This decades hypocrite award
April 2006
B717FLYER
Re: hatred. For various masochistic reasons I read several aviation message boards and the most distressing thing I see is all the hatred pilots exhibit for other pilots bases solely on whom their employer is. It's stupid and ignorant. While it's only human nature to seek out people to blame that doesn't make it right. I know from my conversations with AA friends (from long before the merger) that the vast majority of AA pilots were purely bystanders to the events. In fact, most pilots are purely bystanders to most union activity. One may choose to assign collective culpability to
every AA pilot but that's pointless and even counter-productive. Under these circumstances hatred breeds only more hatred.
This doesn't mean I'll embrace every AA pilot I pass in the terminal but it does mean, for instance, that I would never speak against an AA pilot I don't even know being hired somewhere. I don't berate AA pilots on our jumpseat. My guess is that Hawkman is one of those guys who'd deny a jumpseat to every AA guy as a matter of policy. Of course, that just leads to retribution and commuting pilots like me get screwed.
Through no fault of my own I'm now embroiled in another merger: AWA-USA. Guess what?
There's bitter feelings, but not from me. There's no point. It distresses me but some of my collegues have echoed statements we hear from the rabid AA types about how USA pilots should be treated by AWA. Every airline has these people. This confirms my belief that airline pilots are pretty much the same no matter which airline they fly for. To guys like
Hawk it feels better to hate but it doesn't to me.
Adam Segal
AWA FO