be hired on as a captain, and you certainly will not be bringing in anything close to your most recent salary. A third of that is more like it, if you’re lucky. You take your place at the bottom of the seniority list, and the long, slow climb begins again. Compensation and benefits are fixed and nonnegotiable. Your annual raise, when there is one, will be based on longevity.
There are no exceptions. Not even if your name is, say, Chesley Sullenberger. "We're all proud of you, Sully. Sorry about the demise of US Airways. You'll be an asset to our airline and we're happy to have you. Unfortunately, you'll need to remove that fourth stripe from your epaulet, since with us you'll be flying as a junior copilot. Many of your captains, younger and far less experienced than you, will probably feel uneasy, but so it goes."
And in a lot of ways, that's a best-case scenario. One problem right now for nervous pilots at struggling carriers like US Airways, United and American is that virtually none of their competitors are actively hiring. On the contrary, there are currently more than 4,000 pilots out there either on indefinite furlough status or victimized by airline shutdowns (ATA, Aloha, etc.). And that number will be climbing, perhaps drastically, in the months ahead. Only a handful of regional carriers are still recruiting, albeit at a trickle, with opening salaries topping out at a princely $20,000 or so. Somehow I can't picture Sully taking up shop in the right seat of a 30-seater, working five days a week for $1,500 a month.
My own displacement stories have been less drastic but still frustrating and not much good for the bank account.
In 1994, around the time this photo was taken, I was a regional captain making about $35,000 a year. (At an airline where new hires were paid less than half that much, I frankly felt like a zillionaire and could splurge on trips to Peru.) But very soon the company went under, and just like that I was a first officer again, with a brand-new airline and a salary of $14,000.
Later in the 1990s I flew cargo for DHL. After four years I was earning nearly $65,000 when I left that job for a position with a major passenger carrier. Starting salary at my ultimate dream job was about $29,000 -- a 50 percent pay cut. To be fair, though, I'd be doing quite well in only a few short years, above and beyond anything I would have made at my previous jobs...
Except that I was promptly furloughed in the wake of the 2001 terror attacks. I was still in training when the layoffs were announced. I flew for a few weeks, and by Halloween I was down signing papers at the unemployment office.
Could I have returned to DHL? Maybe. At the bottom. Could I have gone to a regional? Maybe. At the bottom.
"Numbers" are a hot topic when the rumors of furlough swirl, or when employee groups are integrated during mergers. I've seen people visibly upset on learning that their relative position would drop by a meager percentage point or two as the result of a merger. One percent doesn't sound like a lot, but it could cost you, for instance, an upgrade from first officer (er, "copilot," if we must) to captain, and many thousands of dollars over time.
I know of no other profession structured this way. The arts and various free-agency fields present similar risks, but in the realm of mainstream trades there is virtually no comparison. Blue-collar or white-collar, help me out here ... teachers, doctors, engineers, architects, plumbers?
You ask, so why do pilots put up with this? "Why don't you guys get a union?" is something I hear from time to time.
Of course, most airline pilots already belong to large, quite powerful unions, which were primarily responsible for getting the seniority system going and for helping to entrench and solidify the protocols now in place. But unionization, broadly speaking, is not the problem -- nonunion airlines in America, I'll point out, are set up no differently. The problem is a pilot culture and mind-set that refuses to reconsider an all-or-nothing emphasis on seniority, and the absurd pay disparities that exist within a given airline's ranks. Captains should and do earn more than first officers, but the disparity within a position, and its being based entirely on longevity, is itself badly out of whack. Pilots do not earn merit-based tenure, and there are no apprenticeships or residencies in an airline cockpit. Thus there is something patently unjust about a junior first officer making, say, $30,000 while a more senior first officer, at the same airline, is earning $100,000 or more. Both have exactly the same job, with the same measure of responsibility.
Leveling the field through a more even distribution of salary seems a logical fix. Lifetime earnings would remain more or less the same, while those who need to switch companies could do so with a milder penalty. Easier said than done. It would require, among other things, considerable sacrifices from those ensconced in the highest and best-paying echelons of seniority. Try asking a senior captain -- thrice furloughed in his career, his pay reduced by 40 percent since 2001, his pension gone -- to sacrifice yet more merely to improve the lot of a new first officer. Good luck with that. And so the cycle is self-reinforcing. (The management of Florida-based Spirit Airlines recently proposed a scheme that would award certain captain upgrades based partly on subjective personality assessments. The idea is vociferously opposed by Spirit's pilot group.)
