It's not just the pay, it's other things. Last I heard, PCL has the lowest CASM for a CRJ-200 in the industry. "Headquarters" is in a glorified wherehouse in a bad part of town, and they have really bad staffing for things like benefits and the pass bureau. I think benefits has like 3 people and the pass bureau is ONE person. The bad news is, it takes forever to get something done. The GOOD news is, it's less fat on the operation, so the overall cost is low. Scheduling can't keep people around b/c they keep them so strapped. Everytime I call crew scheduling, it seems I'm talking to a different person. That's bad considering the people that have been there a while (while=6 months) are the few that know what's going on.
The word from management was that someone underbid us for flying at NWA, but they won't say who. Mesaba I could see since they're hoping for a dirt cheap contract from the pilots (which I doubt they'll get at this point). CHQ was mentioned, but I don't see them bidding for flying and taking a loss.
When I was in IND yesterday, I had a mechanic getting all up in arms b/c I was gonna cost him his job. Seems the rumor there is that if the pilots don't sign a contract by next week, PCL's out and Compass is in. Rational thought has no place considering Compass has no trained pilots to speak of. The airplanes belong to NWA, so they COULD go to Compass, but I don't know who's gonna fly them. JetU grads in the left seat is WAAAY too scary.
Now, as far as contract negotations go, we're in NMB status right now. Already met with the mediator a couple of times, so he knows the goals of both sides. It's in the early stages of that, so I'm not looking for huge movement like next week or something. There was informational picketting in DTW the other day, and I heard we had a good turnout for that (I was flying back and forth b/w GRR-DTW-IND-BDL all day, otherwise I'd have been out there, too). Even some Mesaba guys were there showing some love for the Airlink brotherhood.