Swoop Blacklist

[atphat]

It won’t work.

[pacman007]

Well if this doesn't work being a pilot is officially a job not a profession!!

[pacman007]

Well if this doesn't work being a pilot is officially a job not a profession!!

[piggy]

Jazz lost the fight for common employer status with mainline after years of court . This was because it was deemed not similar work based on a/c size and routes. As swoop will be the same a/c if I’d say common employer would be obvious to all involved. But alpa wants a hiring ban which means they are ignoring past history? Do it now and fight in court later?

In addition, why would you piss off your most valuable employee group when you want everything to be successful and there is a shortage of qualified pilots. Make no mistake, the pressure is on management to make this work-the market are very worried about execution risk with so many ventures occurring simultaneously . WestJet is no longer a”discount carrier” and is evolving into a full service airline. It makes sense to me to start up a ultra lost cost airline because WestJet is becoming a air canada, and there is a demand for a low cost airline.

What I found surprising was the management did not have the foresight to hang a carrot for encore pilots to flow to mainline on the initial set up of encore. Even though there was a shortage of pilots. It was the WestJet pilot group that insisted on it. Are they forward thinking this time around with swoop . ?

[bobcaygeon]

It very likely won't work because pilot's are generally whores but if you do nothing at all the you can't really bitch either right??

TG

[FL007]

Good question. There are not enough pilots graduating from colleges to fill the hiring requirements for 2018, nevermind the years beyond. I don't think WJ management realizes the importance of getting this right the first time. The flow to AC is about to be ramped up starting next month and those who leave aren't coming back. WJ should be doing everything it can to keep pilots from leaving, the idea that they can afford to train and replace is not going to be viable for much longer.

Swoop is launching with only 2 airplanes. That's 20 captains. I would bet that there are 20 people out there working at Flair, WestWind (ATR captains), Georgian RJ Captains, etc that would have enough time to qualify as a captain. They'll add aircraft much slower than Encore ever did and are only growing to 10 tails (per the current plan). Hell, I'd bet Georgian alone could probably supply all of the crews required and no matter what pay scale we launch with, it'll probably be a raise for them. There are likely 100 people across Canada that want some 737 PIC time so that they can go to China.

Unfortunately, I don't see this hiring ban working like we want but I can't come up with a better solution that would encourage higher wages at Swoop.

I agree, there are plenty of pilots I know that would eat their first born son to further their career, even slightly. It would set a precedent though in the industry to have pilots worth their weight banning the idea of lowering the bar in this industry. Keep Swoop isolated to the bottom feeders of this industry, if AC bans hiring from there at ACPA's request, Westjet threatens BOTL, then they'll be there for life, where they belong, making less than everyone else who wanted to improve the WAWCON for everyone.

[TheStig]

JBI, thanks for the insight, your legal expertise makes you a fairly unique contributor to this forum. A well balanced insiders viewpoint is always welcome into the conversation.

I can't help but think that WJ and WJe pilots unionized just in time. I really hope that all of what we're hearing about a blacklist is the result of posturing between ALPA and WJ management. However, I find it unbelievable that things have reached that point. From the other side of the fence, for such a long time, I used to gaze with envy at the high regard WJ held its pilots with and how closely the two groups worked together and would never air their dirty laundry in this fashion. I know I'm biased towards the pilots side, but its hard not to look towards the current CEO as being responsible for the direction that things have gone.

[URC]

You need to beat them at their own game. Get a majority of the pilots to put a massive short on the company stock, then all sell their ESP and resign "en masse". Then using the ESP and short money start a completely pilot owned airline to take the market share WestJet had to give up when most of their pilots quit overnight. Hire RealityChex to run it (payback for CB). Can you run some numbers on that scenario RC ?

[CaptainHaddock]

Didn’t’t GGN just certify with ALPA, if you just certified to improve your working conditions why would you then leave there to go to an ALPA blacklisted airline?
Swoop is supposed to start revenue flights the end of June, so whatever managements plan is they will have to act on it soon. According to the analyst podcast, there will be more than just 2, 10 by the end of 2018, 2-2 1/2 year old 800’s from WestJet mainline. That’s at least 200 line Pilots, if they are going outside that would make the current lack of hiring for mainline understandable. so whatever is going to unfold it will be relatively soon.
I wonder if that 35% cost savings Management is after is a real cost savings when you factor in all the variables? If Swoop is a stepping stone to overseas you have higher training costs, lower experience levels will add to that too. And you’ve successfully completed the process of ailienating the mainline pilots from management. It seems very divisive and short sighted to me, but what do I know? I’m just a pilot.

[North Shore]

Has anyone ever been inside the offices at Swoop? Could it all be a Potemkin Village designed to extract concessions out of the pilot group(s) in contract negotiations? Pretty easy to set up an office and go through the motions of starting up an airline, never intending to do so; if they extract $10M (say) in labour costs out of the cntract over the next 5 years, while only spending $2 or $3 on the 'startup', that's a huge bonus...

[pacman007]

well from what i have heard from friends at WJ is that the mainline pilots are going to train the swoop pilots in Westjet sims?? if they are a different company and on ALPAs black list can a Westjet mainline pilots train a Swoop pilot? isn't that crossing lines...or something Alpa would say they cant do.....this is all sounding wishy washy to me..

[North Shore]

^Can't see that happening. How many of the new guys would actually successfully complete their sim?

[Go Guns]

I can’t see it either. If the solution to who’s flying Swoop is not WJALPA friendly, they’ll likely see the potential issue of having ALPA pilots train Swoop pilots, and farm it out.

[Donald]

So when Swoop becomes successful, and I get laid off from my current job, will ALPA/ACPA automatically hire me or otherwise pay my mortgage if I refuse to join Team Pink?

[altiplano]

It reminds me of recent news stories where people getting outsourced train their replacement...

https://www.google.ca/search?q=outsourc ... e&ie=UTF-8

[atphat]

So when Swoop becomes successful, and I get laid off from my current job, will ALPA/ACPA automatically hire me or otherwise pay my mortgage if I refuse to join Team Pink?

I have to admit I kind of agree. I never really understood pilots blaming pilots taking jobs. What's funny is that there are probably some Sky and Encore pilots on here screaming...YES! BAN THEM! SHAME!!!! How soon we forget.

This is a WJ problem. I do see where WJALPA is coming from. They need to try something. Blaming pilots who need to pay the bills is not the answer. This is up to the WJ pilot group to solve and it's up to them if they want to do what it takes. If they don't? They must live with it forever. Stop blaming other people.

[x-wind]

This is why we need a college.

[flyinhigh]

This is why we need a college.

No, this is why we need unity. Pilots will take jobs to get ahead for personal gain period. I.e. I go to swoop I can get that jet time to finally go over seas. How dare they blacklist me.

How about, I currently have a job that is paying pretty descent so I'll stick it out until I can get something that has the proper WAWCON for classification of aircraft.

[complexintentions]

I'd consider applying at Swoop since A) don't need the money and B) don't like unions trying to tell people where they can and can't work. Let the market decide. I have a feeling there are plenty pf guys who don't give a rat's ass about 1970's union tactics like "blacklists". Wake up, it's a global market. No one cares.

If wages are too low to attract enough applicants they'll have to raise them or fold. If they get enough applicants it suggests the wages at mainline are too high. Just market logic, not emotion.

Say, is realitychex that guy who was stealing files out of people's garbage in the 90's? Or the one who used his AC login to harvest load data. I forget how all that all went.

Ah who cares.

[atphat]

Say, is realitychex that guy who was stealing files out of people's garbage in the 90's? Or the one who used his AC login to harvest load data. I forget how all that all went.