“”All anyone has to do is think for themselves. Log on to Airline Pilot Central and look at Frontier Airlines, Sun Country, Spirit Airlines,Jet Blue and Virgin America. The first three Airlines are ALPA and IBT. The only difference between them and Jet Blue, Virgin America and Allegiant Air is that their pilots get to pay 2% of their paycheck to the Unions. Their contracts and compensation are no better or worse than what we have now. We all agree we want to have a Union. We will be better served by an in-house Union vs IBT. Then we can focus on our needs on our schedule and keep 100% of our money in house.

When you join a national union you will be constantly bombarded with what you can buy and who you should boycott. You will be assessed money to help other groups that are on strike. You will be part of the “Borg Collective”. It will no longer be about what Allegiant Pilots want but what IBT wants. You will be told to donate to the PAC (Political Action Committee) Funds and frowned upon if you don’t. That money by the way goes to the Democrats since we are told how much they love Unions and how Republicans hate Unions. When the going gets tough, IBT like ALPA will sell out the group because at the end of the day they do not care about 365 pilots. Having been an ALPA member for over 17 years I can assure you that is the case. My former company DHL is still going strong but with ABX Air instead of DHL Airways (ASTAR Air Cargo). DHL Airways was DHL, the DHL that Larry Hillblom and his partners started. ALPA told us that DHL Airways has the best SCOPE Clause in the industry, none better! Then Deutsch Post bought all of DHL World Wide. They spun DHL Airways off into a separate company and renamed it ASTAR Air Cargo. Once that was done DHL said our contract no longer applied to them. DHL then acquired Airborne Express, ground portion only. ABX Air was created as a separate airline and contracted with DHL for flying. The Pilots of ASTAR wanted to go after DHL for violating our SCOPE clause but ALPA persuaded us to settle on a new contract that would provide job security and growth. “So long as DHL maintains a presence in the United States they have to use ASTAR Air Cargo” said Art Luby, ALPA Attorney. Our MEC agreed to drop the lawsuit in favor of the new contract. Most members agreed, and signed on the dotted line. Two months later we were told we would be out of a job. Today ASTAR Air Cargo has cease all operations. All original DHL Pilots gone. The Air Transport Service Group does all flying for DHL in the USA now. SCOPE meant nothing.

One thing I have learned is that a Pilot group (Union) will never be able to tell the CEO and Board Members how to run their company. The best thing we can do is maintain a positive working relationship with management as we try to settle our differences and improve our work rules. An in-house union I feel would best serve our group. “”