Remember how a few weeks ago Midwest announced that it was trimming its mainline fleet from 25 to 9 717s, and would be replacing some of those with E170s?
The pilots at Midwest (represented by ALPA) aren’t too pleased with the move, and have filed a grievance. Here’s the main issue – initially, the E170s will be flown by Republic Airlines, meaing some Midwest pilots will lose their jobs.
The plan is to eventually have the E170s flown under Midwest’s operating certificate by Midwest pilots, though the union has a point about that as well:
When the deal with Republic was announced earlier this month, management said that Midwest pilots might operate the EMB 170s in the future on the condition that the pilots acquiesce to significant economic demands before management would be willing to petition the FAA to permit Midwest to add the Embraer fleet to its operating certificate.
We’ll certainly have to see how this develops…according the news story I found an arbitrator will be reviewing the matter in 30 days.
I can definitely see the frustration on the part of the pilots. There’s really nothing mainline pilots hate more than the regional airlines, especially when outsourcing mainline flying as opposed to adding new routes.
I recently sat next to a UA 777 captain on one of my UA flights, and we started talking about OpenSkies, which I had the opportunity to experience. I found his comment hilarious (and not surprising) — “I hope they fail.”