As presently constructed, the system made a lot more sense in the days before deregulation, when the industry was more stable. Furloughs and liquidations weren't nearly as common as they are today. You had your number, and your airline, and you hung with it; the payoff was there, eventually. You could (almost) bank on it. The danger of having to start over was comparatively remote. Today that danger is widespread, yet there are no protections, no insurance. The system has failed to adjust.
Overseas, incidentally, the picture is often different. Pilots who've gone the expat route to Asia and the Middle East, for example, don't need to be as "number"-conscious. While the situation varies from country to country, airline to airline, differences typically include promotions that are merit-based and salaries that are more evenly distributed. You might not make as much in the end, but neither do you make as little in the beginning. In many respects this is a better arrangement, but these jobs are, in other ways, often riskier than those at home, lacking many of the hard-won protections provided by unions like the Air Line Pilots Association. You can argue that collective bargaining has stuck us with a too-rigid seniority format, but it has also given us innumerable benefits, from protections against summary discipline, to legal and medical assistance, to countless safety initiatives.
Here at home, there have been murmurs about a so-called national seniority list, which might allow a more equitable sideways transfer between companies, but little has come of it.
Seniority should have its benefits, I feel, just as it does in a wide range of other professions. But it should not wield such enormous power over the life and livelihood of a worker -- particularly a well-trained and highly skilled worker who has labored long and hard to reach a certain level.
Now, hold on. Some of you are scowling, I know. You're scowling because here is this pompous pilot whining about life at one of the country's least-beloved industries. Airlines? Let them all go to hell. "Your industry doesn't care about me," wrote an e-mailer recently. "Why should I care about you or your job?"
And you're scowling because I'm supposed to know that life isn't fair, and what about the millions of other hardworking people in this country affected by this ever-deepening recession, many of them facing the specter of unemployment?
Before you click the Send button, I know, I know, I know. This isn't an entitlement tantrum, and I am well aware that there are far worse lots than to be stuck flying planes for a living, even at torpedoed wages. But this is an air travel column, and I'm trying to explain the nuts and bolts of something that is widely misunderstood.
Yes, these are scary and uncertain times for everybody.
And if my column isn't helping you feel better, try something else. Put on some music, maybe. And keep it topical...
I once opined, and will do so again, that the two greatest songs ever written about unemployment are the Clash's "Career Opportunities" and the Jam's "Smithers-Jones." The former, from the Clash's eponymous debut in 1977, is a raucous tear-down of the economic malaise in late-'70s Britain. I have to say it still sounds fresh and plays quite nicely in 2009 America. The latter, written by the Jam's Bruce Foxton, tells the story of a British everyman who arrives for work one morning, optimistic and "spot on time," only to be summoned into the office and summarily handed his walking papers.
"I've some news to tell you,
there's no longer a position for you;
sorry, Smithers-Jones."
The song implodes around the word "Jones" in a crash of orchestral beauty. It's very nice. Listen and you'll see. Though, all things considered, it might also give you the
I spent the next five years writing columns instead.
(For more on how furloughs work, you can revisit this 2005 column. I'll also take this opportunity to remind people that, for the most part, regional affiliates operate independently of their major airline "parents." They are subcontractors. A pilot for United Express is no more an employee for United Airlines than the kid working at the concourse yogurt stand. With very few exceptions, there is no employee flow-through between a major and its regionals.)
One could easily say that experience, for all of its intangible value, both in normal operations and in those rare times of danger, is essentially meaningless to a pilot's destiny. Seniority is the currency of value. And because seniority has no value beyond the borders of a specific airline, pilots are fiercely protective of it. Nothing is more important than, as we call it, our "number."
All of a pilot's quality-of-life variables are assigned via bidding. You bid for position (captain or first officer), aircraft type, base city, routes, vacations and so on. What you end up with depends on your relative position within the ranks -- that is, your number: your number within the airline overall; your number in that base; your number within a specific aircraft category; your number, number, number.
How much skill or experience you possess, or how swell a person you are, will not earn you a raise or a better monthly schedule. Neither will how many lives you managed to save in the throes of some emergency. Only your number can do that. It's at once fair and unfair; the ultimate insult and the ultimate egalitarian tool. Dehumanizing, maddening and immensely important.
I spent the next five years writing columns instead.