Do all the 121 pilots hate YV (MAG) as the other pilots on other message boards?

Question

I have an interview week after next and was looking for some rational insight into why you don't like them.... Please don't just say "JO" I get that he isn't the best person, but come on help me understand your reasoning... plus I always thought it would be cool to say that I'm a member of LAMA.

Answer 1

You have an interview with them and you can't figure out why people don't like them?  Don't you think before you interview with a company you should find out some info on the company?  Have you read their contract?  They have a terrible contract and consistently get abused by management.  I don't believe people don't like the mesa pilots, it just a whole company thing.  JO screws mesa pilots continually.  I guess I just wonder why you would interview with them with so many other companies hiring.  Just so you know, last year mesa cancelled vacation for pilots for the last 2 or 3 months of the year and they are currently in contract negotiations.  It just doesn't seem like a great time to be going to mesa.  Also, I don't think they get block or better, I think they just get block.  That means that if you push off the gate for a flight scheduled to be 1 hour and you go and deice and then you sit in a line for takeoff and you finally go, and your total time from pushback to arrival at the gate is 2 hours (very common to be much longer than planned when crappy weather is present) you only get paid for 1 hour.  I think just about every other airline gets block or better, which means you get paid for whatever you actually fly, if it is greater than the scheduled block time.  Just another example where their pilots are getting screwed.  I'm not even going to mention their minimum days off, read up on them and then do what you think is best for you.  Only YOU know what is best for you.

Btw, I don't hate mesa pilots, I feel bad for them and hope they can get a good contract.  The people who you should not like are the people that fly for carriers that ride the coat tails of union carriers or the alter-ego carriers.  I'll let you figure out who I'm talking about.

Answer 2

JO went to the Frank Lorenzo school of management. He use to work for Frank in the 80's at Express Jet. Even Frank fired him. But if it is the only job offer you have you can probably handle it for a year to build hours, just don't sign any employment contracts.

Answer 3

to be perfectly clear, we have absolutely nothing about the PILOTS of YV, just their management and the way they do business.

There are a lot of reasons to hate them, here are just a few:

GO!:  They started an airline with the sole intention of undercutting two others and putting them out of business so they could have a monopoly.  They started a new certificate in Hawaii trying to bankrupt Aloha and Island Air by offering $20 tickets.  They intentionally operated at a loss hoping to simply outlast their competition.

Unfair labor practices:  YV operates under multiple certificates with separate seniority lists, but bids on contracts as one entity.  In practice this allows them to bid lower than anyone else for a route, then make their own employees compete for the flying under threat of furlough if one group agrees to do it cheaper than the other group.

Horrible maintenance:  YV is a textbook example of following the letter of the law rather than the spirit.  In terms of maintenance, they do the absolute least amount possible to still be legal.  things that break are deferred for the maximum amount of time.  Then returned to service without proper corrective action, only to be written up again.  They exploit their MELs and CDLs to an extent unrivaled by any other airline.  If you ever ride in one of their planes, it looks like a kid's sticker book there are so many MEL stickers plastered in so many places.

Horrible customer service:  They treat passengers so badly that most passengers who know anything about regionals will refuse to fly them.  There are no clues on board a Mesa plane that it is operated by Mesa.  They do not air condition in the summer.  Even United (who is reknowned as having by far the worst customer service in the industry) has told them their service is so bad they should not even bother to bid for new contracts because they will not be awarded any.

Take the money and run:  They will probably be bankrupt by the end of the year.  JO has pillaged that company for billions of dollars leaving them a shell of an airline.  They have no cash (because he took it all) and cannot afford to make the payments on their airplanes.  United will not allow them any more contracts.  Delta has moved most of their flying over to Express Jet and SkyWest.  Us Air is going with Air Wisconsin more and more.  They are broke.

Bad Contracts:  Due to the union vs. union policies I mentioned earlier the labor groups have been unable to ratify a decent contract.  Get used to sleeping on airplanes while you watch all your friends at SkyWest head over to the Hyatt for a nice relaxing sleep.

Edit:  just an add-on to the poster above.  He said he doesn't believe they get block or better...They do not.  They don't even get block time.  They get paid for flight time only.  Wheels up to wheels down.  They taxi airplanes for free.