There's nowhere near that kind of space on the 767. I know that the long range 777s were specifically designed to allow for crew rest areas but I've never seen them myself.

Thanks for the pics.

I forgot about that. You're right and that was the reason they existed in the first place.


I agree and this is kind of what I was saying: it all comes down to $$$. If you can get these planes cheap enough, you can accept 10% higher fuel usage for some period of time (maybe years) and still turn a profit.

Interesting...thanks. I learn a lot from you guys.

Starting next week, Lufthansa pilots in Germany are going on strike. Basically, they are fighting against Lufthansa transferring flights to lower-paying (foreign) subsidiaries. This means Lufthansa stops to offer a certain route, but a Lufthansa subsidiary like Austrian Airlines takes over; the jobs at Lufthansa can be cut.

To reach their goal, the pilots are willing to waive pay raises. German pilots are well organized (as far as I know) in the "Cockpit" union, and they won the last big conflict with Lufthansa after a strike in 2001. I think their chances are pretty good, though Lufthansa doesn't even want to negotiate about the pilots' demands at the moment.

Considering this, I have two questions:
1. Are you in a union? How well are American pilots organized? Are there industry-wide wage agreements or only on company levels?
2. I think this might already have been answered in this thread, but what is your opinion on airlines transferring routes to their own regional airlines and subsidiaries? Is it mainly necessary to compete with other low-cost carriers, or is it just shameless cost-cutting at the expense of the own pilots?

No probs, I appreciated the response anyway and the thread continues to be excellent!

No question for me this time. Just came across this while at work and thought I'd share. A bit of cross-indusry humor. As an Software Engineer, Dilbert is on my required reading list.

http://www.dilbert.com/strips/comic/2010-02-10/


-TK

I saw this too...love the "koi pond" remark. Dilbert is the only comic I read and I never miss it.

W0X0F,
Thanks!

I asked this when the semi naked woman picture arose (talk about bad timing) Sorry, i didn't see your reply.

Delta pilots, along with many commercial airline pilots are represented by the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA), which is an AFL-CIO union and the largest pilot union. Historically, most airline pilots had their own independent unions and this is still true for many airlines (US Airways, American, Southwest and UPS come to mind immediately). Few commercial airlines have non-union pilots in the US. The only ones I can think of are Skywest and JetBlue. Agreements are company by company, although concessions sometimes follow one another.

As to how well they are organized, I'll leave that for W0X0F.

Yes, I did get momentarily distracted.

I'm falling down on the job. Just back from a nice dinner with friends and it's getting too late for this right now. I'll get a complete answer to you tomorrow along with a response to Ajezz's question about unions.

BTW, I loved Abagnale's book and the movie. And there have been guys (non-pilots) who have scammed a jumpseat.

FYP: There is never bad timing when pictures of semi naked women occurr.

ALPA represents pilots from over 30 airlines. No comment on how well they are organized.

There are no industry-wide wage agreements...each pilot group has its own contract (or working agreement) with management.

Well, it's affected my life in a negative way, so I'm not a great fan.

When you say "their own regional airlines", realize that in most cases this is just a business arrangement...the regional is a separate company that flies under contract to the larger carrier. (The only current exception that I'm aware of is ComAir, which is owned by Delta.) Mesa, for example, flew simultaneously as a connection carrier for United, USAirways and Delta (I'm not sure of the current status of these arrangements).

Probably a little of both. It certainly gives management an extra tool in their bag for bludgeoning their pilots at contract negotiation time.

It's been a while since I read the book and saw the movie, but he was before my time. I know of some jumpseat scammers in the 90s and I told a story itt of a mechanic who tried to talk his way onto my jumpseat once.

It's certainly believable to me that he did this. You can do almost anything in this world if you look serious and carry a clipboard (or in his case a uniform and valid looking ID). It would be very hard to pull this off today since every jumpseater is now checked against an on-line database at the gate.

I'm not sure what you mean by sitting there "doing nothing"? Are you talking about what he would do during the ride, sitting in the jumpseat? If so, then yeah, pretty much you're just along for the ride.

The Concorde has got to be in anyone's "Aircraft Hall of Fame". It was ground breaking in the commercial world. Being limited to sub-sonic speeds over U.S. airspace kind of hamstrung the plane.

As to being one of the safest planes out there, this sounds like a subjective opinion that may not be supported by the stats. (See Past Accident History) I would have loved to fly it and I could understand how it might be hard to go back to sub-sonic speeds after flying it (athough I would gladly fly a C-152 if you pay me enough).

I don't think we'll see another supersonic passenger plane any time soon. Oil isn't getting cheaper and it takes a lot of energy to push that plane to those speeds.

my mom was a stewardess before she got married, do you think she was a slut?