CHQ pilot group voted in favor of the J4J this week, although it doesnt seem to make a bit of difference with managment. CHQ managment has already greatly involved itself in the creation of Republic out of SDF.
The pilot group is struggling to stop this new alter-ego airline in the midst of trying to re-negotiate an already 2 year old failed TA. Now CHQ managment is trying to tie the new TA to the J4J and then some. The CHQ pilot group did a very successful informational picket at IND the CHQ headquarters on the 28th. We are trying our best to stop this wave of whip-saw managment that is a plague in the contract carriers, so we do appreciate any support.
I need a little input from any mainline pilots. The CHQ pilot group initially voted down j4j because we wanted to try and renagotiate some of the protocals to be more favorable to us. That''s negotiating 101. When we voted j4j down the first time, CHQ management claimed that the vote was a one shot deal and that we would not get another chance at it. They said that our growth oportunities at Airways were finished and that any new flying at CHQ would have to come from another code share. The CHQ pilot union repeatedly tried to convince our mangement to try and re-open negotiations on j4j (we wanted the growth and we wanted to help out furloughed Airways pilots) but they said no, it''s a done deal, we voted no and any further attempts to obtain growth at Airways under the j4j protocals was not possible. Unbeknownst to us, CHQ management soon thereafter began its own secret negotiations with Airways to modify the j4j protocals and place more rj''s at the alter ego Republic Airlines. Airways at first thought that they were negotiating with CHQ but our mangement kept pushing the Republic name at them. It''s my understanding that Airways would rather just deal with CHQ, although I could be wrong on that. Our CEO Bryan Bedford (who also has titles at Republic Airlines, Republic Airways Holdings and Shuttle America) and the new CEO of Republic Airlines Tom Hanley (who still happens to be an employee at CHQ) recently made numerous conflicting statements regarding the growth potential and opportunities that Republic will receive. Most of the CHQ pilot group is against Republic for the obvious reasons (alter ego status, whip sawing tactics, degredation of contract negotiations, management deceipt). We are in for a big fight and I think it is a very important fight as the Regional''s need to help strengthen the industry for pilots in general and force better contracts on disengenuous and deceitful mangement teams. Obviously this is a very bad time to be in any kind of contract negotiations, but it has to be done I believe for the benifit of the industry.
Anyway, I''ll end this before I ramble too much. I was just curious if any mainline pilots had any knowledge or insight into j4j protocals offered to contract affiliates and if there was ever any room to renagotiate the protocals and what does everyone think of alter-ego regionals like Republic Airlines.