Eric Auxier said
July 20, 2008 @
12:59 am
Petes2cents: On the surface, it sounds terrible. But here’s the real story, which I am attempting to get published in the USA Today:
As a multi-year Captain for USAirlines, I profusely apologize to the public for the misleading full page advertisement by our new “union,” USAPA, in the USA Today this week.
This ad was nothing more than attempt at muscle-flexing by an upstart union trying to turn safety into a negotiating tactic.
This “union,” of which nearly all of our fellow West-based and many East-based pilots refuse to become members, has, in the scant few months of its existence, committed such foolhardy acts as:
1) Blatantly disregard and attempt to circumvent legally binding, preexisting arbitration;
2) Falsely accuse and sue members of its own pilot body, the entire case of which was thrown out of Federal Court last week as completely false and malicious;
3) attempt to force nonunion pilots to pay absurdly high union “dues” under threat of termination; and, in its USA Today advertisement;
3) defend a group of disgruntled pilots who are attempting to hurt our airline financially by unnecessarily ordering and burning extra fuel. This has been done by running unneeded engines on the ground during delays, and flying at absurdly inefficient speeds and altitudes.
I can speak with authority that our professional dispatchers do an outstanding job planning our flights with plenty of margin of fuel safety. Only rarely do I need to order and burn extra fuel, as these pilots who claim to be “professionals” have routinely done.
The public can rest assured that ALL of our USAirways pilots do indeed operate their aircraft in a safe manner, and the vast majority do so in an efficient manner as well. I do, however, fear for the Company’s future at the hands of a few loose cannons, both in the cockpit and in our sad excuse for a union, who dare to call their acts “professional.”
Signed,
A Concerned USAirways Captain
