Wednesday, November 15, 2006

Airline News?

So I just saw on the news that our mainline (who is bankrupt) is vulnerable to being aquired by another airline. Our mainline is sleazy and nasty, even the employees, though as a response to the nastiness of the company and the stress of deregulation, are nasty too. When I think of the mainline, I just think negativity, and although I hear rumors that mainline will be hiring, I would rather stay in my low-brow airline, with it's shitty pay and modest destinations than work in that cesspool of unpleasantness.

So if Mainline got bought, what would happen to my airline, contracted with mainline? Would we keep our routes, just be owned by a better company? (Mainline would lose administrative jobs, which would be bad for our state, but no tears for the CEO & friends) Would my airline merge or be absorbed by the buyer's regional airline, would I lose my senority and all possibilities of part-time? Would things become better or worse? There is only one airline with worse conditions than ours, so I could only imagine it could get better (except for losing senority & part time.) Would my regional be dropped altogether?

There is nothing to worry about yet, no more than usual, but this is what has been said could happen. That would be huge, and like the crews at Mainline, it would be hard to feel sorry for anyone at the airline but the employees, thats how hated the management of Mainline is.

One thing that DID piss me off though, was some random fucking passenger on the news...she said "maybe its a good thing...it may force them to be more efficient" FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK YOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOUUUUUU BIIIIIIIIIITCH! You know NOTHING about deregulation and who PAYS for improved "efficiency" not only are the people FLYING YOUR PLANE getting pay CUTS, a lot of the routes are being outsourced to my company where the pilot FLYING YOUR PLANE is making 23,ooo a YEAR! And that is AFTER getting 100,000 in debt to be legal to fly! YOU DON'T KNOW ANYTHING!

I suppose if I am going to rant about the public's ignorance about deregulation I ought to include a link to an article explaining it. We'll see.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Diana - I'm shocked to learn that your pilot makes $23k a year. What did that lady mean by being more "efficient"? Did she mean for the prices of airline tickets to go down? I don't understand why "efficiency" concerned her, and what she thought was not "efficient"? I've never seen anyone be lazy (if that's what she meant?) at an airport before - they are very hard workers, and the each process is well-honed on the airlines I've flown. That doesn't mean I don't get irritated when going through the security checkpoint:-), but that DOES mean they are VERY efficient. What an interesting post. I actually WOULD like to see the link you mentioned. It sounds interesting...

Diana Crabtree said...

Yup! 23K is wha they start at, can you imagine working your way up for years, being 100K in debt and then getting hired at a job making only that? And we (F/A's) start at like 15K, this year, after 3 years at the airline I might have just made 20K. Have any alternatives for me? LOL

Okay, I will find a link about deregulation. I suppose people should know why airline flying is such hell on earth, it's not because Airline employees are awful people, or at least they weren't when they started, LOL.