Breeze Airways Pilots Vote To Unionize, But...

Breeze's model wouldn't have worked given the significant pilot shortage that is resulting in a shift of pilots toward the highest paying airlines. This is not a time to think that paying bottom of the barrel wages will work.
And if you pay pilots real market rates, you have to do the same for other employees.

If you're a good pilot, and pilots are in such high demand, then why do you feel the need to join a union? Just go get another job. That's how 99% of the world works. It's usually the worst workers with the lowest skills that are pushing for the union. These people would rather destroy a company than be accountable for themselves.

It's the same old story that is why big corporations do not want unionization because they fear having to pay higher pay scale and more benefits, just look around America all the people who only live on social security and do not even know what the word pension means anymore

I suspect this union vote isn't just about pay but also about, schedules, vacation, health insurance, retirement, sick pay, layover hotels, and a whole host of other issues.

And if you want to make this simply about pay then look at it this way, for pilots who obtain their commercial license through civilian schools by the time they finally land a job at an airline they have anywhere between $150,000 to $250,000 dollars in student loan debt. Some people aren't interested in flying for United, Delta, American or Southwest, they like the chance to get in on the ground floor of this brand new airline. That doesn't mean they shouldn't be fairly compensated like pilots who are flying similar size aircraft at other airlines. Breeze is has 80 or so A220-300s on order they need to pay a fair hourly wage to their pilots and they are not doing that right now. Demanding fair compensation doesn't make an individual a terrible, low skill pilot.

Pilots are way overpaid. Pilots didn't say anything when many of the Mechanics jobs were outsourced did they?

None of this matters because, in a few years, we will be referring to Breeze in the past tense.

Pay is not the reason pilots unionize. It is more about schedules, job protection, training, advancement etc based on my 20 years in a pilot union.

Unions are required when management creates an unequal playing field. So pay, overtime, vacation, health benefits, schedules, bidding may all be at the whim of whoever is managing that portion. If you were to investigate the pilots concerns, you might get a better picture of the false promises and inequity that's probably happening daily at breeze.
It's kind of like the modern classroom. The gifted student sitting next to the regular student who is sitting next to the special needs student all get the same assignment, but only have to complete what they feel they can accomplish. In the end the teacher gives them all A's but the learning that occurred may be drastically different. That creates a great deal of animosity and inequity that kids take to heart. Maybe students need unions?

I have to laugh at the comments written by people who aren't pilots and have no idea how our industry works. Every major Airline in the United States is unionized, and nearly ALL of the rest are, too. Your seniority is only good at your airline, not in the industry, so if you are already a senior captain at one Airline and want to change to a different Airline you start over at the bottom. If you don't understand how an industry works, why are you even commenting? Jealousy is an ugly thing.

You're so right. Eventually I left piloting to work in other aspects of aviation (including training). For many years new jobs for pilots paid minimum wage, if you average the time spent at work, whether flying or sitting on the ground waiting and not being paid. Working as a manager at a fast-food place paid more. You put up with the misery of long days, always away from home, and finally make second-year pay. Then the company goes bankrupt or merges with another, and the pilot has to start all over at the bottom at a new airline with the same pay as other new hires. Eventually you run out of tomorrows and options. Young people have it better now, but it's still an uphill climb and there's still no certainty that the new airline will stay in business. The alleged "pilot shortage" is mostly caused by the airlines themselves and the absurd pay scale where experience counts for nothing.

Some pilots at the top of the pay scale do have high salaries, but the starting pay is ridiculously low at most places. Take the hourly pay and multiply by 1,000 for a rough measure of annual salary. Hourly pay counts only when the airplane is moving, not the 3-5 hours a day between flights, checking weather, schedule changes, pre-and post-flight checks, and waiting.
Whenever an airline goes bankrupt, the pilot must start over at the bottom somewhere else. Experience counts for nothing. Imagine a surgeon making $60,000 a year, while some of his or her colleagues are making $300,000 a year for doing the same work. Of course, that doesn't happen, but the idea would be that with enough years working for the same hospital the younger surgeon will eventually make enough money to pay off student loans and have financial security. But oops, downsizing. The last hired is the first to go, and must start off at the bottom somewhere else in a few months when hiring takes place, so that surgeon has a hard time ever getting ahead. Of course, in the medical world, as with most industries, employees actually are compensated based on experience.
And many of us expressed concern about mechanic jobs being outsourced. The quality of maintenance went down. But if a mechanic starts at another airline, his experience actually counts in his favor when it comes to pay. Not so for pilots. And with some exceptions, the mechanic gets to go home every night or day to be with his family.

"That's how 99% of the world works." And exactly the opposite of the pilot world, where experience counts for nothing when it comes to pay. So many good pilots left the flight deck because they can't afford to keep starting over at the bottom whenever an airline goes bankrupt, or simply closes a base and demands that the pilots move (uprooting their families) to whichever city the airline decides.

Unions are the kiss of death for any new company.

Connect IS NOT paying 250,000 a year! It’s a gimmick. In addition, Connect has been stopped twice by the FAA for serious safety issues.